Texas officials and Shell Plc sought to reassure worried residents that a three-day chemical fire at the company’s Deer Park plant poses minimal risks, even as advocates raised alarms.
(Bloomberg) — Texas officials and Shell Plc sought to reassure worried residents that a three-day chemical fire at the company’s Deer Park plant poses minimal risks, even as advocates raised alarms.
The blaze — which began Friday and flared up again over the weekend — ignited highly volatile, toxic fuels that sent black plumes of smoke over the Houston area. Firefighting efforts required wastewater runoff to be discharged into the Houston Ship Channel at an initial rate of 11,000 gallons a minute, and Shell reported a light sheen in the water Monday.
Still, the state environmental regulator joined with Shell in stating that neither air nor water pollutants were a concern in the aftermath of the fire.
“I understand the waterway looks pretty good right now,” said Kelly Cook, a deputy director at the Texas Council on Environmental Quality. On air emissions, Cook said “detections were very low and certainly well below any levels of concern.”
The agency’s claims were met with skepticism by health and environmental advocates, who say the true impacts of the chemical fire are not yet known. Shell has only submitted one emissions report to state regulators since the incident, and it didn’t specify pollutants.
But the company’s classification of the event as an “opacity” violation indicates that high levels of particulate matter were released into the air, according to Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas. “Particulate matter can cause a range of health problems, including respiratory issues, such as asthma, chronic bronchitis, and lung cancer,” he said.
Neither the state regulator nor Shell disclosed the chemicals likely released into the waterway, but the blaze originated in a section of the plant that produces chemicals such as propylene, ethylene and butadiene that are the building blocks of plastics. The fuels ignited in the blast — cracked heavy gasoil, cracked light gasoil and gasoline — can cause respiratory issues, cancer, fetal abnormalities, and is toxic to aquatic life, according to the Texas regulator’s own literature.
Residents near the facility should “seek medical attention if you feel bad,” Air Alliance Houston Executive Director Jennifer Hadayia advised Monday.
The latest incident “speaks to the lax regulatory environment in Texas,” said Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud, executive director of the Bayou City Waterkeeper. “We can’t rely on the TCEQ or Shell to make decisions about air quality and safety of the communities because of the history of these releases and these disasters,” she said, adding that the US Environmental Protection Agency will have a key role to play moving forward.
As of Monday, most of the units at the chemical plant were operational. The olefins unit, where the blaze originated, had been scheduled for major repair work that was delayed before the fire, and remains shut, according to a person familiar with the matter.
“Our priority right now is to continue with the response and ensure we don’t have a reignition of the fire,” said Nathan Levin, general manager at Shell Deer Park Chemicals. “Once that’s complete, we will begin an investigation. We are very interested in knowing what happened, and we will learn through that and understand what we can do to implement that.”
–With assistance from Sri Taylor.
(Adds statements from Environment Texas in sixth paragraph and Air Alliance in eighth.)
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