EPA RCRA ID: AKD048679682

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Cleanup Status
Facility Description
Contaminants at this Facility
Institutional/Engineer Controls
Enforcement and Compliance
Related Information
Contacts for this Facility

Cleanup Status

The Tesoro Alaska Refinery is regulated by EPA under a RCRA post-closure and corrective action permit. The permit requires monitoring, maintenance and remediation of the three closed hazardous waste landfills at the facility, and corrective action at all solid waste management units (SWMUs) facility-wide.

Groundwater Cleanup

The contaminated groundwater at Tesoro is the first priority for cleanup under the RCRA permit. There are five areas of groundwater contamination at the facility. Remediation systems have been constructed and are operating at each of these five areas of groundwater contamination as described below.

The permit specifies requirements for operation, maintenance, and monitoring of the remediation systems until the site is cleaned up to levels protective of human health and the environment. The remediation system must be modified if it is not effective.

The Surface lmpoundment (SI) Corrective Measures System is located in the area of the closed surface impoundments which are ponds that were used for holding hazardous waste. It consists of a system which moves air through the groundwater to remove the contaminants. The SI System is monitored by 25 monitoring wells.
The Phillips Marathon (PM) Corrective Measures System is located in the area of the refinery tank farms and adjacent off-site properties currently owned by Conoco Phillips. It uses two groundwater remediation methods, groundwater pumping and treatment, and moving air through the groundwater to remove the contaminants. The PM System is monitored by 80 monitoring wells.
The Phillips Remedial Measures (PRM) System is located in the area of the Phillips Liquefied Natural Gas facility west of Kenai Spur Highway. It uses the same methods described above for the PM System. The PRM System is monitored by 55 monitoring wells.
The B-Aquifer Corrective Measures System addresses a portion of the plume underlying the facility which is thought to lie deeper and is distinct from the main aquifer. It occurs throughout the site but in certain locations it is separated from and below the main unconfined aquifer. The B-aquifer corrective measures system uses the same methods as described above for the PM System. The B-Aquifer System is monitored by 64 monitoring wells.
The Upper Confined Aquifer (UCA) Corrective Measures System addresses the confined aquifer underlying the facility and the adjacent properties. This confined aquifer lies below the main unconfined aquifer, which the other remediation systems address. The remediation for this aquifer consists of pumping of the Tesoro industrial production well and monitored natural attenuation. The production well pumps on average between 310 - 345 gallons per minute. The pumped water is then used in Tesoro's industrial processes. The system is monitored by 19 monitoring wells.

Soil Cleanup

The permit requires the soil contamination at the site that has been impacted by the groundwater plume be remediated after the groundwater cleanup has been achieved to levels that will no longer continue to re-contaminate soil.

Soil contamination at the site does not pose an immediate threat to human health and the environment and therefore has been deferred to a second phase of corrective action, which will begin after the free petroleum product has been recovered from the groundwater.

Oil Release Cleanup

A sheen on the water and beach at Kenai Beach, downgradient from the facility, was seen in October 2019. Oil seeps were later seen on the face of the bluff above the beach. Since that time Tesoro has been monitoring the bluff, beach and water daily for seeps and sheen, and mitigating them manually (absorbent booms, shovels and buckets).

All monitoring data and mitigation activities are recorded and reported to EPA. Seeps on the bluff and beach, and sheen on the beach and in the water continue to be seen occasionally and erosion of the bluff is continuing.

In accordance with permit requirements for new releases, Tesoro investigated the location and extent of the release, found the source to be from an old release from an underground pipeline that was more extensive than previously known. Tesoro is required to continue daily monitoring of the bluff and beach and to remediate the source of the contamination. A rock wall has been placed in front of the bluff to control erosion.

For more details about ongoing cleanup work at the facility, refer to the RCRA permit available under "Site Documents" below.

