Photo credit: Dave Fehling
In 2018, Environment Texas and the Sierra Club settled a 2016 lawsuit filed against Pasadena Refining System, Inc. (PRSI), formerly owned by Brazilian oil company Petrobras, for its multiple violations of the Clean Air Act (CAA) in the highly polluted Houston Ship Channel. Between March 2018 and April 2019, PRSI has shown substantial, well-rounded improvements in reducing their pollution and strengthening their precautionary measures -- but the refinery still has a long way to go.
PRSI had been severely over-polluting the air for years by exceeding legal pollution limits of several toxins -- including particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) -- all of which pose severe health risks to nearby residents. The Pasadena refinery has a bad track record stretching back decades, partly due to the extremely lax enforcement by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s (TCEQ) Houston Region 12 office. In an effort to bring clean air and justice to the surrounding community, the Sierra Club and local citizens sued the refinery in 1996, when it was owned by Crown Petroleum, for 15,000 federal CAA violations involving SO2 and H2S violations under the New Source Performance Standards. These violations were reduced, but the refinery still had significant problems under Petrobras’s ownership. Lax enforcement continued to be a problem even where token fines and weak corrective remedies were ordered by the TCEQ.
The 2018 settlement produced a Consent Decree, under which PRSI is subject to several strict stipulations, such as pollution reporting and transparency, installing updated pollution monitoring equipment, operating within their permit limits, and demonstrating two consecutive years of “substantial compliance” on excess emissions. Substantial compliance means that PRSI must emit even less pollution than the low limits set by the decree (if PRSI over-pollutes in the two-year period, the two-year clock starts again).
As mandated by the Consent Decree, PRSI submitted a several-hundred page Annual Report to the National Environmental Law Center (NELC), which represented Environment Texas and the Sierra Club throughout the legal battle. NELC in turn created a summary of PRSI’s report with a positive bottom line:
“The Pasadena Refinery has dramatically reduced its upset emissions compared to the five years prior to the filing of the lawsuit, and has upgraded both equipment and operating procedures to reduce the likelihood of future emission violations.”
Take this, for example: PRSI released 92,994 pounds of unauthorized particulate matter in the year 2015, according to Environment Texas’ Breakdowns in Air Quality report. NELC’s summary shows that PRSI released just under 5,000 pounds of particulate matter between March 2018 and April 2019 -- proving that legal pressure and strong regulations can achieve staggering improvements in air quality. The report’s emission numbers equate to a more than 91% reduction in unauthorized emissions since the decree was enacted.
While these improvements are important, they are not enough. Even though emissions have been reduced significantly, PRSI’s legally authorized emissions still impact the surrounding communities. And the report summary discloses that PRSI still produced over 8,000 pounds of excess emissions (which includes particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and VOCs) during the Consent Decree’s first full year of implementation (triggering over $10,000 in stipulated penalties under the decree). This means that PRSI did not meet their two-year substantial compliance goal, so they will have to restart the two year period again.
Another significant stipulation set by the decree requires PRSI to genuinely investigate resident complaints -- which they’ve routinely ignored in the past. NELC’s summary states that “once PRSI is contacted and given information from the caller, an investigation of any complaint within two miles of the facility is initiated immediately.” Depending on PRSI’s findings, they will determine if the government or community ought to be notified and what necessary action must be taken. On top of that, PRSI must ask for the caller’s feedback.
The complaint hotline can be reached at (713) 472-4051 or via email at: PasadenaRefinery@chevron.com. Each is checked daily and the phone-line is answered 24 hours a day.
While this complaint hotline is in place, it seems as though many residents are unaware of it. Because of this, it might appear that residents have not made formal complaints, although not all neighboring communities are necessarily satisfied with PRSI’s improvements. The fact of the matter might also be that, even if PRSI stayed within their permitted pollution limits, they would still be causing harm. Even authorized pollution is unhealthy and can be harmful, especially since EPA and TCEQ pollution caps are already too generous.
Juan Flores, of Air Alliance Houston, told the Sierra Club that while many community members may be unhappy with PRSI’s activity, some are hesitant to speak out because they fear retribution. The power of big corporations, and their tendency to neglect community voices, has coerced some residents into remaining silent.
PRSI has created several plans, as required by the decree, to take proactive, preventative measures to reduce their pollution impact and to be compliant with OSHA’s Process Safety Management Requirements. For example, the company has implemented strategic plans for electrical grid failures (triggering plant emergencies), minimizing dumping pollution from elevated flares, and tracking and mitigating upset emission events (during which toxins substantially pollute the air in a short amount of time). The plant set a goal of just eight emission events for the year, which they were able to match.
Additionally, they’ve developed a Severe Weather Decision Guide, which is used to evaluate weather conditions that would directly affect their operations (and ultimately, release excess emissions). In view of Hurricane Harvey’s devastating effects in the greater Houston area that forced emergency shutdowns in several hundred industrial plants, this plan is critically imperative. If a hurricane were anticipated, PRSI must have a Post Hurricane Assessment Plan and a Recovery and Restoration Plan that would require thorough inspection of weather damages. Plants, including oil refineries, need to be more responsible in the steps they take to shut down during weather emergencies. Whether PRSI will adhere to their plans is yet to be seen -- we’ll be keeping a close watch as hurricane season unfolds.
Though this amount of progress seems promising, it was only achieved through the efforts and determination of citizen groups and pollution watchdogs. Had the Sierra Club, Environment Texas, and NELC not stepped in, PRSI would have never made the effort to work towards reducing their negative environmental impact, especially contributing to the poor air quality for citizens in Pasadena, Galena Park, and downwind communities. Not all of PRSI’s improvements hit their target goals, though.
“The significant reductions we’ve already seen in illegal emissions from the Pasadena Refinery simply proves, once again, that PRSI and the other petrochemical companies operating on the Gulf Coast will not make environmental compliance a priority unless they are forced to,” said Josh Kratka, Senior Attorney at the National Environmental Law Center, which represented Sierra Club in the lawsuit. “As long as the TCEQ and U.S. EPA fail to demand full compliance with the Clean Air Act, citizen groups will have to keep filling in the enforcement gap.”
Though they are still legally bound to the Consent Decree, PRSI was purchased from Petrobras by Chevron, an egregious serial polluter, on May 1, 2019. Chevron has committed apparent non-compliance with environmental regulations along the Gulf Coast, including in the city of Port Arthur. We will remain vigilant and continue to hold Chevron and PRSI accountable.