After a winter storm tore through Houston last week, the neighborhood of Manchester, like many others across the state, was left in the dark. For days after the storm, the community had no power, and nothing to light up the streets at night — save for a faint glow coming from the nearby Valero oil refinery. Through the night, the refinery’s flare towers lit up the neighborhood like enormous, flickering candles — and emitted thousands of pounds of pollutants.
Throughout Texas, as the storm approached and in its aftermath, refineries scrambled to burn excess natural gas in order to prevent damage to equipment. The winter storm in Texas was responsible for the emission of 3.5 million pounds of excess pollutants, across 200 industrial facilities, including oil refineries and petrochemical plants, due to the impacts of freezing conditions. Pollutants emitted included benzene, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, and sulfur dioxide, according to data provided by the polluting facilities to the Texas Commission on Environment Quality. Between Sunday and Monday of last week, the Valero refinery in Manchester emitted 6,468 pounds of carbon monoxide along with 3,314 pounds of sulfur dioxide and 1,156 pounds of nitrogen oxide — pollutants that cause coughing and throat irritation, asthma attacks, and higher risk of heart disease or exacerbated heart disease. “These emissions can dwarf the usual
— source grist.org | Alexandria Herr | Feb 24, 2021