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Clean Air In the NewsThe Galveston County Daily News - 2008-01-08
Groups sue over refinery pollution (new window)
Two environmental groups filed a lawsuit
Monday in a Houston federal court against Shell Oil Co., saying its
Deer Park petrochemical plant repeatedly violated the Clean Air Act for
at least five years.
The lawsuit, which claims that preventable mechanical failures and equipment breakdowns caused illegal releases of toxic gases an average of once a week, highlights what environmentalists say is lax oversight on the part of state and federal governments and a “business-as-usual” attitude about air pollution at the Deer Park refinery. The groups claim Shell’s record stands out, but that other petrochemical companies also were violating the rules. Depending on its success, the lawsuit could be a harbinger of others in the region. The legal action by the Sierra Club and Environment Texas was initiated on behalf of Karla Land, a Channelview woman who said the southerly winds in the Houston Ship Channel send harmful pollutants into her community regularly. Shell issued a written statement saying it shares the environmental groups’ goals of improving air quality and that it has “a record of continuous improvement in environmental performance,” including a 14 percent reduction in benzene emissions in 2006. Upset Events Josh Kratka, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said this is the first time private citizens have used a provision of the Clean Air Act that allows individuals to sue for violations when government enforcement fails to stop “upset events” — the equipment failures that cause releases of air pollutants at refineries. Neil Carman, clean air director for the Texas chapter of the Sierra Club, said the lawsuit revives a longtime dispute about whether such events are illegal. “Most of these upsets and malfunctions are truly preventable, if the plant would invest in equipment, such as more flare gas recovery systems, so rather than dumping these out ... the emissions can be recovered,” Carman said. The lawsuit claims there were millions of pounds of harmful releases, including sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, benzene, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds — gases that contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone. Houston ranks among the worst cities nationwide in terms of violating the Environmental Protection Agency’s limits for ozone, which is linked to health problems. 1,000 Violations The releases are self-reported by Shell under state and federal rules that require companies to monitor emissions. Kratka said there were more than 1,000 permit violations resulting from more than 300 upset events in five years. “In other words, more than once a week for five years, Shell has supposedly been experiencing unexpected, unavoidable upsets, which at this point has really become business as usual at the Deer Park plant,” Kratka said. He said Shell responded to a letter about the problems and outlined some efforts to deal with the violations. He said he hopes the dispute can be resolved without lengthy litigation. Shell said it is “committed to an ongoing dialogue with (the environmental groups) to discuss their concerns, our operations and the steps we are taking to further reduce emissions.” Shell spokeswoman Robin Lebovitz said she could not comment on specifics of the lawsuit. Kratka said the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has sent violation notices to Shell for the upset events and has fined it more than $100,000. “The problem is Shell has the upset, TCEQ gives them a fine, Shell pays the fine, and then the violations just keep continuing,” he said. “Shell is basically incorporating the cost of noncompliance, the cost of these fines, simply as a cost of doing business. Banner Year The company had more emissions that constituted permit violations in 2007 than in any of the previous five years, he said. “In terms of research, we’ve been looking at emissions from plants in the Houston area and along the ship channel,” Kratka said. “Shell clearly stood out as one of the, if not the most significant offender, but there are certainly many other companies in the area, and really all along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana ... that are really guilty of the same types of problems.” Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas, said he hoped the lawsuit would shake the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality into action and prompt it to go after “some of these other violators so that the people of Texas don’t have to do their job for them over and over again.” When lawyers for the environmentalists questioned the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality about why the violations were continuing, agency officials responded by saying, “We can’t really speak to the effectiveness of our enforcement,” Kratka said. The agency would accept only written questions about this issue on Monday and had not responded to questions from The Daily News by Monday afternoon. A spokeswoman said the agency doesn’t comment on lawsuits. Agency spokesman Terry Clawson sent an e-mail to reporters answering general questions. In response to the allegation that the agency was not enforcing the Clean Air Act at the Deer Park facility, Clawson wrote, “The TCEQ has diligently enforced provisions of the Clean Air Act in accordance with state law and regulations.” The lawsuit seeks a court order requiring Shell to stop violating the Clean Air Act, as well as civil penalties of up to $32,500 per day for each violation. That could potentially add up to tens of millions of dollars, Kratka said. Houston-based Shell Oil Co. is an affiliate of the Shell Group, one of the largest oil companies in the world. The Deer Park facility is a 1,500-acre complex on the ship channel, about 20 miles east of downtown Houston. |