{"id":485714,"date":"2026-02-23T13:11:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T13:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/485714\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T13:11:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T13:11:29","slug":"delaware-city-refinery-appeals-two-state-sanctions-for-past-emissions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/485714\/","title":{"rendered":"Delaware City refinery appeals two state sanctions for past emissions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why Should Delaware Care?
Over the last two years, Delaware environmental regulators have found that equipment failures and other related operational issues at the Delaware City refinery led to the unpermitted release of hundreds of thousands of hazardous chemicals into the atmosphere. Now the company is appealing some $300,000 in fines and other measures that came in response to those releases.\u00a0<\/p>\n

State environmental regulators said last week that the Delaware City refinery has appealed their recent orders to install air monitoring equipment, and to pay a $300,000 penalty for releasing hazardous pollutants into the air.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The appeals will be considered by the state\u2019s Environmental Appeals Board. No hearing dates have been scheduled.<\/p>\n

The refinery\u2019s appeals came in response to two state orders, issued in December, that included penalties for an 18-day stretch of emissions that sent nearly a million pounds of sulfur dioxide, and thousands of pounds of other toxic chemicals, such as carbon monoxide, ammonia and hydrogen cyanide, into the air in the spring of 2025.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that short-term exposure to sulfur dioxide \u201ccan harm the human respiratory system and make breathing difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

Less than six months after the spring emissions, the Delaware City Refining Company told DNREC that a \u201cmechanical failure\u201d at the facility had caused another pollution incident \u2013 this time an overnight release of 1,000 pounds of butane. The refinery company later revised the report, stating it actually released more than 100 tons of chemicals, including nearly 50,000 pounds of butane alone.<\/p>\n

Weeks later, on Dec. 12, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control demanded that the refinery install additional air monitors<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the refinery, which is owned by New Jersey-based PBF Energy, declined comment for this story, but shared a Dec. 31 statement from the company that said it would be \u201ctechnically infeasible\u201d to meet the timeline DNREC set to install fenceline air monitors. <\/p>\n

The statement also said the company would work \u201ccollaboratively with DNREC to amend and ultimately comply with\u201d that order.<\/p>\n

Less than two weeks after the first December order, DNREC issued a second order<\/a> that outlined multiple air pollution violations spanning 2024 and 2025, including the stretch of continuous emission from May 25 to June 11 of last year<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"DNREC Secretary Greg Patterson said last year that penalties would likely be assessed to the Delaware City Refinery for its toxic emissions. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY ETHAN GRANDIN<\/p>\n

In the order, which landed on the Sunday before Christmas, DNREC Secretary Gregory Patterson fined the refinery company $300,000, as an administrative penalty. The order also noted that ongoing problems with boilers at the refinery\u2019s coking unit were supposed to have been resolved following a settlement the facility signed in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By law, state regulators can impose fines of up to $10,000 per day for such violations.<\/p>\n

In response, Delaware City Mayor Paul Johnson said it was refreshing to see DNREC be more involved with ongoing issues at the refinery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe support anything that\u2019s gonna be done to improve the health and safety of our residents,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When DNREC announced the Dec. 12 order requiring the company to install new monitoring equipment, the agency also noted it would pursue new statewide regulations for fenceline air monitoring at industrial facilities like the refinery. That process is now underway, according to a regulatory notice<\/a> that Patterson signed on Feb. 1.<\/p>\n

The agency has also ordered additional air monitoring equipment that will be added to an existing monitoring device on Route 9 downwind of the Delaware City Refinery.<\/p>\n

\n\tRead more from Spotlight Delaware<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why Should Delaware Care?Over the last two years, Delaware environmental regulators have found that equipment failures and other…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[223467,190817,192,79],"class_list":["post-485714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-delaware-city-refinery","tag-dnrec","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}