• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta June 29, 2022
London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty June 29, 2022
G7 Miss ‘Golden Opportunity’, Walk Back Pledge to Cut International Fossil Finance June 29, 2022
Soaring Fertilizer Prices Could Deliver ‘Silver Lining’ For Emissions, But Farmers Struggle to Limit Use June 26, 2022
BREAKING: UN Nature Summit, the ‘Paris Conference for Biodiversity’, Moves to Montreal in December June 19, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Demand & Distribution Cities & Communities

Towns Flood, Chemical Plants Release Toxics as Harvey Comes Back for a Second Round

September 1, 2017
Reading time: 4 minutes
Primary Author: Author Compiled by Mitchell Beer @mitchellbeer

Senior Master Sgt. Robert Shelley/Texas Air National Guard

Senior Master Sgt. Robert Shelley/Texas Air National Guard

 

Tropical Storm Harvey made a second landfall Wednesday near the Texas-Louisiana border, dropping more than two feet of rain on towns like Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Orange that led to severe flooding, urgent evacuations, and explosions at at least one petrochemical plant in the area.

Much of Port Arthur, population 55,000, was underwater, with water in an estimated one-third of the city’s buildings and one emergency shelter flooded, the Washington Post reported. In Houston, meanwhile, 39 people were reported dead, 35,000 were in shelters, and untold thousands of homes were still underwater. Gov. Greg Abbott (R), whose guiding solution to the crisis seemed to be to declare a day of prayer, said 210,000 Texans had requested assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

That number is expected to rise, with FEMA Administrator Brock Long telling a news briefing it will be “many, many years” before the full impact of the storm becomes clear. “We expect a many-year recovery in Texas, and the federal government is in this for the long haul,” added Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke.

Coming from the state whose Congressional delegation sought to block federal funds for communities hit by Hurricane Katrina 12 years ago, Abbott said he expected federal aid to Texas “‘should be far in excess’ of the roughly US$120 billion in funds allotted for Gulf Coast recovery” at the time, the Post stated.

Floodwaters in Houston had begun to recede Wednesday, after maxing out at 1,260 square miles (3,263 square kilometres)—70% of the city, an area larger than Rhode Island—covered in at least 1.5 feet of water. In nearby communities, the nightmare was just beginning, the Post recounted. In Beaumont, failing infrastructure left 118,000 people without drinking water, and “for most of them, there was no easy way out of a town that now felt like more of an island: The city was surrounded by swollen rivers and bayous, cutting off most roads.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. National Hurricane Center was warning that another tropical storm could form in the Gulf of Mexico next week. “If this system does develop, it could bring additional rainfall to portions of the Texas and Louisiana coasts,” the NHC reported yesterday.

In Crosby, TX, everyone within a 1.5-mile radius of the Arkema chemical plant was evacuated after reports of “intermittent smoke” coming from the facility. Arkema “manufactures organic peroxides, a family of compounds used in such products as pharmaceuticals and construction materials,” the Post explained. “Those chemicals must be kept cold, or they will combust. They are not cold anymore. The storm left the plant submerged in six feet of water, and its cooling systems and backup systems failed.”

On Thursday, the plant reported two explosions followed by fires that sent numerous sheriff’s deputies to hospital. Authorities later described the explosions as “small pops”, with Arkema executive Richard Rennard saying it was impossible to know for sure what was happening with no employees left on the site.

“These things can burn very quickly and violently; it would not be unusual for them to explode,” he told media. But “we believe it hasn’t been a massive explosion; it’s just been these vapour release valves that popped” in one of nine, 36,000-pound (16,330-kilogram) box vans storing organic peroxides at the facility.

“We fully expect that the eight other containers will do the same thing,” he said. “We anticipate that all of this product is going to degrade; we don’t know exactly how long that’s going to take…it’s impossible to predict.”

A past Environmental Protection Agency study identified organic peroxides as skin and eye irritants that can also cause liver damage, the Post noted. While Long initially said a release from the plant would be “incredibly dangerous”, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez later told reporters the fumes created by the chemical reaction were “not anything toxic; it is not anything that we feel is a danger to the community at all.”

The reporting on chemical hazards got much more detailed and substantive on Grist, where New Republic climate specialist Emily Atkin pointed to the 25 chemical plants that have either shut down or had production disrupted due to the storm. “Those closures are not only disrupting markets,” Atkin wrote. “They’re also causing enormous releases of toxic pollutants that pose a threat to human health.”

