Bay Area refineries must buy ‘fence line’ air pollution monitors

The Chevron refinery in Richmond, Calif., on Thursday, July 23, 2015. The Chevron refinery in Richmond, Calif., on Thursday, July 23, 2015. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Bay Area refineries must buy ‘fence line’ air pollution monitors 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Regulators on Wednesday ordered the Bay Area’s five oil refineries to track and report air pollution on the edge of their properties and regularly update officials on the different types of petroleum they use.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District approved rules designed to protect people living near the refineries, some of which lie just upwind of densely developed neighborhoods.

Each refinery will be required to install pollution monitoring equipment at its “fence line,” the border of its property. Each must also file monthly reports on the types of crude oil it processes, whether that petroleum comes from California oil fields, Canada’s tar sands or Midwestern oil fields subjected to hydraulic fracturing.

MBA BY THE BAY: See how an MBA could change your life with SFGATE's interactive directory of Bay Area programs.

Those reports will help regulators understand how switching the type of crude processed at a refinery may change the pollution it releases into the air.

Together, the changes are expected to cost each refinery $2.25 million in up-front expenses, mostly for buying and installing the pollution monitors, as well as $140,000 per year in operational costs, according to the district.

The oil industry fought the rules, saying they would make the refineries responsible for air pollution coming from the trucks, trains and ships visiting each facility. The Western States Petroleum Association, the industry’s main lobbying group in California, also argued that information on the types of crude oil used in each facility is a trade secret that the refinery owner should not be forced to divulge.

An environmental group that represents people living near the refineries welcomed the requirement for better pollution monitoring. But the group, Communities for a Better Environment, would rather see the district place a limit on the amount of pollutants the refineries emit, said the group’s senior scientist, Greg Karras.

“This is a distraction from the real issue, which is, are we going to cap these emissions?” he said.

David R. Baker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dbaker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DavidBakerSF