CRISIS/EPA/OBAMA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Explosions and fires at a Houston-area chemical plant triggered an evacuation Thursday [8-31-17] in a region still in chaos from Hurricane Harvey — and generated new criticism of President Donald Trump’s efforts to repeal the industry’s safety rules.
Thursday morning’s blasts at the plant came just a day after a federal court refused to force the Environmental Protection Agency to implement an Obama-era chemical safety regulation that the Trump administration has delayed until 2019. The site’s owner, Arkema, has complained about the burdens of the rule, which the EPA created after a 2015 explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant killed 15 people, injured about 200 others and destroyed hundreds of homes.
The rule in question probably wouldn’t have prevented Thursday’s explosions, but it’s aimed at reducing the likelihood of future accidents — and ensuring that emergency responders and the public know what types of dangerous substances they might be exposed to. Firefighters and other emergency crews lack much of that crucial information about the plants and factories now awash with floodwater…
Collapsed chemical tank roofs, machinery malfunctions and other accidents in the Houston area have sent more than 1,000 tons of dangerous chemicals into the air following days of pummeling from Harvey, according to a POLITICO analysis of incident filings with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Sometimes, toxic chemicals sit in huge storage tanks that border residents’ backyards…
The swath of the Gulf Coast that Harvey tore apart is home to more than 300 hazardous chemical sites, according to data from the Sierra Club, including more than 230 chemical plants and over 30 refineries. And just clearing the damage will pose health problems. Texas’ famously lax site regulations and inspection rates will make normally straightforward emergency response problematic, as firefighters and others may not know whether a storage site’s equipment is up to date or even what chemicals it’s storing, said Elena Craft, a senior health scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund in Austin.”
-Ben Lefebvre and Alex Guillen, “Houston left with a toxic mess as Trump relaxes rules,” Politico, Aug. 31, 2017 08:00pm