The Chevron Phillips Chemical facility in Sweeny released more than 100,000 pounds of carbon monoxide, 22,000 pounds of nitrogen oxide, 32,000 pounds of ethylene, 11,000 pounds of propane, and a couple of thousand pounds of 1,3-butadiene, benzene, and butane, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ)—all far above legal limits. The Chevron plant at Cedar Bayou vented 28,000 pounds of carcinogenic benzene and 56,000 pounds of smog- and acid rain-producing oxides of nitrogen.

All told, Atkin writes, “industrial plants reported 74 excess air pollution release events to TCEQ, or nearly 60% more than the previous week. Those releases have so far totalled more than one million pounds of emissions above legal limits, according to Air Alliance Houston, an environmental non-profit that crunched the numbers.”

“The excess amount of air pollution puts communities in close proximity to these plants at risk, especially people with chronic health conditions,” said Alliance Executive Director Bakeyah Nelson.

While general media were inundated with news of evacuations, strandings, and the occasional chemical plant explosion, fossil industry publications focused mainly on disruptions to business as usual. On Rigzone, Reuters reported that Harvey had shut down 4.2 million barrels per day of refinery capacity, nearly equal to Japan’s daily consumption, including the country’s biggest refinery, the 600,000-barrel-per-day Motiva plant in Port Arthur. About 25% of the country’s gasoline production was curtailed, driving up gas futures prices by 16%., and “major pipelines carrying gasoline and diesel fuel to Midwest and East Coast markets have been either throttled back or shut due to reduced supply.”

“The continued increase in flooding creates high uncertainty on the amount of damage that U.S. refineries will incur, the pace at which the shutdown will reverse, and the magnitude of capacity that will be impaired over the next few months,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote.

In another Rigzone post, Bloomberg reported that prolonged shutdowns could put the West Texas shale boom at risk, leaving production from the oil fields with nowhere to go.

“With a number of refineries in the region closed by the storm, pipelines have fewer places to deliver oil carried from prolific West Texas shale basins,” Bloomberg noted. “When pipelines close, the refineries still open have less oil to process. Ultimately, producers may find their oil stranded with their route to the coast limited.”



in Cities & Communities, Climate Impacts & Adaptation, Environmental Justice, Health & Safety, Oil & Gas, Severe Storms & Flooding, Supply Chains & Consumption, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Keith Hirsche
Jobs & Training

Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta

June 29, 2022
346
London Eye UK England
Cities & Communities

London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty

June 29, 2022
103
Number 10/flickr
International Agencies & Studies

G7 Miss ‘Golden Opportunity’, Walk Back Pledge to Cut International Fossil Finance

June 29, 2022
116

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Keith Hirsche

Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta

June 29, 2022
346
François GOGLINS/wikimedia commons

Corrosion Problem Shutters Half of France’s Nuclear Reactors

June 29, 2022
131
David/flickr

U.S. Supreme Court Expected to Gut Emission Controls as Climate Scientists Petition for Plan B

June 26, 2022
1.2k
Number 10/flickr

G7 Miss ‘Golden Opportunity’, Walk Back Pledge to Cut International Fossil Finance

June 29, 2022
116
London Eye UK England

London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty

June 29, 2022
103
Danielle Scott/flickr

Advocate Urges Ottawa to Intervene Before Ontario Builds Highway 413

June 29, 2022
87

Recent Posts

AJEL / Pixabay

Windfall Tax on Food, Fossil, Pharma Giants Would Raise $490B to Solve ‘Catastrophic’ Food Crisis: Oxfam

June 29, 2022
48
futureatlas.com/flickr

Ottawa Demands Deeper Fuel Emissions Cuts, Offers Fossils a Double-Dip on Tax Breaks

June 29, 2022
72
Province of B.C./flickr

Comox Joins Municipalities Seeking Ban on New Gas Stations

June 29, 2022
58
/Piqsels

Refocus Agriculture Spending to Cut Emissions, Boost Productivity, OECD Urges Governments

June 29, 2022
25
Jimmy Emerson, DVM/flickr

Public Vigilance Key to Protecting Greenbelts for Climate Resilience, Report Finds

June 29, 2022
29
Miguel V/Wikimedia Commons

Forests Fall Short of Full Carbon Storage Potential, Study Finds

June 29, 2022
46
Next Post
Tracts of dead pines in northeastern Oklahoma forests hit hard by beetle infestation.

Killer beetle takes US forest destruction north

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}