There's an Unbearable Chemical Smell Hovering Over Parts of Houston, and Experts Are Worried.

[bathroommonkey76]

This story was originally published by New Republic and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

As historic rainfall and flooding continue to pound America’s fourth-most populated city, residents of Houston’s industrial fence-line communities are reporting strong gas- and chemical-like smells coming from the many refineries and chemical plants nearby. “I’ve been smelling them all night and off and on this morning,” said Bryan Parras, an activist at the grassroots environmental justice group TEJAS. Parras, who lives and works in Houston’s East End, on Sunday said some residents are experiencing “headaches, sore throat, scratchy throat and itchy eyes.”

Parras said there are chemical smells in the air all over the East End, but particularly in directly communities adjacent to Houston’s sweeping petrochemical industry. And residents can’t escape the smell, because flood waters have overtaken the city, and could reach over four feet in some spots. “Fenceline communities can’t leave or evacuate so they are literally getting gassed by these chemicals,” Parras said.

Some Twitter users in Houston also reported concerns about air quality.

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Read more:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/08/climatedesk-theres-an-unbearable-chemical-smell-hovering-over-parts-of-houston-and-experts-are-worried/

[MineralMan]

1. Not good. Shutting down refineries is a complicated

thing to do, especially if processes are under way when the shutdown order comes in. Further, most petroleum chemicals float on water, so if there is flooding at the refineries, stuff could be getting spread by the water.

There are some potential health risks anytime petroleum byproducts are in the air.

[Flaleftist]

39. Fire risk?

What if miles of water have these chemicals floating on top? They are flammable, right?

[MineralMan]

40. No. Probably not. Too small a quantity.

They sure can evaporate, though, and toxic vapors can be disseminated.

[smirkymonkey]

2. This is horrible! Not only are those fumes possibly poisonous if inhaled, they could also be

flammable, creating a disaster on top of a disaster.

[Jim__]

3. That does not sound good.

I hope they can find the source of that smell and cut it off.

[gratuitous]

4. Is it too cynical to think that the refineries just dumped a load of crap into the air?

I realize, as MineralMan noted upthread, that closing down a refinery in mid-operation isn't like flicking a light switch. But I wonder if some of the refineries saw this disaster as an opportunity to dump a whole bunch of untreated crap into the air and water, figuring it would get lost in the chaos?

Perhaps I'm being too cynical or judging the refinery folks too harshly, but in many ways, the petroleum industry has earned a lot of public mistrust.

[C Moon]

7. I live near a refinery in Southern California

and on rainy /foggy /cloudy days they always belch more crud into the air than on clear days.

[elehhhhna]

12. If it's the asphalt refinery I have done but e the owner and he'd as soon kill everyone

Than pay his employees or anything else.

[58Sunliner]

29. I used to live near a refinery and they could be filmed releasing pollution into the bay at night.

Our family sued successfully for the poisoning of our well water. It's business as usual for these fu**ers. Also my mother and three other women near us in the neighborhood, all had a very rare form of breast cancer.

[Roland99]

5. Oh my. I shudder to think of future cancer rates

[littlemissmartypants]

6. I've had petroleum poisoning.

It's frightening. Anyone who has worked with gas and oil is putting their life on the line. Anyone besides me thinking about the potential for explosions? Water won't put out a gas fire, iirc...

Any thoughts bath monk?

♡lmsp

[usaf-vet]

8. Will gas price skyrocket nationwide.

Yes?

No?

[bathroommonkey76]

9. I'd fill up your vehicles now before prices go up.

[elehhhhna]

13. Despite the fact that all the gas that's being delivered right now was refined to three months ago

[bathroommonkey76]

17. Anytime there is a major natural disaster this happens.

Especially in the Gulf states.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/27/investing/harvey-texas-energy-oil-gas-prices/

[defacto7]

10. Already are in some places.

[Sgent]

22. 25% of the gas in the US

is refined in Houston / Galvaston. I think its pretty predictable.

[Motley13]

11. I shudder to think of what is in that water

no doubt, sewage, critters, chemicals.
The people are walking through that, they are going to get sick.

Just a thought, most of the people I see on TV are Latino, does the POS even care?

BTW, Mexico has offered help, which they did after Katrina. Will LOSER 45 refuse the help, thinking all those rapists are going to come in???????



I can't think of anyone I despise more than LOSER 45

[JunkYardDogg]

14. It could be what they call "Heavy Water"

Over the years, I have gone into refineries, and on the days when they "run" what they call "Heavy Water", the air is incredibly putrid and hard to breathe. Now, I do not know exactly what "Heavy Water" is, but evidently it is something which is present in refineries. Quite possibly, they have released it for many unknown reasons, safety and sneaky may be two reasons.

Then again,
going by your handle, "Bathroom Monkey", there could be another source of the bad odors.........

[SharonAnn]

35. I think Heavy Water is H30, instead of H20

It was needed for building the A-bomb which is why the Allies bomed the heavy Water plant the Nazis had set up (in Norway?).

[JunkYardDogg]

42. You are right

In upgrading plutonium to weapons grade level, it goes thru a fast breeder, heavy water reactor.
There is a large, shutdown fast breeder reactor up at the Hanford nuclear reservation, which they shutdown some years ago.
However, this is also a term used in refineries, I was in a refinery one day when they were running it, the odor was SO bad and intense, I asked my escort what it was, the stench even gets into your clothes.

[Angleae]

43. Heavy water has both of its hydrogen atoms replaced with deuterium.

2H2O or D2O

[hunter]

15. People were shitting bricks about Fukushima...

... but there was certainly stuff just as bad with a half-life of forever that was largely ignored because it didn't make a Geiger counter tick.

