Navy Still Won’t Say What it’s Doing with San Pedro Fuel Depot

Negotiations with potential renters are still in early stages

In 2018, the U.S. Navy announced plans to re-open its fuel depot in San Pedro and on Terminal Island. By 2019, this had caused a huge backlash from nearby residents. But nearly five years later, there has still been no clarification as to what the property will be used for.

There are two terminals that are part of the property, one on North Gaffey St. in San Pedro and another in Terminal Island in Long Beach. Gregg Smith, public affairs officer for the Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach, said that the Navy is in negotiations with a potential renter for each property. However, the negotiations for the San Pedro terminal are in the very early stages, and Smith could not say when it would be near completion. In contrast, the negotiations for the Long Beach terminal are going faster. 

“They’re looking at potentially wrapping that up by some time, likely this summer,” Smith said. “And once that happens, we’ll be able put out a lot more information about what that lease entails.”

The Navy had used the fuel depot in World War II, and it turned over the use of the property to the Defense Logistics Agency in 1980, Smith said. The agency used it to refuel the Navy’s ships and for other Department of Defense Operations until 2014. In 2014, all fuel tanks were declared to be in non-active, temporary closure status, according to the Navy’s website. By 2017, all tanks had been permanently closed, cleaned out and filled in. It was a big shock to nearby residents when the Navy reversed its plans.

Jesse Marquez, executive director of Coalition for a Safer Environment, said that the normal process in the petroleum industry is to remove tanks when they are no longer in use. Instead, the Navy left them underground and filled them with cement. Marquez pointed out that a lot of water is needed to make cement, and that if any toxic material is still inside the tanks, it won’t be trapped in the cement forever.

“Cement, even when it’s solid, hard, it is still pervious to water,” Marquez said. “And cement does deteriorate over time. Even if it’s just a cement slab, sitting there in your backyard for 120 years. It will still deteriorate and pulverize over time.”

Marquez said the Navy probably wanted to entomb leftover chemicals in the cement, but they will go into the ground eventually. He said it will eventually permeate into the ground and potentially go into the water supply, because the metal tanks will rust and deteriorate as well. 

Smith claimed that rust was not an issue for the tanks because they are stainless steel. He said that the Navy filled the tanks with cement instead of removing them because it was more cost-effective. 

“There have been some toxic residue from some petroleum products that leaked out of some of the tanks,” Smith said. “Those are currently being remediated by the Defense Logistics Agency.”

In 2019, the Navy’s plan was to lease both terminals, and have them be required to refuel the Navy’s ships whenever the Navy required it. However, in 2021, the Navy sent out a request for proposal with separate leases for both properties, no longer requiring either to be used to refuel the Navy’s ships.

Smith said that while the Navy is still negotiating the leases with potential renters, Department of Defense ethics regulations prohibit the release of most information about how the renters will use the property.

“Because if, for whatever reason, those negotiations fall through, and we would have to re-negotiate, or put out a new request for proposals for the use of those properties, that might give somebody the upper hand in a future RFP [request for proposal],” Smith said.

In February 2022, the Navy released a Final Environmental Assessment for renewed fueling operations at the depot. It states a finding of no significant impact, even though it was based on the original plan to use both terminals for refueling. 

“[C]ancelation of the Navy fueling requirement at Defense Fuel Support Point San Pedro could allow for a wider range of uses to occur at the Main [San Pedro] Terminal under a potential lease, which would require further environmental analysis,” a document on the Navy’s website states.

A document on the Navy’s website states that none of the entities that could potentially lease the property are interested in using the pipelines in the facility, so four of the pipelines leading away from the site were again classified as abandoned in place as of Feb. 25, 2021.

Smith said that the environmental documentation and negotiations would need to be completed before a deal is made between the Navy and the contractor. He said that the public would also have input at some point. However, he did not say for certain that the public would know what the property would be used for even in the next environmental review process. 

“I think it depends on exactly what they’re talking about doing with the property … and how far along in the negotiation process they are,” Smith said. “I don’t have an answer for that question at this time, but obviously in order to do a proper environmental analysis you’ve got to have some kind of idea of what the property is going to be used for.”

Gwen Henry, chair of the Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council’s Environment and Sustainability Committee, theorized that Donald Trump taking office was the reason why the Navy initially announced it would use the property for refueling its ships.

“This is my opinion, not as a neighborhood council person, but I believe that the idea and interest in reopening the site might have been through an administration change, and different ideas of what the site should be utilized for,” Henry said. “Because most of the supply depots, all through California, had already been shut down. I believe that San Pedro was one of the last ones.”

Henry said that many were used for parklands.

“They believed, this is what was in the Naval information, that the future of the Navy was going to go away from certain types of strategies of how to fuel,” Henry said. “There are vulnerabilities, for example, for having fuel sites in different destination areas.”

Henry said the Navy does not give away land or close supply points lightly, it often takes decades. She pointed out that normally there’s a process of environmental review where the public can give feedback. However, when she and others have reached out to the Navy for information on the project, they are often refused, with the excuse being that it’s a matter of national security.

Henry said that she and others have wondered for years what the property would be used for.

“We were hoping that this would move glacially, and it seems that it did,” Henry said.