California Accidental Release Prevention (CalARP) Program 4 (for refineries)

Background

In 1986, California State Legislature recognized the need for a chemical accident prevention program for California and enacted a new Article 2 for Chapter 6.95 of the Health and Safety Code (HSC). This program became known as the Risk Management and Prevention Program (RMPP). The regulation requires prevention programs to be implemented to prevent accidental releases of regulated substances at regulated facilities. In 1997, California adopted the federal requirements federal requirements in section 112(r) and includes additional more stringent, state-specific Risk Management and Prevention Program (RMPP) requirements. This program is referred to as the California Accidental Release Prevention, or CalARP, program.

Following the August 2012 fire and chemical release Chevron Richmond oil refinery, the Governor formed the Interagency Working Group on Refinery Safety to examine ways to improve public and worker safety through enhanced oversight of refineries, and to strengthen emergency preparedness in anticipation of any future incident. The Interagency Working Group found gaps in the regulatory schemes, noting that the regulations did not cover all aspects of process safety. The report recommended that existing CalARP regulations be strengthened to ensure that more data and information are provided to agencies, workers, and the public.

The final CalARP Program 4 regulations were adopted and became effective on October 1, 2017 after extensive pre-regulatory input including refinery representatives, labor unions, refineries leadership, non-governmental organizations, academic experts, federal, state, and local agencies, and the public. The following refineries located in Contra Costa County must comply with the CalARP Program 4 regulatory requirements:

• Chevron Richmond Refinery
• Marathon Petroleum Corporation (previously operating as Tesoro Refining)
• Phillips 66 Rodeo Refinery
• PBF Energy - Martinez Refining Company (MRC) [formerly Shell Oil Products U.S. Martinez Refinery]

In addition to the expanded prevention program requirements, the refineries are required to submit investigation reports, including root cause analysis after any major incident. Major incident is defined as an event within or affecting a process that causes a fire, explosion or release of a highly hazardous material, and has the potential to result in death or serious physical harm, or results in an officially declared public shelter-in-place, or evacuation order. Program 4 also requires annual process safety performance indicators to be submitted. The table captures these items for each of the four refineries.