The DMN carries this wire story about air pollution in the Golden Triangle:
PORT ARTHUR, Texas – There is a quiet battle for the future of this industrial town, one of America’s most polluted places.
On one side is ex-Mayor Oscar Ortiz, who in the waning days of his administration worried about one thing – losing petrochemical plants – not the toxic chemicals spewing from petrochemical plants, the town’s richest landowners.
“The only money here in the city of Port Arthur that amounts to anything comes from industry, from petrochemical companies,” Mr. Ortiz says.
“If industry goes away, people might as well go away, too, because there’ll be no money. That’s the continued salvation of this city.”
Hilton Kelley, like Mr. Ortiz born and raised in Port Arthur, is the opposition.
Mr. Kelley does worry about the toxic chemicals. As the city’s most visible environmental activist, he has campaigned for more restrictions on industrial construction and stricter monitoring of plant emissions.
“I grew up smelling the SO2 [sulfur dioxide] smell, the chemicals,” Mr. Kelley says. “We’re not trying to shut doors of industry. We’re just trying to push these guys to do what’s right.”
The DMN’s headline reminds me of the infamous “weighing scales” graphic used by Al Gore in both Earth in the Balance and in An Inconvenient Truth.
Filed under: Corporate Responsibility, Criminal Litigation, Major Source Sunday, Texas City
I profiled BP’s Texas City refinery in last week’s installment of Major Source Sunday. Today, the Houston Chronicle brings the news that criminal charges against BP will be settled:
BP has agreed to a plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department to settle criminal allegations stemming from the March 2005 explosion at its Texas City refinery that killed 15 people and injured many more, a source with knowledge of the deal said late Tuesday.
The revelation came after other sources said the London-based oil giant expects to pay more than $300 million to settle unrelated charges that it manipulated the price of propane three years ago.
Of the case involving the plant explosion, the agreement — barring last-minute changes — is slated to be made public this week and will conclude the government’s criminal probe into the company’s actions surrounding and leading up to the 2005 disaster, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity,
BP declined comment Tuesday.
The person familiar with the refinery blast accord said the company had agreed to plead guilty to a crime and pay a fine. Further details were unavailable.
The reports of the two settlements came as the London-based oil giant announced a 29 percent drop in third-quarter profits, and analysts said the company is trying to get past safety and operational problems that have plagued its environmentally friendly image and damaged its competitive edge compared to its Big Oil peers.
The price manipulation settlement, also expected to be announced later this week, likely will spare the company criminal charges related to allegations its Houston-based traders attempted to fix prices of fuel that flowed through a pipeline running from Mont Belvieu, in Chambers County, to markets in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.
Criminal charges still may be filed against the individual traders later this week in Chicago, according to the sources familiar with that case.
More analysis will be laid out here when the settlement terms become public.
Update: $50 Million.
Filed under: TCEQ
Although I have not had the time to prepare a run down, I would like to note that (as always) the Texas Register included proposed agreed orders, and that the agenda for this week’s Commision meeting is up on the TCEQ Web site.
Filed under: Civil Litigation, Corporate Responsibility, Major Source Sunday, Texas City
In the last installment of Major Source Sunday, we began looking the Texas City Industrial Complex with a profile of Union Carbide’s Texas City plant. We continue with the second Major Source Sunday by heading east along 5th Avenue, to the BP Texas City Refinery, which is at 2401 5th Avenue.
The refinery was originally owned by Amoco (The Standard Oil Company of Indiana) before BP, plc and Amoco merged in 1999. According to BP and Wikipedia, the Texas City BP refinery is BP’s largest refinery, the third largest in the United States, and the second largest in the state of Texas. BP reports the refinery currently has a capacity of 460,000 barrels per day, and produces about 2.5 percent of the gasoline consumed in the United States.
The BP site also notes that:
About 80 percent of the refinery’s fuels is shipped out of Texas City via pipeline. Another 20 percent is delivered to markets around the country via marine transport.
Texas City also can produce about 100,000 barrels a day of diesel fuel destined for customers in the Southeast, East Coast and the Midwest, with some 40,000 barrels of jet fuel shipped daily from the refinery.
The refinery also produces the industrial chemicals paraxylene and metaxylene, both of which are used to produce plastics.
As for the refinery’s economic impact, BP’s Web site states:
The Texas City refinery employs about 1,800 full and part-time workers. Annual payroll for direct employees exceeds $120 million. The facility also uses many contract employees, ranging from 1,000 to 5,000 per day during peak turnaround maintenance periods.
