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ChevronPhillips fined $168,000
Published January 30, 2009
SWEENY — Texas environmental regulators have fined ChevronPhillips $168,416 for 29 violations at its Sweeny facility, one of three industrial sites in Brazoria County to be fined this week.
The fine against ChevronPhillips was approved Wednesday after a 2006 investigation uncovered the violations, which ranged from emissions to record-keeping, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality spokeswoman Andrea Morrow said.
Dow Chemical Co.’s Freeport site, Texas Operations, received a $30,000 fine for failure to prevent unauthorized emissions on three occasions. INEOS’ facility near Liverpool also was fined $2,625 for emissions releases.
“Basically, what they do is they take the severity of the damage done, how quickly they responded to correcting the problem and whether or not there is a past history of problems,” Morrow said. “There are a number of factors involved.”
The commission designated $84,208 of ChevronPhillips’ penalty go toward the county’s Clean Cities/Clean Vehicle program, according to the commission’s petition against the ConocoPhillips subsidiary. The program, created in 1994, seeks cost-effective, alternative fuel solutions in the Houston area, such as retrofitting or replacing older diesel buses.
About $15,000 of Dow’s fine will also go toward the program.
The TCEQ’s petition stated ChevronPhillips’ fine was warranted because site officials failed to prevent volatile organic compound emissions for a five-hour period on two days in 2005. Also, they did not repair components that leaked more than 10,000 parts per million of the same compounds the same year.
“It is ChevronPhillips Chemical’s practice to comply with all environmental laws and regulations,” company spokesman Brian Cain said in an e-mailed statement. “As technology improves, we continue to get closer to our goal: To make our products with as little impact to the environment as possible. We seek to continuously improve by learning from our experience and those of others, and by applying scientific, economic and technical analysis to adopt best practices.”
Also, site officials failed to monitor 14 leaky valves for more than one month in 2005 and did not properly monitor workers conducting maintenance on 13 components at the site that year, the petition states. They also failed to maintain and repair seals throughout the site that were reported in late 2005.
Other penalties included a failure to create final records of emission events within two weeks of them happening and not identifying leaky components, according to the petition.
Dow’s fine stemmed from a failure to prevent emissions releases that were deemed avoidable on May 4, Aug. 8 and Sept. 19, 2007, according to the commission’s petition against that company.
Dow spokeswoman Tracie Copeland said the releases were small amounts of ethylene and propylene at two plants and its marine terminal. She said Dow self-reported each event.
“We take environmental protection seriously,” Copeland said. “Air quality monitors are key indicators of that commitment. We report every release and ensure that we investigate those to minimize them in the future.”
The commission fined INEOS for the unauthorized release of 1,365 pounds of propylene and 87 pounds of propane due to a weak seal at the facility, the commission’s petition against that company states.
The TCEQ’s next meeting is Feb. 11.
Nathaniel Lukefahr covers industry for The Facts. Contact him at (979) 237-0151.
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