Report: Major Texas Polluters Under-Reporting 80 Percent Of Emissions

20 Sites Failing to Report 1000s of Tons of Pollutants, Including Carcinogens

AUSTIN—Some of Texas’ largest industrial facilities failed to report 80 percent of their actual emissions of such regulated pollutants as sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and smog-forming chemicals to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) during 2003, according to the nonprofit and nonpartisan Environmental Integrity Project (EIP).

According to EIP, 20 facilities in the state did not make required annual disclosures of nearly 16,000 tons of pollutants they released in 2003. The list includes 15 gas processing plants, including at least five owned by Duke Energy Field Services and three owned by Occidental Permian, two refineries (Valero in Corpus Christi and Atofina Petrochemicals in Port Arthur), the BASF chemical plant in Port Arthur, and the Sid Richardson Carbon Black facility in Borger. A full list of the 20 sites is available online atwww.environmentalintegrity.org.

The federal Clean Air Act requires large industrial plants to report their total annual emissions of pollutants like sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and smog forming chemicals to state environmental agencies. The new EIP report notes: “According to nearly 800 notifications to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in 2003, the twenty plants released a combined total of 19,200 tons of pollutants in 2003 as a result of upsets, maintenance, and startup and shutdown activity, including 8,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, 6,311 tons of carbon monoxide, and 4,946 tons of volatile organic compounds. But when submitting their total annual inventory of emissions to the state for that same year, the facilities admitted releasing only 3,400 tons of pollution.”

EIP Director Eric Schaeffer said: “This failure to report emissions is not only a violation of the (federal) Clean Air Act, but it deprives Texas of the data it needs to protect the public from air pollution. Like other states, TCEQ uses the annual emission inventory to identify the largest sources of pollution and write air pollution rules, establish permit conditions and emission monitoring requirements, and determine where additional regulations may be needed to protect human health. The instruction form for reporting makes clear that all emissions must be included. There is no ‘wiggle room’ here. You either comply with the law or you don’t.”

“Prompt and accurate reporting of emissions is vital to the integrity of our environmental enforcement and permitting processes,” said Luke Metzger, Advocate with the Texas Public Interest Research Group (TexPIRG). “If these companies violated that trust, TCEQ should take swift action to hold them accountable.”

“Valero failed to include at least 100 tons of sulfur dioxide in the annual emissions report it sent to the state. The company recently donated thousands of dollars to help low-income communities, which is great,” said Suzie Canales of Citizens for Environmental Justice (CEFJ) in Corpus Christi. “But we also need Valero to be candid about their emissions of air pollution, which affects the health of the same low income communities they donate to.” As the EIP report notes, the polluters “appear to have disregarded [EPA] instructions by excluding most, if not all, emissions due to upsets, as well as startups, shutdowns, and maintenance in 2003 when submitting their annual reports.”

The report points out that the problem may be even more severe than is apparent, since no data is available for January 2003 (before tracking started) and some regional TCEQ offices (i.e., Laredo, Harlingen, and El Paso) frustrate outside reviewers by not making data available online. How serious is the under reporting problem? Five of the 20 facilities did not submit annual emission inventory reports at all in 2003, despite releasing at least 100 tons of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, or volatile organic compounds. One of these—the Mallet CO2 Recovery plant in Hockley County—had 47 different “upset” events releasing more than 450 tons of sulfur dioxide in 2003. In another case, the accident-prone BASF Fina Petrochemicals plant released more than 700 tons of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) during 2003, including nearly 70 tons of known carcinogens, but included only 72 tons of VOCs in its annual emissions report.

The EIP report recommends “the following steps to ensure that the data upon which its decisions are based more accurately reflect reality:”

• State should impose penalties on reporting violators. TCEQ should start by investigating the facilities identified in this report, and should take enforcement action if it can verify that emissions were seriously underreported.

• Online reporting should be compared to paper reporting of pollution. TCEQ should compare pollution estimates in the annual reports with online notifications of emissions from upsets, startups, shutdowns, and maintenance. Where emissions from such events seem high, TCEQ should audit to make sure that they are included in the annual submissions. Natural gas plants should be singled out for special attention.

• “Absurdly low” reporting levels should be targeted for review. TCEQ should also periodically audit facilities to ensure that emissions are being properly reported.

The Environmental Integrity Project (www.environmentalintegrity.org) is a non-profit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to stronger enforcement of existing federal and state antipollution laws, and to the prevention of political interference with those laws. EIP’s research and reports shed light on how enforcement and rulemaking affect public health. EIP also works closely with communities seeking enforcement of environmental laws.

The mission of the Texas Public Interest Research Group (TexPIRG) is to deliver persistent, result-oriented public interest activism that protects the environment, encourages a fair, sustainable economy, and fosters responsive, democratic government.

Citizens for Environmental Justice (CEFJ) is a grassroots group that works to reduce the air pollution caused by refineries in Corpus Christi.