Cleanup Actions or environmental indicators characterizing the entire facility are shown below. It is not intended as an extensive list of milestones/activities. This listing, and all the data on this page, come from EPA’s RCRAInfo and are refreshed nightly to this page. For this table and the Cleanup Activities Pertaining to a Portion of the Facility table that follows, a blank in the Status column could mean the action either has not occurred or has not been reported in RCRAInfo.

Cleanup Activities Pertaining to the Entire Facility

Action	Status	Date of Action
(CA725)
(CA750)
(CA400)
(CA550)
(CA800)
(CA900)
(CA999)

^{For definitions of the terms used, hover over or click on the term.}

Cleanup Activities Pertaining to a Portion of the Facility

	Action	Area Name	Date of Action

^{For definitions of the terms used, hover over or click on the term.}

Facility Description

Link to a larger, interactive view of the map.

The Tesoro refinery is located in the northwest portion of the Kenai Peninsula, five miles north of the city limits of Kenai, Alaska. The refinery began operation at the site in 1969.

The facility covers an area of approximately 250 acres and has the capacity to process crude petroleum at a rate of 80,000 barrels per day. Primary products of the refinery include gasoline and diesel fuels, jet fuel, residential heating oil, and liquefied petroleum gas.

In the mid-1970s Tesoro constructed three unlined surface impoundments for the disposal of sludges from the facility's oil/water separator, tank bottoms, and miscellaneous oily wastes generated at the refinery. In 1980 Tesoro stopped using the impoundments for waste disposal.

In 1981 two of the three impoundments were excavated and backfilled. The excavated sludges were transferred to the third impoundment. Each of the impoundments were then capped with two synthetic liners, covered with topsoil and reseeded. The three units are hazardous waste landfills under RCRA and are therefore subject to post-closure care, groundwater monitoring and corrective action under the RCRA permit.

In February of 1987 an oil sheen was discovered on water distilled at Tesoro's on-site laboratory. Following this discovery, Tesoro conducted an investigation to determine the source and extent of the contamination. The primary sources were identified as leaks from the oily water sewer system seal boxes and hubs. Since that initial discovery and investigation, Tesoro has installed and operated the remediation and monitoring systems described above, which includes over 200 monitoring wells, to remediate and monitor the groundwater contamination.

Contaminants at this Facility

The primary contaminants are benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene and petroleum. The contaminants extend underneath major portions of the facility, and offsite, west of Kenai Spur Highway, to Cook Inlet.

Institutional and Engineering Controls at this Facility

Institutional and Engineering Controls help ensure human exposure and groundwater migration are under control at a cleanup facility. Where control types have been reported by states and EPA in EPA’s RCRAInfo, they are shown below. Not all control types are needed at all facilities, and some facilities do not require any controls. Where there are blanks, the control types may not be needed, may not be in place, or may not be reported in RCRAInfo.

Are Controls in Place at this Facility?

Control(s) Type		Control(s) in Place?	Areas Subject to Control(s)	Documents available on-line:
(CA 772)	(ID)
	(GC)
	(EP)
	(PR)
(CA 770)	(GW)
(CA 770)

Enforcement and Compliance at this Facility

EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) provides detailed historical information about enforcement and compliance activities at each RCRA Corrective Action Site in their Enforcement and Compliance Historical Online (ECHO) system.

RCRA Enforcement and Compliance Reports from ECHO

Related Information

For more information about this facility, see these other EPA links:

RCRA information in EPA’s Envirofacts database
Information about this facility submitted to EPA under different environmental programs as reported in EPA’s Facility Registry Services
Alternative Names for this facility as reported by EPA programs in EPA’s Facility Registry Services
Cleanups in My Community provides an interactive map to see EPA cleanups in context with additional data, and lists for downloading data
Search RCRA Corrective Action Sites provides a search feature for Corrective Action Sites

Site Documents

Records Collection for Tesoro Alaska Refinery

Contacts for this Facility

Jan Palumbo (palumbo.jan@epa.gov), Project Manager, 206-553-6702
Rory O’Rourke (orourke.rory@epa.gov), Project Manager, 206-553-6249

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