For 2005, BP will pay more than $38 million in property taxes – a $10 million increase over 2004 rates. The site and its people are an integral part and active members of the local communities and county in which they operate and work.
TCEQ’s current compliance history rating for BP’s Texas City refinery is 9.65, or “average.“ Although, as with many large refineries, BP Texas City often has upsets, including one with its ultracracker unit last week.
The refinery is the largest point source, by far, of VOCs and NOx in Galveston County, according to the 2005 STARS inventory, which reports annual emissions of:
- 404.498 tons per year of PM10 (333.772 tpy of PM2.5);
- 3122.1796 tpy of VOCs;
- 1961.0443 tpy of NOx;
- 4099.907 tpy of SO2; and
- 921.0643 tpy of CO.
The EPA’s 2005 Toxic Release Inventory for the site reports considerable emissions of dozens of toxic pollutants, including over 823,000 pounds of ammonia, 266,000 pounds of n-hexane, 220,000 pounds of sulfuric acid, and 137,000 pounds of benzene.
The plant has been called the nation’s worst polluter in recent years. BP paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for pollution at the plant last year.
BP Texas City made headlines on March 23, 2005 when an explosion at the refinery killed 15 people, and injured hundreds more. The explosion’s causes were documented in the company’s own report, the report of the Baker Panel, and by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board. According to the Boston Globe, more than 4,000 lawsuits were filed against BP as a result of the explosion, about half of which have been settled. Only one has proceded to trial so far; it settled before a verdict could be returned. Total liability could ultimately be close to $1 billion. BP was also fined $21.3 million by OSHA, according to CNN.
BP’s Web site notes the company is taking steps to improving safety at the site. Moreover, 2005 toxics emissions are down; although this is partly a result of reduced production after the March 23, 2005 explosion.
In law school, I wrote a journal article about the clean-up of asbestos-tainted vermiculite ore in Libby, Montana.
This week, GAO slammed EPA for letting hundreds of vermiculite processing sites slip through the cracks, potentially allowing many Americans outside of Northwestern Montana to be exposed to harmful asbestos.
Another sad chapter in this terrible saga…
Filed under: About, Civil Litigation, EPA, Major Source Sunday, Scalps, Texas City
Major Source Sunday did not have an edition this weekend. As you may have guessed, the BP refinery in Texas City is at-bat and profiling this facility will take hours, possibly days to do justice. This weekend the weather was beautiful, and I focused on:
- Buying a bed.
- Buying and riding a bicycle.
- Making gumbo.
Unauthorized dredging and filling in the waters of the United Statesbuilding sand castles and hand-digging canals and moats down at the beach.
As it turns out, the EPA also has priorities. BNA’s Daily Environment Report (which I am trying out for three weeks) called this to my attention:
Enforcing air and water regulations and increasing environmental compliance rates in the mineral and mining sectors are among the Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement priorities for 2008, 2009, and 2010, the agency announced Oct. 12 (72 Fed. Reg. 58,084).
EPA said enforcement priorities also include ensuring that people who handle hazardous waste have adequate funds to close facilities and helping Native American tribes meet all environmental regulations.
The Federal Register notice is here. Of significance to our area:
The FY 2005–2007 Petroleum Refining priority will not continue into FY 2008–2010 as a national priority. The priority has met its primary goal of addressing 80% of the national refining capacity and was returned to the core program at the end of FY 2006. It is important to note that discontinuation as a national priority does not mean that the Agency will no longer focus on this area, but rather the work will continue as part of the Agency’s core program activities.
The EPA has a Web site and a fact sheet listing its enforcement successes with the Petroleum Refinery priority.
The proposed agreed orders for this week, as printed in the October 12 Texas Register:
(9) COMPANY: Halliburton Energy Services, Inc.; DOCKET NUMBER: 2007-1071-IWD-E; IDENTIFIER: RN101720241; LOCATION: Harris County, Texas; TYPE OF FACILITY: multi-building complex; RULE VIOLATED: 30 TAC §305.125(1), TPDES Permit Number 04624, Effluent Limitations and Monitoring Requirements Number 1, and the Code, §26.121(a), by failing to comply with the permitted effluent limitations; PENALTY: $2,820; ENFORCEMENT COORDINATOR: Craig Fleming, (512) 239-5806; REGIONAL OFFICE: 5425 Polk Avenue, Suite H, Houston, Texas 77023-1486, (713) 767-3500.
. . .
