Refinery Reform Campaign

Contact:
Hilton Kelley, CIDA: 409-498-1088 or
Denny Larson, RRC: 800-670-3841.

PORT ARTHUR EPA TOXIC AIR TESTS DURING UNUSUAL PERIOD WHEN POLLUTERS HAD NO UPSETS

Same Month Plants Dumped Hundreds of Thousands Pounds of Toxics, But Cleaned Up Their Act When Warned of EPA Testing

(Port Arthur, Texas) Community leaders cried foul over questionable conclusions being drawn by EPA officials regarding air tests done with a special bus in January 2003. EPA violated its own protocols by apparently warning polluters that the testing bus was coming and thereby rendered the results questionable at best. A review of TCEQ records show that the four day period was an unusual one in which no major upsets occurred. The test results do show a constant release of dozens of harmful chemicals for which the state has set no safe levels of exposure.

"During the month of January 2003, the industries that surround the Westside of Port Arthur dumped over 200,000 pounds of dangerous toxic chemicals into our air from upset after upset," said Hilton Kelley, Community In-power and Development Association (CIDA). "But for some very suspicious reason, the plants were upset-free when the EPA truck was in town, so of course we know they were warned."

According to TCEQ records during the earlier part of the month before EPA's special bus arrived:

"We are carefully analyzing the raw data from EPA and can say we absolutely disagree with their conclusions that the air is clean or safe even during the unusual period that they tested the air," said Denny Larson of the Refinery Reform Campaign. "A number of troubling things occurred before and after the EPA bus came to Port Arthur, including the warning they gave industry and the fact that they possibly manipulated the data and withheld for almost 6 months. At least we know that industry can reduce emissions when they know there is someone watching."