Mobil Charged in Refinery Emissions

Misdemeanor criminal charges have been filed against Mobil Oil Corp. in connection with two separate releases of noxious odors from the company’s Torrance refinery.

According to documents filed in South Bay Municipal Court by the Torrance city prosecutor, 28 people complained to the Air Quality Management District on March 7 about a sickening, rotten-egg odor wafting over east Torrance, Carson and Long Beach.

A district inspector sent to check the situation about 4:30 p.m. reported smelling “sulfur-type odors” downwind of the refinery, according to court documents. At 7:45 p.m., a Mobil shift supervisor told the inspector that the refinery had been forced to vent an excess amount of sulfur dioxide because some equipment had failed, the documents said.

Although some people complained of dizziness, nausea and headaches caused by the odor, none were hospitalized, court records said.

The AQMD cited Mobil on March 8 for the sulfur dioxide release, noting that it violated district regulations and state health and safety codes, according to the inspector’s report.

Prosecutors filed two misdemeanor counts last week against Mobil. One charges the company with releasing a substance that caused nuisance or injury to a large number of people. The other charges that Mobil negligently released an air contaminant.

In the latter case, 15 workers at the Allied-Signal plant about half a mile from the refinery complained that shortly after midnight on Dec. 6, 1990, they were bothered by strong “natural-type-gas odors” coming from Mobil, according to court records.

A district inspector also detected the odors and went into the refinery to look for a source. Shortly before 2 a.m., the inspector found a column of steam spewing from a vent in the refinery’s waste-water separation system.

“The odors carried by the steam were the same odors that (a complainant) and I detected on Van Ness Boulevard,” the inspector’s report notes.

Refinery workers explained that maintenance work was being done at the site. The inspector later determined that the vent did not conform with AQMD length and width standards.

The AQMD cited Mobil on Dec. 11 for violating district regulations and state health and safety laws. Torrance city prosecutors last month filed a misdemeanor criminal count concerning the incident for the release of an emission that caused nuisance or injury to a large number of people.