21) COMPANY: Texas Petrochemicals LP; DOCKET NUMBER: 2007-1220-AIR-E; IDENTIFIER: RN100219526; LOCATION: Houston, Harris County, Texas; TYPE OF FACILITY: chemical manufacturing plant; RULE VIOLATED: 30 TAC §116.115(c), Air Permit Number 46307, Special Condition Number 1, and THSC, §382.085(b), by failing to prevent unauthorized emissions; PENALTY: $10,000; Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP) offset amount of $4,000 applied to Houston-Galveston AERCO’s Clean Cities/Clean Vehicles Program; ENFORCEMENT COORDINATOR: Rebecca Johnson, (713) 767-3500; REGIONAL OFFICE: 5425 Polk Avenue, Suite H, Houston, Texas 77023-1486, (713) 767-3500.
(22) COMPANY: Texmark Chemicals, Inc.; DOCKET NUMBER: 2007-0796-AIR-E; IDENTIFIER: RN100238740; LOCATION: Galena Park, Harris County, Texas; TYPE OF FACILITY: chemical manufacturing plant; RULE VIOLATED: 30 TAC §122.143(4), FOP Number O-01363, Special Terms and Conditions (STC) 9, and THSC, §382.085(b), by failing to monitor API Separator A-1 during the second quarter of 2006; 30 TAC §§101.20(1), 116.115(c), and 122.143(4), NSR Permit Number 21472, SC 3.A., FOP O-01363, STC 1.A. and 10, 40 CFR §60.487(a), and THSC, §382.085(b), by failing to submit fugitive emissions monitoring reports; 30 TAC §122.145(2)(A), FOP O-01363, General Terms and Conditions, and THSC, §382.085(b), by failing to report deviations in semiannual and annual compliance certification reports; 30 TAC §122.143(4), FOP O-01363, STC 9, and THSC, §382.085(b), by failing to sample the sulfur content of fuel; 30 TAC §122.132(a) and THSC, §382.085(b), by failing to include the applicability of provisions in FOP O-01363; 30 TAC §§101.20(1), 116.115(c), and 122.143(4), NSR Permit Number 21472, SC 3.B., FOP O-01363, STC 10, 40 CFR §60.663(b)(2), and THSC, §382.085(b), by failing to install a flow indicator for a distillation column; 30 TAC §§101.20(1), 116.115(c), and 122.143(4), NSR Permit Number 21472, SC 3, FOP O-01363, STC 10, 40 CFR §60.113b(a)(5), and THSC, §382.085(b), by failing to submit notification for refilling a tank in VOC service; 30 TAC §116.115(c) and §122.143(4), NSR Permit Number 21472, SC 3.B., FOP O-01363, STC 10, 40 CFR §60.664(d), and THSC, §382.085(b), by failing to test the flare; 30 TAC §§101.20(1), 116.115(c), and 122.143(4), NSR Permit Number 21472, SC 3.B., FOP O-01363, STC 10, 40 CFR §60.665(a), and THSC, §382.085(b), by failing to submit a provision applicability notification; and 30 TAC §§101.20(1), 116.115(c), and 122.143(4), NSR Permit Number 21472, SC 3.B., FOP O-0163, STC 10, 40 CFR §60.665(1) , and THSC, §382.085(b), by failing to submit to the TCEQ initial and semiannual reports relating to the operation of a distillation column; PENALTY: $75,692; Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP) offset amount of $30,277 applied to Houston-Galveston AERCO’s Clean Cities/Clean Vehicles Program; ENFORCEMENT COORDINATOR: Terry Murphy, (512) 239-5025; REGIONAL OFFICE: 5425 Polk Avenue, Suite H, Houston, Texas 77023-1486, (713) 767-3500.
. . .
(24) COMPANY: Trinity at Windfern LLC; DOCKET NUMBER: 2007-0893-MWD-E; IDENTIFIER: RN102916178; LOCATION: Harris County, Texas; TYPE OF FACILITY: wastewater treatment plant; RULE VIOLATED: 30 TAC §319.7(c), by failing to make available all discharge monitoring records for review; 30 TAC §305.125(1), (4), and (5), TPDES Permit Number WQ0013509001, Permit Conditions 2.d., and the Code, §26.121(a), by failing to operate and maintain the wastewater treatment facility to prevent the discharge and accumulations of sludge in the receiving stream; and 30 TAC §§305.125(5), 317.4(d), and 317.6(b)(3), and TPDES Permit Number WQ0013509001, Operational Requirements Number 1, by failing to properly operate and maintain the clarifier and chlorine contact basin; PENALTY: $7,965; ENFORCEMENT COORDINATOR: Craig Fleming, (512) 239-5806; REGIONAL OFFICE: 5425 Polk Avenue, Suite H, Houston, Texas 77023-1486, (713) 767-3500.
