Eco-tourists and oil refineries aren’t exactly a match made in heaven but Delaware City is doing its best to unite the two.
City and state officials cheered the recent announcement by the American Birding Association (ABA) that it is moving its national headquarters from Colorado to Delaware City as a major boost to the city’s efforts to attract visitors to nearby bird reserves, waterways and coastline.
Reactions to Delaware City's push for eco-tourists
Reactions to Delaware City's push for eco-tourists
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The ABA’s move fuels existing plans to lure nature-loving tourists with several new walking trails, more shops and accommodation, and the potential addition of facilities for eco-tourism outfitters such as kayak-rental companies – all of which would attract an influx of high-spending birders, hikers, cyclists and kayakers.
Now, the city’s task is to reassure new visitors that their experience won’t be tainted by the presence of Delaware City Refinery – for which the town is better known – just a couple of miles to the west.
Officials say effort underway to rename refinery
While city officials, business people, and even environmentalists say the refinery has improved its environmental record since it was purchased by PBF Energy in 2010, even its defenders are seeking to distance the city from the eponymous refinery in the interest of building a lucrative eco-tourism market.
That’s why officials are in talks with PBF to change the name of the 5,000-acre refinery to something that doesn’t include the name of their city.
“We are trying to come up with some ways to get the name of the refinery changed,” said Dick Cathcart, City Manager of Delaware City.
Cathcart, a former state legislator, said he didn’t know what other name might be adopted by the refinery, and that discussions are ongoing, but said its managers were sympathetic to his concerns, and were likely to agree to make a change.
“They understand the negative impact that the name has,” Cathcart told WDDE in an interview. “We’ve had a verbal commitment to work on it. My prediction is that we will get that done.”
All the time the refinery bears the name of the town, people will associate the two, especially if there is any kind of oil spill or hazardous air emission, Cathcart said.
“If there’s an incident there, no matter how large or small, people will connect Delaware City with the negative perception of the refinery,” he said.
Michael Karlovich, a spokesman for PBF, said there had been some discussions about the refinery’s name but declined to give further details.
“Although we have had occasional discussions with local officials about the refinery’s name, our continuing focus has been on the plant’s sustainability,” Karlovich wrote in a text message.
Debate continues over refinery’s environmental record
Despite his concerns about the refinery’s image, Cathcart defended PBF’s environmental record which he said was better than that of previous owners.
“The owners and operators have done a much better job than anyone before them,” he said.
But some environmentalists argue that the refinery has in fact worsened its environmental record by recently beginning to process heavy crude oil from Canada’s controversial tar sands, which critics say contributes heavily to greenhouse gases.
“We think that if you want to keep your climate stable, tar sands need to stay in the ground,” said Stephanie Herron, volunteer and outreach coordinator for the Delaware chapter of the Sierra Club.
The plant, which employs about 435 people and has the capacity to process 190,000 barrels a day of crude oil, is also accused by environmentalists of polluting the air with volatile organic compounds and killing millions of fish that get caught up in its intake of water used for cooling.
Cathcart dismissed the claims, and said they were made by “overzealous” activists.
In June, hundreds of refinery workers and their families turned out to a public meeting to defend PBF’s application for a new operating permit, in the face of protests from a small group of environmentalists who unsuccessfully urged the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control to reject it.
Meanwhile, local chapters of the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society are arguing that PBF is violating Delaware’s Coastal Zone Act by shipping some of its incoming crude to another PBF refinery in Paulsboro, NJ.
Mixed reactions to impact of ABA’s move
David Carter, conservation chair for the Delaware Audubon Society, welcomed the ABA’s move which he said would boost the local economy. But he said there’s a “stigma” attached to the refinery, whose presence would be a “pretty strong headwind” to the town’s plan to lure eco-tourists.
The two worlds would collide, he said, if there’s an oil spill in the water off Delaware City, especially one that threatened the well-known heronry at Pea Patch Island, where thousands of the birds breed, and which can already be reached by ferry from the town.
“As a birding organization, we are always concerned with any oil movement on the river,” Carter said. “One big oil spill could wipe out the heronry.”
He said the plant has improved its environmental record but said activists are continuing to urge stricter controls on emissions of volatile organic compounds, and for PBF to install a new water-intake system that would significantly reduce the “tens of millions” of fish that die when they get caught in the mechanism.
“They are doing better than they have in the past,” Carter said. “But refining is a dirty business. We don’t know if the plant will be continuing to invest.”
Despite such reservations, there’s no evidence so far that having the refinery on its doorstep is hurting Delaware City’s eco-tourist trade. Since word got out that the ABA was coming to town, Cathcart said he has been getting inquiries from people who are interested in setting up outfitting businesses such as kayak or bike rentals.
On the town’s commercial strip, already 98 percent occupied, vacant buildings are beginning to fill up, and some properties are being converted to bed & breakfasts, he said.
Having the ABA in town – a move that’s expected in late 2014 -- “will greatly enhance stuff that we had already started,” Cathcart said.
John Buchheit, owner of Crabby Dick’s restaurant, as well as an ice cream parlor and a bed & breakfast in town, said he is “doing cartwheels” over the news that the ABA is coming.
Buchheit a former mayor of Delaware City, said he was surprised that his local businesses are already as busy as another that he owns in Rehoboth Beach, and predicted a “double-digit” increase in the number of visitors at his restaurant as a result of the ABA’s move and the other improvements in facilities for eco-tourists.
But even if there’s a sharp increase in the tourist business, the town isn’t going to expand to the point where it starts consuming its natural surroundings, Buchheit argued, because it’s surrounded by protected land.
And he dismissed concerns that the refinery will deter visitors. He said the plant’s new management has been more responsive to community needs, and any evidence of air emissions is rare.
During seven years of living in the town, Buchheit said he had personally experienced gas “releases” from the refinery only twice, and each time just for “minutes”.
“I don’t feel that the refinery is a negative at all,” he said.
