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U.S. EPA SETTLES CLEAN AIR CASE WITH TEXACO IN KERN COUNTY

Release Date: 7/16/2001
Contact Information: Mike Ardito, (415) 744-2328 / Lisa Fasano, (415) 744-1587

     SAN FRANCISCO - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today that Texaco will pay $568,000 in penalties for Clean Air Act violations at two of Texaco's oil field operations in western Kern County, Calif.

     Concurrently, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a complaint and consent decree today to settle this action against Texaco in federal District Court in Fresno.
 
     In the complaint, the EPA alleges that Texaco drilled and operated 720 crude oil production wells without getting proper permits at its Kern River Oil Field.  The EPA also alleges that between 1994 and 1996, apparently due to high maintenance costs, Texaco removed vapor recovery equipment from 5,030 wells without applying for a permit until after completing the work.  

   Part of the settlement requires Texaco to install vapor recovery equipment to control emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the crude oil storage tanks.  Texaco also agreed to a schedule to install vapor recovery equipment on other crude oil tanks.

     At the second site, the Midway-Sunset Oil Field, also in unincorporated western Kern County, the EPA alleges that Texaco failed to comply with the San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District rule requiring vapor recovery controls on storage tanks.  In the settlement, Texaco agreed to a schedule to install the required controls.

   "For the sake of public health, a company must do everything it can to reduce air emissions in areas such as Kern County where achieving cleaner air is an important goal," said Jack Broadbent, director of the EPA's Air Division for the Pacific Southwest region.

   The San Joaquin Valley air district received $556,000 from Texaco regarding these violations for case settlements in August and November 1999.

    The U.S. EPA has designated the Kern County portion of the San Joaquin Valley Air Basin as a serious nonattainment area for national air quality standards for certain pollutants, including ozone. VOCs are a precursor to ozone pollution.

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