Continued from Page 1

Plenty of Oil to Contend With

Each month, on average, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration figures, 30 or more tankers transport 483 million gallons of crude (or 11.5 million barrels) for off-loading into pipelines at oil-terminal docks jutting out into San Pablo Bay and its Carquinez Strait tributary.

Taken the next calculated step forward, that means each year, 360 individual tankers maneuver San Pablo Bay to deliver 5.8 billion gallons (138 million barrels) of crude oil, the amount needed to satisfy demand — and just about every drop of the gasoline those deliveries produce is used up locally.

"The vast majority of [gasoline] produced in Northern California is consumed in Northern California," reports Hull.

Given the astounding amount of crude coming into and being processed in San Pablo Bay, it’s not an alarming assessment when Deb Self, executive director of San Francisco Baykeeper, a dogged and effective water-quality advocacy group cautions, “At any given moment, the bay is at threat.”

Twice in recent history, tankers have collided with objects in San Pablo Bay. In 1988, the Arco Juneau ran into the Carquinez Bridge, rupturing its tanks, which were empty. The next year, and only three days after the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound, an Exxon contract ship collided with the Chevron Long Wharf, where oil offloading occurs, damaging the ship but not enough to rupture any of its cargo tanks.

That no oil spilled in either case is fortunate. But tankers are not the only threat to San Pablo Bay — in 1988, 440,000 gallons of oil were spilled into the Carquinez Strait after a pipe at a Shell Oil storage tank broke.

Nor is the potential for oil spills limited to human error. "The biggest risks," says Self, "are earthquakes, tsunamis and sea-level rise."

The Dangerous Whims of Nature

Chevron sits atop the Hayward Fault, which ends midway through San Pablo Bay (the Rodgers Creek Fault picks up on the bay's north shore). That it operates in such a precarious location — a major quake on the Hayward Fault has long been predicted and worrisomely overdue — is no secret, nor is the fact that the offloading terminals are located near and in liquefaction-prone coastal areas.

San Pablo Bay refineries, assures Hull, have gone through state-mandated and "substantial retrofitting of the Marine [offloading] Terminals to survive earthquake damage," adding that refineries also conduct sitewide seismic surveys every five years, or during any new plant construction.

A quake-specific audit of pipes at the facilities is also underway, says Hull, to comply with state regulatory requirements.

Tsunamis, until recently, were not as high on the threat radar as quakes.

Yet, as the deadly Japanese tsunami earlier this year made abundantly clear, hazardous material and massive wave surges do not mix. Baykeeper’s Self recalls the about-face of a refinery manager. At first skeptical of state guidelines on tsunami preparedness, after the Japanese disaster his reaction: "Now I see what you mean."

Unlike the Japanese tsunami, here the threat is not from a quake rupturing locally, such as on the Hayward or other active Bay Area fault. According to a 2006 study by the Marine Facilities Division of the California State Lands Commission, the danger comes from quakes in Alaska measuring greater than 9 on the Richter Scale. They would have the potential to generate waves measuring 16.4 feet at the entrance to San Francisco Bay and 4.88 feet in Richmond, at the entrance to San Pablo Bay. In comparison, the tsunami in Japan reached heights of up to 20 feet.

Climate-change-induced sea-level rise is only now being studied, though the combination of high water and oil is a potent pollutant, as discovered in early July when surging water levels and rapid currents made it difficult for crews to clean up the Exxon pipeline spill in the pristine Yellowstone River near Billings, Montana.