Refinery flaring, power outage hit L.A.'s South Bay

LOS ANGELES -- Prolonged flaring at a South Bay refinery raised health concerns Tuesday, a situation complicated by a power outage in the area that interrupted electricity to 89,856 homes.

The city of Torrance sent out a warning message to residents about the flaring at the PBF Energy refinery. While the sight of flames coming from the tops of smokestacks is common at Los Angeles area refineries over the years, the PBF flaring went on long enough and created enough smoke that the city issued the warning.

Flaring is often used to burn off gas released by pressure valves to reduce gas pressure within an industrial plant.

At the same time, Southern California Edison, a unit of Edison International that is the area's electrical provider, reported a power outage that struck at 5:41 a.m. PT. The outage affected the cities near Torrance as well -- Redondo Beach, Hawthorne, Gardena and Hermosa Beach. Service was restored by 7 a.m. SCE spokesman Paul Nutter said the cause of the outage was under investigation or whether it was related to the refinery's flaring.

The PBF refinery, formerly operated by Exxon, is located on a 750-acre site in Torrance. It produces about 1.8 billion gallons of gasoline per year, which represents approximately 10% of the gasoline demand in California, the operator says.