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ExxonMobil’s accident-prone complex in Baton Rouge.
“Oops.”
Gulf Coast oil refiners and chemical processors say that a lot, but regulators are doing precious little to rein in what the industry euphemistically calls “upset” emissions.
Upset emissions are inadvertent releases of chemicals by industrial operations when something goes awry. And things seem to go awry awfully frequently. An ExxonMobil refinery in Baton Rouge, La., was averaging two accidental releases every week during one grim stretch.
That’s according to an analysis by The Center for Public Integrity, which found that upset emissions are more prevalent than industry admits or government knows. Some highlights from the center’s investigative report:
[A 411-barrel chemical leak last year] has played out again and again at the sprawling, 2,400-acre ExxonMobil Baton Rouge complex, which encompasses an oil refinery and a chemical plant, and dwarfs the Standard Heights community. The leak marks the 1,068th upset emissions event at the compound in the last eight years, according to a database of incident reports compiled by the Bucket Brigade. Of these events, 172 involved benzene, a carcinogen that can trigger headaches, dizziness and rapid heart rate.
Exxon’s chemical plant had 265 of all incidents. At the refinery, the data show 803 accidental releases over these years; at its height, the facility averaged two a week. …
The steady hazards extend far beyond Baton Rouge. In the Gulf states of Texas and Louisiana, the vast number of plastics, power and gas plants provide an on-the-ground case study of a national problem.
“Non-routine” upset emissions have become regular occurrences at oil refineries, chemical plants and manufacturing facilities.
The upset emissions can pose serious health risks, but the oil and chemical companies say there’s nothing to worry about.
Dr. Mark D’Andrea, at the University of Texas Cancer Center, began tracking 4,000 residents exposed to the poster child of all upsets — the “40-day Release” at the BP refinery, in Texas City, which belched 514,795 pounds of benzene and 20 other pollutants throughout the spring of 2010. Earlier this year, D’Andrea unveiled preliminary data showing the residents have “significantly higher” white-blood cell and platelet counts than their Houston counterparts. The data suggests BP’s release may have increased their risk of developing such cancers as leukemia, the doctor says.
In a statement, BP says it does “not believe any negative health impacts resulted from” its 40-day release. “To our knowledge, the University Cancer Centers’ pilot study does not support a claim for any plaintiff alleging injury from that flaring and has no relevance to those claims,” the company wrote, referring to pending litigation filed by 47,830 residents and workers against BP alleging health ailments caused by the release. D’Andrea has not been hired as an expert witness for either side in the case, but has testified in pre-trial discovery.
For more, read the full report in all its grotesque glory.
John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who
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Gulf Coast refineries accidentally belch out a lot of chemical pollution
Daniel McGowan
Environmental activist Daniel McGowan is out of prison, but he’s not out of the woods. He was incarcerated for seven years for his alleged involvement in arson at an Oregon lumber company, then thrown back in prison for writing about how his beliefs got him branded a terrorist. He’s now been released, but only after being told he can’t publish his opinions or talk to the press.
McGowan is the central figure in the 2012 Oscar-nominated documentary If a Tree Falls, which details the lead-up to his prison sentence for arson credited to the Earth Liberation Front. He was released this past December to a halfway house in New York City.
McGowan spent more than two years of his sentence in a Communication Management Unit (CMU), where his contact with the outside world through letters and phone calls was highly restricted. In a piece published in The Huffington Post on April 1, McGowan explains how he ended up in the CMU: The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) didn’t like what he was writing about environmental activism from his cell. “In short, based on its disagreement with my political views, the government sent me to a prison unit from which it would be harder for me to be heard, serving as a punishment for my beliefs,” he writes. McGowan learned these details after filing a lawsuit on behalf of himself and other CMU prisoners. Through the lawsuit, the BOP was forced to reveal some damning internal memos. McGowan:
The following speech is listed in these memos to justify my designation to these ultra-restrictive units:
My attempts to “unite” environmental and animal liberation movements, and to “educate” new members of the movement about errors of the past; my writings about “whether militancy is truly effective in all situations”; a letter I wrote discussing bringing unity to the environmental movement by focusing on global issues; the fact that I was “publishing [my] points of view on the internet in an attempt to act as a spokesperson for the movement”; and the BOP’s belief that, through my writing, I have “continued to demonstrate [my] support for anarchist and radical environmental terrorist groups.”
On April 4, three days after McGowan’s post was published, the BOP responded by — what else? — throwing him back in prison for talking about what he wasn’t supposed to talk about.
