HollyFrontier Puget Sound Refinery
What's Happening Now
Hazardous waste permit and Oily Water Sewer
We approved the Shell Puget Sound refinery's dangerous waste permit modification request and finalized the corrective action permit and Oily Water Sewer Agreed Order. Both were effective on Nov. 1, 2021 and transferred to HollyFrontier on Dec. 1, 2021.- Dangerous waste permit modification approval
- Final Corrective Action Permit, including Agreed Order 16298
- Fact sheet (a support document explaining our decisions, including the response to comments)
- Associated SEPA DNS
- SEPA checklist
Solid Waste Management Unit (SWMU) 55
The refinery has proposed building three new above ground petroleum storage tanks at this unit. Before this can take place, it must complete cleanup activities under Agreed Order 16081. This includes testing soils and removing them as necessary, and constructing containment berms and a clean soil cap.Site Information
The refinery is located at 8505 South Texas Road in Anacortes, WA. It has the ability to process between 135,000 and 160,000 barrels of crude oil each day to make a variety of petroleum products. Learn more about current operations
Oily Water Sewer
The Oily Water Sewer (OWS) was built in 1957 and includes underground pipes, drain bugs, manholes, hatches, and other access points. While we're not aware of any current releases from the OWS, the Agreed Order requires the refinery to investigate and clean up any soil or groundwater contamination from this unit. Contaminants of concern include metals, volatile organics, and semi-volatile organics.Solid Waste Management Unit (SWMU) 55
SWMU 55 was originally started as a land treatment farm in 1973. It received waste until 1979 and then was inactive until 1985 when it was restarted as a nonhazardous waste land farm. The nonhazardous waste landfarm has received a wide variety of wastes including filter clays, polymerization catalysts, wastewater treatment sludges, refinery scale, oily wastes that were not ignitable, cooling tower sludge, cation exchange resins, FCCU catalyst, sandblast sand, water softener resin, air dryer desiccant, clay and sand filter media, and petroleum contaminated soil.Potential releases of hazardous substances from this unit include total petroleum hydrocarbons, BTEX (Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene, and Xylene), carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (cPAHs), and mercury.
West Impounding Basin
Hydrocarbons were discovered in the refinery’s West Impounding Basin in 1990. The facility installed a light non-aqueous phase liquid recovery system to recover the hydrocarbons from the groundwater. Since the startup of the system, groundwater monitoring takes place quarterly and samples are collected every six months. Contaminants of concern include 15 metals, volatile organics, and semi-volatile organics.Site use restrictions called institutional controls are in effect
Institutional controls can be fences, signs, or restrictions on how the property is used. For instance, an institutional control may prohibit installing drinking water wells or disturbing a protective cap that isolates contamination. These restrictions keep the contamination contained and keep people from being exposed to the contamination. The controls are usually listed in environmental covenants recorded with the county.
Periodic reviews are required when institutional controls are required at a site. Ecology conducts reviews to make sure the controls remain effective and the cleanup still protects human health and the environment. We conduct periodic reviews about every five years.
Institutional Controls 1
Environmental Covenant
Restrictions/Requirements
- Restrict Land Use
Restricted Media
- Groundwater
- Soil
Documents 43
Legal 10
Public Information 4
Document Title | Document Date | Document Type |
Shell Puget Sound Refinery SWMU 55 Agreed Order | 11/28/2018 | Fact Sheet\Public Notices |
Texaco Oil Spill Public Notice of Removal from the Hazardous Sites List | 11/11/1999 | Fact Sheet\Public Notices |
Texaco Oil Spill Consent Decree satisfied delisting public notice | 11/11/1999 | Fact Sheet\Public Notices |
Texaco Oil Spill public notice of draft Consent Decree and Cleanup Action Plan | 4/26/1993 | Fact Sheet\Public Notices |
State Environmental Policy Act 4
Document Title | Document Date | Document Type |
Shell Puget Sound Refinery (formerly Texaco) Oily Water Sewer SEPA DNS | 4/7/2021 | SEPA Documents |
Shell Puget Sound Refinery (formerly Texaco) Oily Water Sewer SEPA checklist | 3/12/2021 | SEPA Documents |
Shell Puget Sound Refinery SWMU 55 SEPA DNS | 11/27/2018 | SEPA Documents |
Shell Puget Sound Refinery SWMU 55 SEPA checklist | 10/19/2018 | SEPA Documents |
Technical Reports 25
Contaminants 9
Contaminant Type | Soil |
Groundwater |
Surface Water |
Air |
Sediment |
Bedrock |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Metals - Metals - Other | S | S | ||||
Non-Halogenated Organics - Petroleum Products-Unspecified | C | C | C | |||
Non-Halogenated Organics - Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons | C | S | ||||
Metals - Mercury | C | |||||
Non-Halogenated Organics - Benzene | S | S | ||||
Non-Halogenated Organics - Other Non-Halogenated Organics | S | S | ||||
Non-Halogenated Organics - Petroleum-Diesel | S | S | ||||
Non-Halogenated Organics - Petroleum-Gasoline | S | S | ||||
Non-Halogenated Organics - Petroleum-Other | C |
- S
- Suspected
- C
- Confirmed Above Cleanup Levels
- B
- Below Cleanup Levels
- RA
- Remediated-Above
- RB
- Remediated-Below
- R
- Remediated