march 8 2013
BATON ROUGE, La. – A surprise Environmental Protection Agency inspection in the middle of 2012 uncovered numerous air quality and job safety and health violations that ExxonMobil did not report at the nation’s second largest oil refinery here. Unfortunately, say the Steelworkers – whose union includes tens of thousands of refinery workers – such hidden violations are common.
The EPA’s full inspection report, posted this week on the website of the Bucket Brigade, a non-profit group that monitors and critiques safety and air quality practices by Louisiana’s dominant oil industry, includes a release of carbon monoxide – the poisonous gas of auto exhaust – into the atmosphere that sent nine people to the hospital.
ExxonMobil didn’t even report that May 7, 2009, accident to EPA within six months, as federal rules require, the agency says. The firm claimed the refinery was “clean” for the last five years, but the EPA found eight other accidents besides that one.
Federal rules “require the (refinery) owner or operator shall include in the 5-year accident history all accidental releases from a covered process that resulted in deaths, injuries, or significant property damage on site, or known offsite deaths, injuries, evacuations, sheltering in place, property damage or an environmental damage,” EPA’s report says. The 48-page report contains a litany of other problems at Baton Rouge.
That’s unacceptable, say the Steelworkers. It’s also common in the industry. A Steelworkers safety rep, acting on behalf of the refinery’s workers – as allowed by law – accompanied the EPA team to the ExxonMobil plant. USW represents its workers.
And the union adds the fine EPA slapped on ExxonMobil won’t solve the industry-wide safety problems.
Read more: http://peoplesworld.org/
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