Report: Texas industrial plants spewing toxic pollution illegally

Hundreds of industrial facilities across Texas are illegally spewing millions of pounds of toxic pollutants into the air each year when they break down or perform maintenance, and state environmental regulators are not adequately policing the rogue emissions, according to a report released last week.

The report by the Washington D.C.-based Environmental Integrity Project and Austin-based Environment Texas — titled “Breakdowns in Air Quality” — found that 679 facilities from the Beaumont/Port Arthur area to rural West Texas emitted more than 68 million pounds of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, benzene and other toxic substances last year during more than 3,400 incidents of breakdown or maintenance. The organizations compiled the report by analyzing emissions reports in online databases maintained by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state’s environmental regulatory agency.

The report asserts that the vast majority of the 2015 emissions were illegal because they exceeded the maximum emissions facilities are allowed under state and federal air permits. Companies have argued that emissions during maintenance, start-up and shutdown events aren’t illegal and that they do everything necessary under federal and state law to minimize the breaches, which they say are unavoidable.

The report found that facilities in the Houston area accounted for the largest share of 2015 emissions, discharging 5 million pounds of pollutants. Dow Chemical’s plant in Freeport accounted for the highest share — nearly 1.3 million pounds.

The facility with the single highest emissions rate in the state was the Keystone Gas Plant in West Texas’ Winkler County, the report says. In 2014, that plant emitted 11 million pounds of sulfur dioxide, which causes smog. Its air permit limits sulfur dioxide emissions to 1.6 million pounds of sulfur dioxide.

State penalties for such events are too infrequent and too low, the report says.

“Fines imposed by the state are often very small in comparison to the cost to public health and the profits generated by the industry,” it concludes.

This story was originally published April 27, 2016 at 11:31 AM with the headline "Report: Texas industrial plants spewing toxic pollution illegally."