From McGowan’s attorneys at the Center for Constitutional Rights:
He was issued an “incident report” indicating that his Huffington Post blog post violated a BOP regulation prohibiting inmates from “publishing under a byline.” The BOP regulation in question was declared unconstitutional by a federal court in 2007, and eliminated by the BOP in 2010. On Friday, April 5, after we brought Daniel’s unjust detention to the BOP’s attention, he was released from [Metropolitan Detention Center], and the incident report was expunged.
McGowan’s attorneys described the situation as ”difficult, disturbing and ridiculous.” But it didn’t end there. The Huffington Post reports:
Upon being released, McGowan was forced to sign a document stating that “writing articles, appearing in any type of television or media outlets, news reports and/or documentaries without prior BOP approval is strictly prohibited.” Violating that agreement, which he signed under duress, might mean going back to jail.
After HuffPo contacted BOP about the issue, the bureau backpedaled. “He’s not prohibited from doing that,” said Lamine N’Diaye, a BOP public information officer. She told HuffPo that if McGowan writes another blog post, “he’s not going to be punished.”
But the situation is chilling, and not just for McGowan. Regardless of what might have landed him in prison in the first place, we all still supposedly enjoy First Amendment protections of our political speech. At least for now — full Green Scare pending.
Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for
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Jailed for eco-activism, and then jailed for blogging about eco-activism
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Here’s one way to stop global warming: SMASH CAPITALISM!
That is how I choose to read a study released this week by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, which found that switching to a “more European” work schedule, i.e. working fewer hours and taking more vacation, could prevent as much as half of “global warming that is not already locked in.” From U.S. News:
“The relationship between [shorter work hours and lower emissions] is complex and not clearly understood, but it is understandable that lowering levels of consumption, holding everything else constant, would reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” writes economist David Rosnick, author of the study. Rosnick says some of that reduction can be attributed to fewer operating hours in factories and other workplaces that consume high levels of energy. …
Rosnick says a move toward the European system would result in a trade-off of up to one quarter of income gains in exchange for increased leisure time and vacation. His best-case scenario, which predicts prevention of up to a 1.3 degree Celsius temperature increase, assumes that Americans would begin working about 0.5 percent less each year, starting with a 10-hour reduction in 2013. “We can get a similar amount of work done as productivity and technology improves,” he says. “It’s something we have to decide as a country—there are economic models in which individuals get to decide their hours and are still similarly productive as they are now.”
Rosnick didn’t consider the impact of telecommuting, so it’s not clear how emissions might be affected by fewer people driving to their workplaces, or by companies expecting telecommuters to put in longer hours.
But if everyone did work less, that could mean reductions in all kinds of pollution and pillaging. I don’t see “Smash Capitalism!” catching on at Chevron, though. Maybe “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Capitalism”?
Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for
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Vile scourge/cheap energy producer.
When I started writing this post, the ticker on the homepage of Peabody Energy, the largest private-sector coal company in the world, indicated that it has sold 970,470 tons of coal so far in 2013. Can’t find the ticker? It’s down there next to the “Environmental Responsibility” box. Yes, really.
An activist group has filed a lawsuit against Emerald Coal Resources, citing extensive pollution in southwestern Pennsylvania. From the Associated Press:
The Center for Coalfield Justice, based in Washington, Pa., filed the federal lawsuit Friday in Pittsburgh against Emerald Coal Resources LP, which operates the Emerald Mine in Waynesburg, Greene County. The citizens’ group is being backed by the Earthrise Law Center in Norwell, Mass.
The lawsuit contends Emerald Coal has violated pollution levels for iron, manganese, aluminum and other pollutants more than 120 times in the past 12 months and more than 400 times in the past five years. The group is basing those claims on violations the company has been self-reporting to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection under Emerald’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit as part of the federal Clean Water Act.
The parent company for Emerald is Alpha Natural Resources, which recently announced plans to shut a number of mines.
972,199 tons … 972,283 tons …
In Virginia, meanwhile, a report outlines how the state’s investment in coal energy is not paying off.
From WAMU radio:
Environmentalists have long criticized Virginia coal companies for their impact on air quality, but a new report suggests there are economic reasons to stop mining.
In the report, Appalachian Voices, a nonprofit environmental organization, found Virginia gives coal companies more in tax breaks than the state receives from them in taxes.
Virginia pays a net amount of about $22 million to the coal industry every year, according to Appalachian Voices Director Tom Cormons. The figure takes into account all taxes the industry pays to the state, he said.
The full report [PDF] articulates how the state of Virginia helps keep the state’s remaining mines open.
