Louisiana Shell refinery left spewing chemicals after Hurricane Ida

Power outages from the storm have left air quality tracking systems out of commission, making public health concern hard to gauge


Behind a playground littered with downed tree branches, Shell’s refinery in Norco, Louisiana spewed black smoke from its stacks. The smell of rotten eggs, the signature scent of sulphur emissions, lingered in the air. In an effort to burn off toxic chemicals before and after Hurricane Ida, many industrial facilities sent the gases through smoke stacks topped with flares.

But the hurricane blew out some of those flares like candles, allowing harmful pollution into the air.

Health concerns linked to potential toxic exposure underscore the array of long-term impacts brought by the category 4 storm that struck southeast Louisiana earlier this week. As of Thursday afternoon, nearly a million homes and businesses were without power, leaving hundreds of thousands more without access to clean water. And with hundreds of chemical facilities located within the path of the hurricane, numerous air quality tracking systems were left out of commission. It’s unclear how long it will take to assess the full scope of the damage and its toll on residents.

The degree of the pollution is still unknown in part because phone lines have been down in portions of the state, including the hotline for the Louisiana State Police, which has deployed its hazardous materials unit to handle toxic emissions from industrial facilities in the past, according to an Environmental Protection Agency report. So far, the US Coast Guard has received 17 calls about air releases to the National Response Center, including multiple reports of ammonia released into the air because flares were blown out by the storm.

About 50% of the US petroleum refining capacity and 51% of the US natural gas processing capacity are based along the Gulf of Mexico, according to the US Energy Information Administration. The industrial facilities have become an added hazard when hurricanes come ashore. In a matter of just a few days after Hurricane Harvey made landfall in 2017, air pollution levels added up to 39% of the total unauthorized emissions of the previous year in the Houston area, said Luke Metzger, the executive director for Environment Texas.

Read more: https://lailluminator.com/2021/09/04/louisiana-shell-refinery-left-spewing-chemicals-after-hurricane-ida/