(25) COMPANY: Vopak Terminal Galena Park, Inc.; DOCKET NUMBER: 2007-0965-IWD-E; IDENTIFIER: RN103137790; LOCATION: Galena Park, Harris County, Texas; TYPE OF FACILITY: storm water discharge operation for a storage terminal; RULE VIOLATED: 30 TAC §305.125(1), TPDES Permit Number 01662, Effluent Limitations and Monitoring Requirements Number 1, and the Code, §26.121(a), by failing to comply with permit limits; PENALTY: $3,900; ENFORCEMENT COORDINATOR: Catherine Albrecht, (713) 767-3500; REGIONAL OFFICE: 5425 Polk Avenue, Suite H, Houston, Texas 77023-1486, (713) 767-3500.
Comments are due by November 12.
TEXAS CITY — Air quality is improving by some measures and toxic releases from chemical plants are down compared to 2002, but there is still room for improvement at Texas City-La Marque area industrial sites, health and pollution experts said Thursday.Meanwhile, cars and trucks are still major contributors to the production of unhealthy ground-level ozone. The Houston-Galveston region doesn’t meet federal ozone standards and may not meet them for many years.
From 2002 to 2006, toxic industrial releases at area plants declined by 38 percent, according to data collected by the Environmental Protection Agency.
A group of closely watched chemicals, linked to cancer and identified by researchers as the “Big Eight,” had mixed results. Releases of some of the chemicals, such as benzene, declined, while others increased.
The numbers are logged in the federal government’s Toxic Release Inventory, which requires industrial sites to calculate releases of hundreds of chemicals.
The 2006 numbers were recently released by the federal government and presented by local health officials to the Texas City-La Marque Community Advisory Council on Thursday.
Plants don’t measure the releases directly, but calculate estimates using models, said Jonathan Ward, a professor of environmental toxicology at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
“The question isn’t whether they’re being honest,” Ward said, referring to the industrial sites. “It’s whether we understand all the (chemical release) sources in the plants.”
Here is the link to the new Toxic Release Inventory data.
KHOU:
People living in the Manchester community along the Houston Ship Channel want the feds to crack down on polluters.
Thursday, they delivered a petition to the EPA demanding better air monitoring.
The risk from air toxics, particularly benzene and 1,3-butadiene, to Ship Channel area residents was covered by the Houston air toxics study last year. In related news, Dr. Jonathan Ward, who helped prepare that study, is presenting tonight on air toxics in Texas City. Hopefully the Galveston Daily News will report on this tomorrow.
Filed under: Clean Water, Coastal Issues, Corporate Responsibility, Criminal Litigation
The Houston Chronicle on the trail (again):
Rowan Cos.’ guilty plea to criminal pollution charges this week was hailed by environmental groups Wednesday as a sign the offshore drilling industry is finally being called to task for years of abuse to the Gulf of Mexico.
What’s more, it suggests government regulators are starting to pay more attention to the “day-to-day” pollution from offshore drilling, rather than just big accidents like oil spills, said Athan Manuel, director of lands protection with the Sierra Club in Washington, D.C.
But other observers downplayed the case as an anomaly in an industry that recently has made big strides to reduce its impact on the environment.
“What you’re seeing are some outliers who just haven’t gotten the message,” said Tom Campbell, an attorney in the Houston offices of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.
. . .
The case, which grew out of an investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Coast Guard, is being prosecuted by the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern Districts of Texas and Louisiana.
And it may not be the last of its kind.
“The only information that I can provide is that the investigation continues,” said Andrew Ames, a spokesman for the Justice Department.
. . .
Government regulators found that workers on the Rowan-Midland “routinely discharged” waste hydraulic oil, used paint, paint cans and other pollutants.
But that kind of dumping by offshore rig operators is nothing new, said Richard Charter, co-chair of the National Outer Continental Shelf Coalition, an environmental group.
“In this particular case, it just looks like the government decided to get serious,” he said.
The investigation also turned up environmental violations that occurred when Rowan employees sandblasted the Rowan-Midland rig. As rigs get older and are exposed to more salt water, operators sandblast rigs to remove rust and preserve the metal’s integrity before repainting them. But the practice can send metallic debris, rust and paint into the ocean.
In June, the American Petroleum Institute issued new guidelines meant “to establish practices and procedures that should be followed to minimize the discharge of spent blast abrasive and paint overspray to the surrounding waters during these activities.”
But those guidelines do not have the force of law.
Perhaps not, but API standards are taken very seriously. For example, the failure of BP to follow API guidelines when siting trailers at its Texas City refinery was one of the more “outrageous” errors it made in the run up to the 2005 explosion there.
