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Big West of California has hired a L.A. production company to produce a six-minute video that touts plans for a $600 million expansion at the Rosedale Highway facility. I got to see it Thursday at the Bakersfield Energy and Clean Air Expo at the Holiday Inn. However, my attempts to post it here  fell short. I  was given a copy Thursday only to have it plucked from my hands minutes later after refinery officials were informed that someone who appears in the video (we don't know who) hadn’t consented to it being shown publicly.

As you may recall, an environmental impact report on the expansion came out last year but was put on hold so the county could do more research. The revised report is expected to be made public in the next month or so.

Hopefully, we’ll get a copy of the video soon. But in the meantime, here's some highlights:

Along with the standard interviews you might expect with refinery and industry officials, local supporters who appeared in the video included Fruitvale School Board Trustee Kevin Burton, Bakersfield Fire Capt. Quincy Sloan and Greater Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce President Debra Moreno. The interviews are spliced with images of the refinery and the local community. The main message: the expansion is good for the community because it will create jobs, increase tax revenue, boost the local gas/diesel supply and because it will be a safe and clean project.

Fruitvale School Board Trustee Kevin Burton says “Kern County will benefit in so many ways from this project,” because it will create more revenue for schools (from increased property taxes), and because the refinery will plant 1,000 trees in the community and implement other “environmental programs.”

The video was heavy on environmental aspects of the expansion, called the Clean Fuels Project because it will allow the facility to convert more crude into “clean” gasoline and diesel (which means the fuel meets standards to be sold in the state). For example, the video unveils the refinery’s plans to set up a $6 million “Global Protection Fund” to reduce greenhouse gases at the refinery ($5 million) and in the community ($1 million).
In a section on safety at the facility, Bakersfield Fire Capt. Quincy Sloan says that “refinery operators will be fully trained in safety measures” and that the expansion will make the refinery “one of the best and cleanest in the state of California.”

The appearance by a public sector employee in the video raised some eyebrows at the Kern County Planning Department, the agency that’s preparing the environmental impact report. But since the video hasn’t gotten much play in the public yet, it’s hard to know what others might think.