Allan Appel Photo
The existing tanks to be replaced.
In the coming months, expect to see some action down on the farm.
Make that the farm of oil tanks in the Port of New Haven, where Gulf Oil has announced the tearing down of three old oil-holding tanks and their replacement with a new, state-of-the-art 3.5 million barrel new one.
That announcement came Thursday night as representatives from Guilford-based Triton Environmental, Inc., consultants for Gulf Oil, convened an informational meeting for the public at the Sound School.
The replacement of three old tanks with a modern one with enhanced environmental controls will result in an “actual net decrease in emissions,” promised Triton’s Chris Marchesi, a principal with the consulting firm, who represented Gulf.
Gulf, through Triton, had convened the public informational meeting in fulfillment of what Marchesi called “the E.J. process.” He was referring to the 2008 environmental justice legislation passed by the state.
That law requires that a bulk petroleum terminal like Gulf request an air permit from the state Department of Energy & Environmental Protection when it expands or modifies its facility.
Marchesi said that if all goes well with the permitting and DEEP’s review process, work should begin in 2018.
The air permits address and cap the release of VOCs, or volatile organic compounds, basically the same invisible but polluting chemicals you smell when you pump fuel into your car at the gas station.
Except there are a lot more of those VOCs around at the tank farm as a range of petroleum products are pumped from ships to tanks, from tanks to waiting trucks, or from tanks to pipelines.
Marchesi said the new tank will have improved floating roof technology that largely mitigates any vapors escaping.
When liquid is transferred from tanks to cargo trucks also in place, as required both by state and federal environmental regulations, are vapor recovery units that grab the vapor and return it to liquid form before it rises to pollute the air, Marchesi explained.
The new 3.5 million gallon tank is to replace one with 900,000 capacity and two with half million.
In addition to the new tank, Gulf is applying for other permits to install a higher capacity vapor recovery unit on its truck-loading racks and also to increase its “through-put,” that is the number of total gallons that move through the facility from 13 million to 25 million.
Marchesi was at pains to point out that these improvements are for the sake of efficiency and to enable the company to compete better — by taking away business from competitors, not necessarily to bring in more products to the port.
“Gulf does not project an increase in demand. It’s simply positioning to compete [better] in the port area,” Marchesi said.
A third modification involves a limited permit to move biofuels and diesel from some of its tanks out to cargo vessels. The request is to cap the volume “total through-put” in this instance to two vessels-full per month, or 24 vessels a year.
Since the company’s current permitting does not include dealing with pure ethanol, the company is also seeking permission to load some of that product at its truck-loading racks. Marchesi said that ethanol’s vapor pressure, that is, its danger of emissions, falls much lower than gasoline.
Most of the petroleum products — gasoline and home heating oil — that the company moves through these facilities go to gas stations and home heating supply companies that fill the trucks that fill your house’s tank in the winter.
Marchesi said he doesn’t know the destination of the pure ethanol.
Other upgrades coming to Gulf’s tank farm, none of which require permitting, include those for the electrical system, piping, and plumbing. All the work will be taking place within the current footprint of the company in the port district. Marchesi called it “good for the port, and good for Gulf.”
Marchesi at the hearing.
Not everyone was so sure.
Although by terms of the “E.J.” process, the public meeting was noticed in “the newspaper” (The New Haven Register, not The Independent), and posted to businesses and residences within a half mile of the terminal, only three members of the public were in attendance Thursday night apart from company and port officials.
One of them was Aaron Goode, an activist who is part of the New Haven Environmental Justice Network, was attending as a private citizen, not as a representative of the organization. He said he worked hard to help pass the 2009 environmental justice law.
“This particular project doesn’t raise any red flags at this time,” Goode said after the meeting.
However, he bemoaned the fact that the meeting was being held at the Sound School, which is not on a bus route so attendance other than by car was difficult and far from the neighborhoods in Fair Haven, one of the most asthma-afflicted parts of the city.
“It’s exclusionary of a vulnerable population,” he said.
Triton came prepared with a Spanish translator; that service proved unneeded.
There will still be time for further public discussion, because other aspects of the plan, such as a coastal site plan review, must come before the City Plan Commission in the months ahead.