'No Safe Amount': Environmentalists Sound Alarm Over Texas Refineries' Release of Hundreds of Thousands of Pounds of Pollutants During Storm

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By Brett Wilkins, Commonย Dreams

Texas oil refineries released hundreds of thousands of pounds of pollutants including benzene, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, and sulfur dioxide into the air as they scrambled to shut down during last week’s deadly winter storm, Reuters reported Sunday.

Winter storm Uri, which killed dozens of people and cut off power to over four million Texans at its peak, also disrupted supplies needed to keep the state’s refineries and petrochemical plants operating. As they shut down, refineries flaredโ€”or burned offโ€”gases in order to prevent damage to their processingย units.

According to the Texas Commission on Environment Quality, the five largest refiners emitted nearly 337,000 pounds of pollutants in thisย manner.ย 

ExxonMobil’s Baytown Olefins plant in Baytown released 68,000 tons of carbon monoxide and nearly a ton of benzene in what it called a โ€œsafe utilization of the flareย system.โ€

Critics noted, however, that benzene is harmful to bone marrow, red blood cells, and the immuneย system.ย 

โ€œThere is no safe amount of benzene for human exposure,โ€ Sharon Wilson, a researcher at the advocacy group Earthworks, told Reuters.

Motiva’s Port Arthur refinery released 118,100 pounds of pollutants into the air between February 15 and February 18. This was triple the amount of excess emissions the plant reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the entire year ofย 2019.

Valero’s refinery in Port Arthur flared 78,000 pounds of pollutants over 24 hours beginning February 15, while Marathon Petroleum’s Galveston Bay refinery released 14,255 pounds in less than five hours that sameย day.ย 

Hilton Kelly, who lives in Port Arthur, told Reutersย that there were โ€œsix or seven flares going at oneย time.โ€ย 

Wilson said that the flaring โ€œcould have been preventedโ€ by winterizing theย refineries.ย 

โ€œWe need someone in the Texas legislature to file a bill requiring the oil and gas industry to thoroughly winterize all their equipment,โ€ Wilson told Earther. โ€œThe bill probably won’t pass in Texas, but that will create some more scrutiny aboutย it.โ€

Earther reports that between February 11 and February 18, there were 174 so-called โ€œemissions eventsโ€ from fossil fuel facilities in Texas, compared to between 37 and 46 such events in weeks before theย storm.

In addition to the previously mentioned pollutants, chemicals released from Texas facilities include over 6,500 pounds of the carcinogen isoprene from a Shell plant in Deer Park near Houston, as well as an indeterminate amount of methane, which is 84 times more harmful to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over the shortย term.ย 

Wilson told Earther that โ€œin Texas we don’t count methaneโ€ in pollutionย reports.ย 

The release of large amounts of dangerous pollutants during Uri stands in stark contrast with claims by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that alternative energy sources such as solar and wind are responsible for Uri’s deadly power outages and that the Green New Deal would be a โ€œdeadly dealโ€ for the Unitedย States.

This article originally appeared on Common Dreams and has been republished at DeSmog under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0ย License.

Main image: Oil refinery, Port Arthur, Texas Credit: GPA Photo Archive CC BYNCย 2.0

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