I remember bad old days when self serve cheap gasoline reeked of carcinogenic aromatic hydrocarbons. Whatever shit byproduct the oil refineries had to get rid of was mixed with butane and sold as gasoline.

I splashed a bit of this gasoline on my hands a few times filling up the Volkswagen van on my way to protest San Onofre, Diablo Canyon, Humboldt, etc., and it's possible it did more damage to me than the nuclear power plants we were protesting.

[AtheistCrusader]

18. With butane?

Wouldn't you know by the engine running weird? Just curious.

[hunter]

23. 90+ octane rating butanes dissolve nicely in toxic petroleum refinery wastes.

.

[ProfessorGAC]

27. The Engine Would Knock So Badly Though

At block temperature, when compression begins, butane would be perilously close to its AIT
Timing would horrible and car would run like crap.

[OxQQme]

32. Butane is in winter gas blends

Generally, the lower the RVP of a gas blend, the more it costs. For example, in winter you can blend butane, which is relatively plentiful and cheap, with gasoline. But butane, which has an RVP of 52 on its own, can't be used in summer, when it would immediately boil off as a gas. So "purer" summer gasoline is by default costlier.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a3180/summer-blend-vs-winter-blend-gasoline-whats-the-difference-13747431/

[hunter]

38. isobutane has an (R+M)/2 octane rating of 100...

... and butane's contribution to the fuel's overall vapor pressure is considerably reduced in solution with heavier hydrocarbons.

In the bad-old days before strict environmental regulations gasoline might contain up to 10% cheap butane, contributing 5 p.s.i. to the overall vapor pressure of the mix.

A similar percentage of higher octane aromatics and alkenes would be added to an inexpensive stew of lower octane hydrocarbons. (This article says aromatics are limited to 1% in Europe today.) I remember gasolines that smelled like straight toluene.

I knew a chemist who'd retired from Shell. He was wary of no-name gasoline brands and told me that Shell brand gasoline had to smell like Shell brand gasoline, not paint thinner, alcohol, or anything else.

[ProfessorGAC]

41. I'm A Chemist Myself

I talked to a couple people (one man, one woman) who work at two of the refineries in this area. They tell me that those refineries do not add butanes to the gasoline. The price they get for it (mostly for the foam blowing industry) is too high to waste it in gasolline.

So, not sure how many refineries still do it, but two very large facilities here don't.

[Initech]

16. Let's deregulate the oil industry! Nothing could go wrong they tell us!

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

19. I have been wondering...

... when this would occur. Glad it is finally being reported.

[Jopin Klobe]

20. There's an Unbearable Chemical Smell Hovering Over Parts of Houston ...

...tRump's advance team ...

[KY_EnviroGuy]

21. Many Decades of Spills

Regulation-allergic Texas (along with many other industrial parts of our country) has turned a blind eye to an untold number of chemical spills, and this has been going on for many decades. Many of these go unreported and the spill covered up rather than remediated.

As water tables rise during floods, these chemicals can be driven to the surface and may become aerosols, gasses or vapors, or just wash away in the waters to be deposited elsewhere.

During my days in field service, I saw many disturbing violations of safety, labor, and environmental regulations "just because we can" and because it's confined within the security fence. In this case, Mother Nature does not give a shit about the fence.

[elmac]

24. and 5 to 10 trillion more gallons of water is forcasted

to fall on that area the next few days.

[L. Coyote]

25. Fenceline communities cant ... evacuate so they are literally getting gassed by these chemicakls

[zentrum]

26. Quit denying climate change Texas!

Quit voting for guys who defund FEMA and Regulatory agencies and the Federal Government, Texas!

[PDittie]

33. How many DUers do you believe

did this?

Maybe go post this at Freep?

[zentrum]

37. No idea what you mean.

You mean Texas DUers?

Of course I'm not talking about people in Texas who have seen the light. I assume such people feel the same about the majority of voters in their state.

And what does Freep mean in this venue?

How's this: "Stop denying climate change, majority of Texas!" "And, BTW, stop helping to bring so much calamity to the rest of us, majority of Texans!"

Do those details make it all better?

But perhaps the irony of the situation does not strike you.

[IronLionZion]

28. Job killing taxes and regulations have forced them to release the chemicals

or whatever it is that happened here. The obvious answer to this entire Texas flooding mess is to cut taxes and regulations to create jobs.

[58Sunliner]

30. What will it be, Gulf Refinery Flood Syndrome?

I'm ill just at the thought. All those kids having their immune systems compromised, maybe permanently. I hope someone is sampling the water and air and documenting this shit!!

[2naSalit]

31. There is enough toxic crap...

just in the dirt around those refineries and chemical manufacturing plants to kill anyone exposed on a good day, with the flooding anything can happen including leakage from the tank farms in the area, these are vast acreages of toxic cocktails, nobody should be within miles of that stuff and now that it's in the water, the fumes will carry far beyond the actual sheen found in and on the water. There will undoubtedly be a massive spike in cancer rates but also many immediate to real soon deaths from exposure... I wonder if any of that will be reported.

This was a decades long disaster waiting for this day to happen... and here we are. The possibility for explosions is extremely high, just short of inevitable.

[PDittie]

34. Shelter in place in La Porte

Easy of Houston, near Ship Channel, Valero refinery reports chemical leak

http://abc13.com/shelter-in-place-issued-in-la-porte-shoreacres/2352157/

https://www.click2houston.com/news/la-porte-residents-told-to-shelter-in-place-after-reports-of-chemical-spill-at-valero-plant

[Nevernose]

36. That's what those towns ALWAYS smell like

So this is WORSE than that? Or is it just that people can now smell it in nicer neighborhoods?

(I'm kind of cynical lately)