HollyFrontier Puget Sound Refinery

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.

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.