Arkema’s disaster response in contrast
Another company moved chemicals ahead of flooding
Arkema’s Crosby facility and another chemical company 30 miles away both shut down operations when Hurricane Harvey rolled in Aug. 25 — but documents indicate their response to the rising waters was different.
In Pasadena, officials with AkzoNobel Polymer Chemistry worked diligently to remove about 122,000 pounds of chemicals from their site, including about 67,000 pounds that were sent about 1,500 miles north to safety in upstate New York.
In Crosby at Arkema, repeated failures of systems led to multiple explosions and fires, releasing toxic chemicals into the air and resulting in a criminal indictment for the company, as well as two of its executives.
AkzoNobel’s procedure, outlined in about 50 pages of documents and emails recently filed in Harris County’s criminal case against Arkema, show the stark contrast between how the two companies handled the disaster.
But Rusty Hardin, Arkema’s attorney, said the two aren’t comparable.
“The fact that one plant in another section of the city, with perhaps a different flooding situation” historically, shipped out their materials has no bearing, Hardin said. “You don’t judge recklessness by what someone else did. It requires you to prove the mindset of the people you are charging.”
He added that Arkema didn’t move the chemicals, in part, for fear of what might happen in transit if a road was flooded or there was a traffic jam.
“I don’t personally think most people in the industry would agree that the safe thing to do is have (the chemicals) out on the highways during a major hurricane,” he said.
In removing the chemicals, AkzoNobel was following its 17-page Hurricane Preparedness Plan, which states that the company will remove “as much refrigerated product from the site as possible” during a Category 3 or greater storm, court documents show.
Preparation for the removal began the day before, on Aug. 24, documents indicate.
In an email sent at 2:39 p.m. Aug. 24, Elaine Sampaio, Akzo-
Nobel’s supply chain manager, told several other employees that the company already was implementing phase 3 of its plan, which involved removing the chemicals.
“At this time, while we have a very short time till we find out if we are going to have a hurricane or not, we already know we shall expect flooding and potential loss of power at the site,” Sampaio wrote. “Due to this, we have decided to stop production and clear the plants now to be empty by Friday.”
The chemicals were shipped the next day, Aug. 25, to an AkzoNobel facility in Burt, New York, according to the documents.
By contrast, federal documents show that Arkema wasn’t even prepared for a much smaller flood, despite being partially in a flood plain. The company’s emergency plan provided little direction to employees on how to handle major floods, and as a result, it couldn’t keep combustible organic peroxides cool. Its main power transformers and backup generators were not high enough off the ground. Neither was its backup liquid nitrogen cooling system.
And Arkema’s last line of defense failed when water inundated the fuel tanks that power freezer trucks. Over the next week, nine trailers of organic peroxides erupted in flames, sending pillars of fire and thick plumes of black smoke into the air. More than six first-responders were sickened, according to civil suits filed against the company.
Earlier this month, a Harris County grand jury charged Arkema and two of its executives, CEO Richard Rowe and plant manager Leslie Comardelle, with reckless emission of an air contaminant under the Texas Water Code. The charge carries a penalty of up to five years in prison for the individuals and a fine of up to $1 million for the corporation.
Rowe and Comardelle made their initial appearance last week in Harris County District Court, where bail was set at $20,000 each.
Both individuals will continue working for the company despite the charges, and Arkema is paying their legal fees, the company said. Even though the company was also indicted, last week’s proceedings focused solely on the two executives. The next court hearing is set for Oct. 22.
At the Aug. 6 hearing, Hardin called the charges “tremendously unfortunate,” adding that Arkema had a hurricane preparedness plan.
“This is the most outrageous, dumbest, wrong, unfair indictment I’ve ever encountered in my 43 years of dealing with the criminal justice system,” Hardin said, adding that he’s “comfortable” that a jury will find the two executives not guilty.
The last time a chemical company faced criminal charges for a major incident in Texas was 2005, when an explosion at BP’s Texas City refinery killed 15 workers and injured almost 200. BP paid $50 million in fines for the incident, but no one from the company served prison time.
Hardin said he believes the AkzoNobel documents were filed by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office as a “publicity play.”
“This was done to generate stories and justify their indictment,” he said. “It is that company’s conduct that they have cited in the indictment as somehow supporting (Arkema) being reckless … it has absolutely nothing to do with what they have to prove to show that (Arkema) was reckless.”