Hurricane Harvey has been downgraded from a Category 4 hurricane to a tropical depression as it moves over Louisiana and into Mississippi. In Houston, floodwaters have begun to recede, revealing corpses and mass devastation. Texas officials say at least 44 people have been killed by the storm. Nearly 100,000 homes are damaged by flooding. More than 30,000 people remain in shelters. Health officials are taking steps to minimize the spread of diseases such as cholera and typhoid, and nearly 150,000 homes have been told to boil their water. East of Houston, in hard-hit Beaumont, drinking water is completely shut off, and emergency workers are evacuating Beaumont’s main hospital. Meanwhile, flooding continues in North Houston as the Neches River surged beyond its banks and is expected to rise another foot by Friday afternoon.
This comes as a chemical plant about 25 miles northeast of Houston, in Crosby, that’s swamped by about six feet of water, was rocked by two explosions early Thursday morning that sent thick black smoke into the air. The facility produces highly volatile chemicals known as organic peroxides, and at least 10 sheriff’s deputies went to the hospital after inhaling fumes. Officials had already evacuated residents within a one-and-a-half-mile radius of the plant in Crosby after it lost primary and backup power to its coolant system. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez insisted in an early-morning press conference that the plant had not exploded, describing the event as a “pop” followed by smoke. But Federal Emergency Management Agency head—that’s FEMA head—Brock Long said a plume of chemicals leaking from the plant is “incredibly dangerous.”
This comes as the company, Arkema, has refused to state precisely which chemicals are produced or how many of them are still on site at the time of the explosions. During a call with reporters, Arkema CEO Richard Rowe said the company expected the chemicals on site to catch fire or explode, and admitted it is a way to prevent a fire or potential—it has no way to prevent a fire or potential explosion near the plant.
Matt Dempsey talking:
yesterday around 8:30 or 9:00, the company sent me a list of the names of the chemicals, but that is not a Tier II. In fact, I sent a really pretty angry email back saying, “This is not helpful. This is not what we asked for.” And the reason why I want that Tier II chemical inventory is because it has the amounts of the chemicals, and it will tell you what kind of containers those chemicals are contained in. And I’ve also asked for like a map of the facility. Yesterday, at the press conference in the morning, they told—they assured me that they would provide a Tier II. They assured me they’d provide a map of the facility. I have gotten neither of those things. I have asked for—a bunch of other questions that remain unanswered.
So, the Tier II is a chemical inventory that’s required under the—under EPCRA. It’s the Emergency Preparedness and Community Right-to-Know Act, I believe. So, that requires companies who have certain types of materials—it’s pretty broad—to send a list of what chemicals they have, the names of them, a chemical index code, the amounts of them, where they’re located, what kind of containers they’re in, to local law enforcement, to the state, to local emergency planning committees. And it’s supposed to be used for emergency preparedness.
there is a federal right-to-know law, but that federal right-to-know law has a clause in it that says it can’t override any state law. And nationwide, not just in Texas, though it’s been particularly bad in Texas, that law has been chipped at—right-to-know has been chipped away by states, making it harder and harder to get access to these chemicals. So, I can ask. I can ask questions. I can bug the company. I can send emails and make calls to the state and other agencies. But it’s just very difficult to make any progress, because they’ve made it so that they can use terrorism as—the threat of terrorism as an excuse, in Texas, to shut down access to most chemical inventories.
And my concern—my concern continues to be not the organic peroxides exploding and catching fire, which is dangerous. My concern is there are tanks of sulfur dioxide and isobutylene that are very large tanks. In their worst-case scenario report that they filed with the—that Arkema filed with the EPA, that said that, you know, if that stuff ruptures, then we have a really serious problem on our hands. I know people think this is serious. It is. But if that stuff goes out, gets released, then you have a very, very big problem.
So, I keep asking Arkema, “Where are the tanks?” They say they’re in a remote area far away from the organic peroxides. So I’ve specifically asked, “How many feet away?” That’s why I asked for a map of the facility. “Can you show me where the organic peroxides are and where the tanks are, so I can reassure people, more than just ’They’re far away’?” You know, and they’ve refused to have done that at this point.
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Matt Dempsey
data reporter with the Houston Chronicle.
— source democracynow.org