Pamela Cruz. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P].
Last Tuesday, February 9, around 3 p.m., the oil company Chevron reported an oil leak near the dock of its refinery in Richmond, Contra Costa County, California, the second oil spill in the last two years.
As of yesterday, Feb. 10, cleanup and recovery efforts continued in the Richmond area following Tuesday's leak at Chevron Long Wharf, according to the Unified Command that responded to the incident.
The Unified Command was comprised of Chevron, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife's Office of Spill Prevention and Response, Contra Costa Health Services and the U.S. Coast Guard, who after laboratory analysis determined that approximately 12 to 18 barrels - 500-750 gallons - of a mixture of low-sulfur diesel fuel and rinse water were released.
As of yesterday, cleanup and recovery efforts were ongoing, including the deployment and recovery of absorbent booms used to capture diesel from the water.
In addition, Coast Guard helicopter crews and incident response personnel conducted the first overflight. Responders also conducted a shoreline assessment, on foot and by drone, which revealed no visible impacts to wildlife.
The only coastal area known to have been affected is immediately adjacent to the Chevron dock.
As a precaution, two public access sites on Western Drive and Keller Beach remained closed to allow water response teams to concentrate on their work.
The Unified Command continues to evaluate any potential public health concerns related to the incident. Air monitoring by law enforcement has not detected any levels that could cause health impacts or injuries. The public health order issued by Contra Costa County Health was rescinded at 9 p.m. on February 9.
It should be noted that no oiled animals have been reported so far, but if the public encounters potentially affected wildlife, stay away from the animal and report the sighting to the Oiled Wildlife Care Network at 1-877-UCD-OWCN (1-877-823-6926).
Chevron and its other spill "accident" in California
Just a couple of years ago in 2019, a Chevron oil well spilled more than 800,000 gallons of crude oil and water in Kern County, which is why state regulators imposed a notice of violation and an order to halt some oil drilling in the area around the spill on the San Ramon-based energy company.
The leak, which the company, it said, promptly stopped, began on May 10, 2019. Crews at the time reported that a mixture of oil and water was leaking from a well in the sprawling oil fields near the town of McKittrick and about 35 miles west of Bakersfield.
Chevron, as well as other firms, operate thousands of oil wells in the area, many of which use a technique in which steam is injected more than 300 meters into the ground to heat the crude oil and facilitate its extraction.
The situation did not stop and, by June 8, oil began to leak again.
On June 11, the company, in a brief incident report to the Governor's Office of Emergency Services, said a total of about 6,000 gallons of liquid had spilled by that time. On July 11, a month later, the amount was nearly 795,000 gallons.
The spilled material consisted of about one-third oil and two-thirds water, according to Chevron's entries in the hazardous spill database, which would mean more than 265,000 gallons of oil were discharged.
