County burns last 6 Arkema chemical containers.
Company ends the waiting game in a ‘very safe manner,’ official says
CROSBY — The remaining six containers of chemicals at Arkema’s facility were eradicated Sunday to prevent damage from “spreading into the surrounding area,” environmental officials said.
The decision put an end to what had been a waiting game for the community of 2,300. The company had been allowing the containers to explode on their own for the past several days after residents within a 1.5-mile radius of the facility were evacuated from their homes.
Until Sunday, company officials said that strategy was the safest way to manage the volatile organic peroxides.
The Harris County Fire Marshal’s Office managed the controlled burn but declined to explain what was done to set the material on fire, citing “safety and security aspects of the operations.” First responders were in the area but outside evacuation radius, said Rachel Moreno, the fire marshal’s spokeswoman.
“We did it in a very safe manner,” she said.
Arkema is a maker of organic peroxides used to make plastics. The material must be stored in cool temperatures or it can explode. The company’s facility lost power last week during Hurricane Harvey, which knocked out the primary supply and backup generators and forced employees to move the organic peroxides into nine box vans with cooling systems that soon began to fail.
Soon after, an evacuation was ordered, putting the northeast Harris County town of Crosby in suspense. The first container began to burn early Thursday; two more ignited on Friday. The public was not told about the decision to burn the remaining containers until after operations began on Sunday.
John Rull was sitting on his porch in Newport, about 3 miles from the facility, when he heard the two big booms, back to back. Another boom shook the skies about 30 seconds later, he said, and several minutes later, he
heard a fourth.
Suddenly, black smoke started to unfurl, covering a wide span of the sky. Half an hour later, the black smoke lingered.
Rull, 30, had been jolted by the explosion on Friday. Sunday’s series were louder and created much more smoke, he said.
“We’re just hoping it’s all over and done with now,” Rull said. “We’ve been on pins and needles waiting to see if we’d have to leave.”
‘Quite a lot to do’
Many residents have been critical of the company and state officials for not sharing more details about the situation at the plant.
This week, the company and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality refused to provide a chemical inventory of the plant to the public.
While the Environmental Protection Agency did air monitoring at the site, it did not release the data from those monitors. The EPA did say the monitoring showed there were no “toxic concentrations” away from the evacuated zone.
Ashley Lovelace, 26, who lives outside the evacuation zone, wonders why the company didn’t destroy the containers sooner.
“I feel like it’s been dragging on too much,” she said.
Arkema said it decided to destroy the chemicals Sunday because they failed to catch fire. Without the burning out, the company wouldn’t be able to determine if the area was safe, company spokesman Jeff Carr said.
“There’s quite a lot to do, and nothing’s going to happen until the chemicals burn down,” he said.
‘100 percent safe’
Authorities haven’t said when families will be able to move back into their homes or when the company would return to the site. Carr said flooding around the plant had diminished by Sunday afternoon.
“Once the fire has gone out, they’ll go in and make sure the air quality is good, the water quality is good, and then it’ll be a process of letting people know that they can come back in,” Moreno said. “But they won’t be back until it is 100 percent safe for them to go back.”