Energy firms get pass on emissions
State suspends environmental rules for some
Texas has suspended certain environmental rules for oil and chemical companies during the coronavirus pandemic as the companies largely claim they do not have the staff on site to conduct tests or file reports.
Since March, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has provided more than 100 exemptions to environmental monitoring and inspection rules, including requirements to check facilities for harmful chemical leaks, according to state records.
The agency announced in early March it would allow companies to request temporary environmental rule suspensions if affected by COVID-19. Most companies receiving exemptions cited staffing limitations as they kept workers at home and prevented contractors from coming on site to reduce exposure to the coronavirus.
The bulk of requests sought extensions on deadlines to file environmental reports until workers are back in the office. But some companies, including Enterprise Products Partners, received approval to temporarily stop monitoring facilities for volatile organic com
pounds, which are gases that can contaminate groundwater and pose health risks as air pollution.
Gaps in monitoring could be harmful to the health of workers and residents of neighboring communities who may be left unaware of and exposed to chemical releases without their knowledge, environmental advocates assert.
“Moments of exposure (to harmful chemicals) cannot be undone,” said Adrian Shelley, director of the Texas office of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group. “If you end up with a locally toxic situation that isn’t discovered, you’re putting the neighborhood at risk.”
Since the policy was rolled out, the agency has received more than 140 requests and denied 10, according to TCEQ data. In a statement, the TCEQ said that the agency has not relaxed any limits on air emissions or discharges to water, and noted that the agency’s investigators are still responding to environmental complaints.
“Contractors are either not able to travel, or entities are limiting facility access for the safety of their workers,” said Andrew Keese, spokesperson for the TCEQ, in a statement. “Required monitoring is expected to be completed as soon as practical.”
Monitoring on hold
Enterprise Product Partners, a Houston pipeline, storage and transportation company, received five approvals to suspend its monitoring of volatile organic compound leaks at the company’s Mont Belvieu, Houston Ship Channel, Morgan’s Point, Houston, and Appelt Terminal facilities through the end of June.
The company said in its request that staff scheduling adjustments related to COVID-19 made it difficult to meet the monitoring requirement as the company stopped contractors — which include workers who perform environmental testing — from coming on site. The company wrote that excluding the contractors from the site is an “essential component in assuring Enterprise’s mission-critical personnel are healthy and available in sufficient numbers to continue to operate.”
Enterprise is also excluding visitors during the pandemic, according to the letter, and has placed employees on alternating shifts or instructed them to work from home if possible.
“The safety and wellbeing of Enterprise employees and contractors is our top priority,” Rick Rainey, spokesperson for Enterprise, said in a statement. “The request to the TCEQ is designed to protect essential operations personnel during the current pandemic by limiting contact with third parties.”
Rainey said that Enterprise will resume its reporting obligations when employees and contractors can work together safely.
Rollback poses risks
Air Liquide, a French chemical company with a U.S. subsidiary in Houston, received an exemption from performing quarterly monitoring of leaking chemical emissions from pressurized equipment until the end of June at its Freeport chemical plant.
The company’s request cited “limited contractor availability” due to COVID-19 as the reason the exemption was necessary. Air Liquide said in a statement that its vendor notified the company it would not be able to perform the monitoring as scheduled due to the virus outbreak.
“Air Liquide continues to be in compliance with regulatory requirements for the site and is fully committed to the safety and welfare of its employees,” said Cassandra Mauel, a company spokesperson.
But a lack of monitoring could mean a harmful chemical leak is not discovered as quickly, exposing workers and neighboring communities to excess emissions, said Shelley, of the Texas office of Public Citizen.
“We don’t quite know how companies are operating,” Shelley said. “There’s less oversight right now, and those are situations that can lead to accidents.”
If there is an accident, he added, there will be less information available to understand what happened and how to prevent it from happening again. “You never get that data back,” Shelley said.
TCEQ’s policies on monitoring, reporting and enforcement during the pandemic are similar to those adopted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which have also been criticized by environmentalists.
The TCEQ pushed back on criticisms last month, when TCEQ Chairman Jon Niermann wrote in an open letter that the agency did not issue a blanket suspension of rules as it did during other major disasters such as Hurricane Harvey.
The agency said in a statement that companies are obligated to follow the rules unless specifically exempted, and that leak monitoring is just one aspect of “an extensive program,” noting that other methods, such as monitoring of vent stack emissions and visual monitoring for flares and leaks, are ongoing.
Social distancing tech
Some companies proposed altering environmental monitoring practices during the pandemic. Exxon Mobil, the oil major headquartered in Irving, for example, received approval from the state to conduct inspections on leaking gases and vapors using optical gas imaging, a technology that uses infrared cameras for detecting leaks of industrial gases from afar, instead of the usual method of conducting the inspections with up-close gas detectors.
Exxon Mobil referred a request for comment to the Texas Oil and Gas Association. Todd Staples, president of the TXOGA, said in a statement that optical gas imaging is an effective tool for detecting emissions more rapidly, with fewer staff, and from a further distance.
Staples added that the TCEQ’s enforcement policy is necessary for companies to continue operating during the pandemic.
“The TCEQ outlined an enforcement process that is very transparent and appropriate for an unprecedented time in Texas,” Staples said.