Delaware City Refinery receives controversial permit, gets four years to study fish kill

After years of delay, state environmental regulators renewed a controversial permit this week that allows the Delaware City refinery to cool its facility with water pumped in from the Delaware River – a process that in past years has killed millions of juvenile striped bass and other fish species.

Officials at the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control declined on Wednesday to be interviewed for this story. 

The permit allows the refinery to pump an averaged limit of 303 million gallons of water per day from the nearby river, "a significant decrease" from the previous permit, according to DNREC documents.

That cold water flows into pipes within the facility to cool mechanisms that heat up during the oil refining process. It is then discharged back into the Delaware River.

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The renewed permit was amended to include new requirements for modified fish screens and fish return equipment that already had been installed at the refinery as a result of a past deal with DNREC to settle previous violations.

The permit also mandates that water from the refinery's wastewater treatment plant be directed into its cooling system. 

Its renewal comes after years of debate, negotiations and court proceedings over whether the refinery should build a cooling tower with a closed-water system that would pump far less water from the Delaware River.

Estimates for construction of such a facility have come in at $75 million to $120 million. Environmentalists say that would be a worthwhile investment in order to protect the surrounding Delaware estuary.

Officials from PBF Energy, which owns the Delaware City refinery, did not respond to emailed questions on Wednesday. 

Maya K. van Rossum of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network said any system that could reduce fish mortality would be sufficient, but only a cooling tower has been shown to be effective. She is dismayed by the state's decision to renew the permit. 

"I think the decision was based on politics rather than science," she said. 

Desmond Kahn, a fisheries biologist and former DNREC official, said "you have to have cooling towers" to minimize fish mortality.

"They're pulling in this water. They're heating it up very high. These larval fish, which are very fragile, they might be getting banged around through those pipes," he said. "It's amazing the impact of this refinery on striped bass."  

The EPA also calls closed-cycle cooling the "most effective technology."

Shortly after PBF Energy in 2010 purchased the Delaware City refinery and restarted its operations, DNREC also concluded that a cooling tower would be the “best technology available" to keep the facility's mechanisms from overheating. 

DNREC prepared a preliminary draft permit for such a system in 2011. Yet, it was never finalized or put out for public comment and hearing because the EPA opted to rewrite a rule governing industrial cooling water systems.

Those rules issued in 2014 stated that the best technology available could depend on a facility's location, and could include screens placed at intake pipes and fish diversion devices.  

As a result, DNREC in 2015 held a public meeting to discuss the potential renewal of the refinery's existing permit. 

While hundreds of people attended and commented, DNREC officials did not recommend changing to the proposed permit's language to address the public's comments. 

Last June, DNREC Secretary Shawn Garvin sent a letter to the Delaware Audubon Society stating that the permit process had taken "too long" and that a final action would come the following August. 

The renewed permit announced Wednesday arrives nearly one year after that deadline.

DNREC officials did not say in permit documents why they issued it this week. 

"The real pinch here is DNREC has sat on this for three years," longtime environmental activist Amy Roe said. "Every day that DNREC has delayed issuing the permit means that (the refinery) doesn't have to comply with the best technology available."

In addition to infrastructural safeguards, the permit also requires the refinery to conduct environmental impact studies during the next four and a half years. Those then will be reviewed to determine whether additional measures should be taken to reduce fish mortality caused by the refinery. 

DNREC may determine at a future date that a closed cycle cooling tower system is necessary to protect the marine environment, Garvin said in the the letter.

Reporter Scott Goss contributed to this story.

Contact Karl Baker at kbaker@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2329. Follow him on Twitter @kbaker6.