AB 617, authored by Assembly Member Cristina Garcia and signed into law by Governor Brown on 26 July 2017, sets out requirements for significantly enhanced community-level air monitoring, emissions reporting and mitigation programs to be implemented by CARB and local air districts in California’s most impacted communities. This report’s recommendations will help inform AB 617 air monitoring efforts and set the stage for enhanced interagency air monitoring and communication, better public information and outreach, and overall improved public health surrounding refineries throughout California. These recommendations may also serve as a model for improving air monitoring at other industrial facilities throughout the state.

The report broadly lays out a four-part approach:

• Expand air monitoring within refineries, at the fence line and in nearby communities;

• Improve modeling techniques to better predict impacts of pollution and incidents at refineries;

• Provide real-time information about air quality near refineries to emergency response agencies and the public; and

• Improve state and local coordination through a newly established interagency Refinery Monitoring Working Group.

The report recommends that first responders have access to improved air monitoring tools and data, and are thoroughly trained to apply them. It takes into account the refinery chemicals of highest concern as identified in a companion report released this week by the State Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA). In addition to improving rapid detection and communication of potentially hazardous releases to responders and the public, the proposed air monitoring system improvements will provide valuable information to better understand and help reduce risks associated with long-term community exposure to ongoing routine and unplanned refinery air releases.

The report calls for establishing a new Refinery Monitoring Working Group, comprising staff from CARB and local air districts. The working group would assist the refineries, air districts, local emergency response agencies, CARB and community-based organizations in implementing the report’s recommendations. The working group would be charged with developing guidelines that air districts, in turn, would use in requiring refineries to expand air monitoring networks and making the data available to emergency responders and the public.