Chevron El Segundo Staff Updates Community at Town Hall Meeting

By Erika Maldonado

Is there fracking going on at El Segundo’s Chevron refinery? Are they responsible for tar on nearby beaches? These and other questions were addressed to an audience of about 30 during a Chevron town hall meeting Wednesday night at the Joslyn Community Center Auditorium. 

“I don’t think fracking is inherently bad if it’s used with the appropriate safeguards,” said Chevron operations manager Ed Wagner, a long-time Manhattan Beach resident. He assured residents that the controversial process, short for hydraulic fracturing that produces natural gas, does not occur at the refinery.

Wagner also explained the refinery's occasional loud hissing noises, which are produced by steam, and accompanying sky high flames, also known as refinery flares, saying the flares are a safety precaution used to eliminate excess propane resulting from the refining process. These flares, which sometimes great alarm, can be seen and heard by people close by and can also be seen from miles away. 

The flares can be planned or unplanned. Wagner equated emissions from an unplanned refinery safety flare to 17 fire rings, noting that there are more than 765 beach fire rings in the south coast basin.

Chevron El Segundo tests nearly 400,000 refinery components daily to ensure the refinery is adhering to local, federal and state regulations, said Susan Worley, health, environment and safety manager, who said California has the strictest environmental standards in the country. She also said the refinery is the only one in Southern California with a waste water facility that treats water before it is released into Santa Monica Bay. The refinery also has six microphones throughout to monitor noise levels.

The black, thick deposits found on the beach and in the ocean is natural seepage from the ocean bottom, he said, noting that historically, the presence of seepage has been around since the Chumash used it for securing canoes years ago.