State and county environmental officials Wednesday launched independent investigations into a spill at Exxon Mobil’s Baytown refinery that showered a public housing project with processing oil.
Try this scenario on for size…. You wake up one fine morning, look out your bedroom window, and notice that the neighborhood is crawling with men in hazmat suits, furiously cleaning houses and vehicles. Being the curious sort, this strikes you as somewhat odd, so you start asking questions, only to find out the the ExxonMobil plant next door just dumped a cloud of oil-based goo on the neighborhood. Yeah, so much for being good neighbors, eh? Welcome to life in Baytown…something tells me that this isn’t the sort of thing the good rich White Republican folks in River Oaks or West University ever have to deal with.
Yeah, it sucks to be poor and have no affordable option but to live next to a refinery…and it’s not as if the state of Texas is going to be much assistance.
The incident, according to Exxon Mobil, occurred at 12:01 a.m. Monday. That’s when a 150,000-barrel storage tank holding process gas oil heated to 200 degrees Fahrenheit mysteriously failed, releasing 1,400 barrels of oil onto the ground and sending a cloud of steam and oil droplets across the street into the Archia Courts public housing complex.
Oops…our bad….
The company’s first call to the TCEQ to report the spill occurred 12 hours later, around noon, just about when the refinery’s phones started ringing with complaints from residents describing a waxy film on their cars, plants and homes. Exxon Mobil, which said it tested the air before sunrise Monday and found nothing, told the agency the spill had been contained on the plant property.
What; like a fenceline is going to provide an effective barrier? Are these folks really so dismissive of the well-being of their neighbors? Apparently so. After all, being a good neighbor does nothing for the bottom line, and since we’re only talking about a poor and largely minority population, who’s going to care (or notice)?
“We did fenceline monitoring within hours and there was no hydrocarbon vapor detected,” said Jeanne Miller, a spokeswoman for the company’s Baytown refinery, which ranks as one of the largest in the country. Miller confirmed that the company was in the neighborhood Monday, “taking a look at it,” adding that “both activities are very important, working with the neighbors and working with agencies.”
Right…’cuz we always do just enough to ensure we don’t get caught doing anything stupid or illegal, don’t we?
All day Tuesday, after getting permission from the Baytown Housing Authority to enter the property, the company cleaned ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ scrubbing oil splatter off houses, detailing cars and wiping down the playground. It wasn’t until Tuesday evening that the TCEQ was told that the incident went off the plant’s grounds. County officials didn’t know until reading about it in the newspaper Wednesday.
Residents, who were told in a letter from the company delivered to their homes Tuesday morning that the appropriate agencies had been contacted, expressed shock Wednesday that authorities had not been informed initially.
Of course, given that this happen in a public housing neighborhood, no one is going to lose much sleep. If this had happened in River Oaks or West University, though, the lawyers on scene would be approaching critical mass. Exxon Mobil would be awash in a deluge of bad publicity and suit notifications. The reality, though, is that this didn’t happen in River Oaks or West University, so this incident has barely even created a ripple in the local media. Hmm…didn’t I learn in elementary school that all men are created equal? Apparently, some folks are created a whole lot MORE equal than others.
