Texas’ Gulf Coast still at risk of chem crisis
It has been two years since Hurricane Harvey and the explosions that rocked the Arkema plant in Crosby, and we are once again at the height of hurricane season. Just last spring, there were four substantial chemical fires in the Houston area within the space of five months.
What have regulators and the chemical industry done over the past two years to ensure we don’t see a repeat of 2017? Considering the fires this past spring, there is little visible evidence that we are ready for another Harvey.
We’ve been lucky, but recent satellite images of Hurricane Dorian are a reminder that we are unlikely to remain so forever. Legislators and industry have made efforts to address the risk, but there is little to show for it. As industry infrastructure is expanding rapidly along the Gulf
Coast to serve growing production and exports, we can’t afford to wait.
The blazes at International Terminals Co., KMCO and two at Exxon Mobil were different from what happened during and after Harvey, which exposed deficiencies in systems engineered to avoid just such chemical failures. But with 4,100 storage tanks along the Houston Ship Channel, according to research by one of my colleagues at the University of Houston, the performance and resilience of those tanks is of paramount importance.
A report by the PENTA Consortium LLC commissioned by Harris County earlier this year offered another metric: 110 chemical facilities in Harris County have hazardous chemical inventories in excess of 10 million pounds. More than 75,000 people live within half a mile of these facilities.
The Arkema plant offered a dramatic example of what can go wrong. When Harvey’s floodwaters knocked out electrical power, chemicals that required freezing conditions to remain stable began to heat up, exploding on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, 2017.
That wasn’t all. According to the industry’s own reporting to the state, 8.3 million pounds of unpermitted air pollution was released during and after Harvey due to electrical outages, unanticipated shutdowns, equipment malfunctions and the failure of storage tanks. More than 15 storage tanks holding crude oil, gasoline and other hydrocarbons and outfitted with floating roofs designed to rise and fall with the volume of their contents failed, resulting in 3.1 million pounds of pollutants released into the atmosphere.
There have been some efforts to address the problems. The state Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Economic Development submitted an interim report to the Texas Legislature last December and recommended retrofitting all existing external floating-roof tanks with geodesic dome covers. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality estimated there are about 1,500 such tanks along a 50-mile stretch of the Gulf Coast, with retrofitting costs ranging from $500,000 to $1.6 million per tank. It said it doesn’t have authority to require the change.
State Sens. Carol Alvarado D-Houston, and Nathan Johnson D-Dallas, filed Senate Bill 1446 earlier this year, addressing some of the challenges. The bill never made it out of committee.
We know how to reduce the risks but plans to do so have not been implemented.
Industry is addressing some of the challenges. For example, Kinder Morgan is investing more than over $170 million at Houstonarea facilities to reduce the risk of spills, accidents and fires.
But there is much more to do, and the risk is growing all along the Texas coast. Chemical infrastructure and crude-export terminals are sprouting in Corpus Christi, meaning there will be a massive increase in chemical storage capacity near the coast. An additional 4 million barrels of crude oil per day will enter that market during the next three years.
We know the Texas coast is vulnerable to hurricanes, and while the track record for chemical storage may be improving, it remains a matter of serious public concern. Strengthening the safety protocols required of new chemical storage facilities built along the Gulf Coast would be a start toward regaining public trust.
A strong partnership between industry and the federal and state governments – perhaps led by the Chemical Safety Board, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality — could make it happen.
We know the Texas coast is vulnerable to hurricanes, and while the track record for chemical storage may be improving, it remains a matter of serious public concern. Strengthening the safety protocols required of new chemical storage facilities built along the Gulf Coast would be a start toward regaining public trust.