Coal’s importance for Virginia is not likely to grow in the future based on the declining competitiveness of Virginia coal resulting from the depletion of the lowest-cost coal reserves. Additionally, new regulations and technology requirements related to air emissions and tighter restrictions on surface mining are also likely to impact Virginia coal production, although to what extent is unknown. Should this occur, coal’s contribution to the Commonwealth’s budget and state and local economies will likely diminish.
Virginia’s increasingly poor investment in coal.
Peabody Energy sold 8,000 tons of coal in the time it took me to articulate today’s reasons why we shouldn’t be extracting or subsidizing coal at all. Take a look at Peabody’s ticker right now and share the current count in comments below. Then weep.
Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.
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The new LEED-certified 7 World Trade Center is much less energy efficient than older buildings.
Here’s a tip for Manhattan building owners looking to build as energy-efficiently as possible: Build your structure 100 years ago.
New York City’s recently-implemented law mandating that buildings report energy use has revealed that the city’s best performers are often not its newest additions. From the Times:
Older buildings tend to have higher Energy Star scores because they have thicker walls, fewer windows and less ventilation — superior “thermal envelopes,” as a report on the early results puts it. They are also less suited to energy-gobbling activities like computer data crunching, the downfall of some youthful but middling performers. …
Unlike cities that depend heavily on automobiles, New York racks up most of its carbon dioxide emissions — nearly 80 percent — in heating and cooling buildings. Tracking this energy use is deemed crucial to meeting the city goal of cutting overall emissions by about a third by 2030, to slash costs and fight climate change.
New York’s largest buildings — just 2 percent of the roughly one million buildings in the city — account for 45 percent of the energy expended by the entire building stock.
We took the data — which is available online — and mapped it by address. (We chose to use greenhouse gas emissions, since the metric used by the Times, its Energy Star rating, had far fewer data points. Clicking an address will reveal both its GHG emissions and efficiency rating.)
If you zoom in on Manhattan (the densest cluster of buildings) you can see that locations in Midtown, just south of Central Park, have higher GHG emissions (indicated by more red in the pie charts).
One of the factors in the energy scores is who’s using the building’s energy.
The disclosure law exempts buildings in which more than 10 percent of the space is devoted to trading floors, data centers and other energy-intensive activities.
Yet work spaces that hum 24/7 seem nonetheless to have played into the results, including [LEED-certified] 7 World Trade Center’s score.
“Seventy-four is good, but I was initially surprised that three of our older buildings scored higher than 7 World Trade Center, and it had to do principally with tenancy,” said John Lieber, who oversees buildings at ground zero for Silverstein Properties. He noted that 7 World Trade Center’s tenants included firms like Moody’s, the financial rating agency.
The higher-efficiency-scoring properties he alluded to — 120 Wall Street, the Equitable Building at 120 Broadway and 570 Seventh Avenue — house nonprofit groups, modeling agencies and other tenants whose needs are of the basic light-switch variety, he said.
(It is our understanding that some nonprofit groups also use the internet; we will update this article once we can confirm that.)
These data may become more useful over time, as indicators of how buildings have improved their efficiency scores or as a means of tracking how neighborhoods have gotten better or declined. For now, we must be content with what we’ve already learned: the greenest building in New York is a windowless one built in 1920 that is home to a modeling agency that never turns on its lights.
City’s Law Tracking Energy Use Yields Some Surprises, New York Times
Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.
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New York’s energy-efficiency survey suggests that older is often better
This is the most calm the Forest Service’s active fire map has looked all year.
After all, here was the year 2012 in fires, as compiled by NASA.
From the description: “Areas of yellow and orange indicate larger and more intense fires, while many of the less intense fires, shown in red, represent prescribed burns started for brush clearing and agriculture and ecosystem management.” Click to embiggen.
Through August, the continental U.S. had seen the most acreage burned by wildfires in history. Happily, that trend didn’t continue. We only came in second.
Data from
National Interagency Fire Center
.
2012 was actually not a bad year for fires as discrete incidents. But notice how few fires did all of that damage. As we noted over the summer, the link between fire intensity and climate change isn’t direct. Clearly, though, the year’s epic drought meant drier conditions — and such drought is strongly correlated to climatic shifts. So it’s not surprising to see that this year’s fires were the most intense in a decade.
Data from
National Interagency Fire Center
.
It’s this acres-burned-per-fire number that we don’t want to see rising in the future. Let’s hope this year is an aberration — particularly those of us who live near wildlands.
Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.
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2012 saw the fewest wildfires in a decade — but the second-most acres burned ever
Libros
