TCEQ mobile monitors on Saturday detected benzene at 34.2 parts per billion and 1,3-Butadiene at 19.4 ppb, in Channelview, an area north of the Shell refinery. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) sent monitoring units to the area in response and said it “did not detect any readings of health concern.” “There is no danger to the nearby community.” Throughout, Shell said the fire posed no threat to public health. Īir monitoring “has not detected any harmful levels of chemicals affecting neighboring communities,” the company said in a statement. The fire went out early Saturday morning but then reignited and burned until Monday.”Ī black plume rose visibly above the neighborhoods east of Houston, where hundreds of thousands of people live along the edges of the nation’s largest petrochemical complex. “In only one half of one percent of these incidents did the state use its legal authority to require the companies to analyze the cause of the problem and take concrete action to avoid these pollution releases in the future,” the study said. Īccording to a Friday report filed by Shell with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, a fire at its Deer Park chemical plant shut down the refinery’s olefins units on Friday afternoon. Last month, a study released by the Environmental Integrity Project found that industries in Texas reported thousands of illegal emissions each year but rarely faced legal consequences. “So why are we letting Shell and its funders get away with incidents like this?” “If I was involved in a car crash and hurt someone I can’t just put my hands up and say ‘it was an accident,” said Jaun Parras, a longtime public health advocate in Houston and co-director of TEJAS Barrios, an environmental justice nonprofit. In every case prior to this weekend’s fire, Shell invoked the “affirmative defense,” an element of Texas law that relieves industrial operators of liability for pollution events that are reported as accidents or emergencies. Ĭritics of the affirmative defense say it allows companies to defer expensive equipment upgrades and maintenance without fear of consequences for dangerous malfunctions. Olefins units are at the heart of petrochemical complexes and separate hydrocarbons into the components of plastics. Since the start of 2022, the British oil giant reported at least 4 malfunctions at one olefins unit in its Deer Park petrochemical refinery that had resulted in the thousands of pounds of illegal pollution but no fines or citations. The units at a Houston-area Shell refinery that caught fire this weekend repeatedly malfunctioned in recent years without recourse from Texas regulators. This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment.
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