Further blazes erupt at flooded chemical plant
Thick black smoke and towering orange flames shot up yesterday after two trailers of highly unstable compounds blew up at a flooded Houston-area chemical plant, the second fire there in two days.
Plant owner Arkema says Harvey’s floodwaters engulfed backup generators at the plant in Crosby and knocked out the refrigeration necessary to keep the organic peroxides, used in such products as plastics and paints, from degrading and catching fire.
Arkema executive Richard Rennard said two containers caught fire yesterday, and there were six more it expected would eventually catch fire.
Environmental Protection Agency spokesman David Gray said preliminary analysis of the data captured by the agency’s surveillance aircraft did not show high levels of toxic airborne chemicals. No serious injuries were reported as a result of the fires.
Texas A&M University chemical safety expert Sam Mannan said that the height and colour of the flames suggested incomplete combustion of the organic peroxides. With complete combustion, he said, the byproducts were carbon dioxide and water. But incomplete combustion implies something else is burning.
A 2.4-kilometre buffer zone around the plant was established on Wednesday when Arkema warned that chemicals kept there could explode. Employees were sent home, and up to 5000 people living nearby were warned to evacuate.
Arkema spokeswoman Janet Smith reiterated statements executives made earlier that the safest course of action was simply to ‘‘let these fires happen and let them burn out’’.
Arkema officials did not directly notify local emergency managers of the generator failure, Moreno said. It came instead by way of the plant’s ride-out crew, who told the Crosby Volunteer Fire Department about it when they were rescued during the hurricane, she said.
Arkema president and chief executive officer Rich Rowe apologised yesterday, and said he was sending a team of employees to Crosby to figure out how best to assist locals.
On Friday, two blasts blew open a trailer containing at least two tonnes of material, sending up a plume of black smoke and flames nine to 12 metres high.
Questions have been raised about the adequacy of Arkema’s master plan to protect the public in the event of an emergency in flood-prone Houston, a metropolitan area of about 6 million people.
In accident plans Arkema submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency in 2014, executives said a hurricane and a power loss were potential hazards. Yet the plans, which were supposed to address worst-case scenarios, didn’t explain what the company would do if faced with either.
State and federal regulators have cited Arkema for safety and environmental violations at the Crosby plant dating back more than a decade, records show.
Texas’s environmental commission has penalised the plant at least three times.
In June 2006, Arkema failed to prevent unauthorised emissions during a two-hour warehouse fire. Records show a pallet of organic peroxide was poorly stored, resulting in the blaze, and more than a tonne of volatile organic compounds was discharged.