Shell Oil Agrees to $115 Million Settlement for Clean Air Act Violations at Deer Park Refinery

Posted byHoumanitarian

THURSDAY TOP NEWS LINKS:

SHELL Terrence Henry, State Impact Texas
Federal agencies announced Wednesday that Shell Oil has agreed to pay $115 million to install pollution controls at their refinery and chemical plant in Deer Park, Texas to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Air Act. On top of that, the company will pay a $2.6 million civil penalty, and spend another million installing a monitoring system to detect benzene levels at the edges of the plant, which are near a neighborhood and school. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says those levels will be available to the public online.

The major spending for pollution controls will be on reducing and cleaning up flaring, a process where gases are burned off.  As StateImpact Texas has reported, flaring of waste near fenceline communities like the one in Deer Park is suspected to have detrimental health effects and in some cases create dangerous conditions. The EPA says Shell will “recover and recycle” waste gases (it isn’t clear how much), which the agency says is the first time a chemical refinery has agreed to do so.

EPA says the new agreement will reduce pollution and carbon dioxide emissions.
Read more at State Impact Texas

LOCAL AREA HEADLINES:

STATE HEADLINES: 

NATION & WORLD:

Enhanced by Zemanta