Westlake Chemical Corporation’s five subsidiaries — Westlake Chemical OpCo LP, Westlake Petrochemicals LLC, Westlake Polymers LLC, Westlake Styrene LLC, and Westlake Vinyls Inc. — have agreed to spend $110 million on upgrades and compliance measures to resolve allegations that they violated the Clean Air Act and state air pollution control laws at two petrochemical manufacturing facilities in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and one facility in Lake Charles, Louisiana. A $1 million civil penalty will also be paid by the Westlake firms. Thousands of tons of pollutants from flares will be eliminated as a result of the agreement.
The corporations failed to properly operate and monitor their industrial flares, resulting in excess emissions of dangerous air pollution at the three facilities, according to the lawsuit, which was also filed today by the United States, the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and the State of Louisiana.
The corporation “oversteamed” the flares on a frequent basis and failed to meet other critical operating requirements to ensure that the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) in the gases channeled to the flares were efficiently combusted.
The Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim said, “This settlement demonstrates that the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency are committed to addressing excessive and harmful air pollution from improperly operated petrochemical flares.”
“The settlement’s large reductions in hazardous and other air pollutants, as well as greenhouse gases, will help to limit exposure in adjacent communities that are concerned about environmental justice.”
“This settlement will require the Westlake companies to install pollution control and emissions monitoring equipment at the three facilities, reducing greenhouse gas and other harmful gas emissions by thousands of tons per year,” said EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Acting Assistant Administrator Larry Starfield.
“These limits, together with a need for benzene emissions monitoring along fence lines and corrective steps when benzene levels are high, will provide significant advantages to local populations in Kentucky and Louisiana.”
The settlement mandates that the three facilities build and operate air pollution control and monitoring systems to limit flaring and the resulting hazardous air pollution from their eight flares.
The pollution controls are expected to cut ozone-forming VOC emissions by 2,258 tons per year and hazardous air pollutants, such as benzene, by 65 tons per year once completely implemented. The deal is also expected to cut greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide, methane, and ethane, by more than 50,733 tons per year.
This agreement also includes novel injunctive relief tools that support the administration’s objectives to employ enforcement to decrease the detrimental effects of pollutants on overburdened communities and to combat climate change by cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Significant VOC and HAP emissions reductions at the facilities help to lower community exposure to some of the same air pollutants to which they are disproportionately exposed. The settlement’s improved combustion efficiency criteria, flare gas recovery system, flaring reduction requirements, and flaring limits will reduce the carbon footprint of all three facilities.
The Westlake firms will conduct air quality monitoring at the three facilities’ fence lines in order to detect the presence of benzene. The findings of the monitoring must be put on a publicly accessible website, giving neighbors greater information about their air quality.
If fence line emissions surpass specific criteria, the monitoring requirements include triggers for root cause analysis and corrective actions. The EPA’s Creating Clean Air for Communities National Compliance Initiative makes flare compliance a top focus.
The pollutants addressed in the settlement have the potential to impact public health significantly. Smog, or ground-level ozone, is a pollutant that irritates the lungs, exacerbates diseases like asthma, and can increase susceptibility to respiratory illnesses like pneumonia and bronchitis.
VOCs are a key component in the formation of smog or ground-level ozone, a pollutant that irritates the lungs, exacerbates diseases like asthma, and can increase susceptibility to respiratory illnesses like pneumonia and bronchitis. Chronic exposure to benzene, which is classified as a carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency, can result in a variety of health problems, including leukemia and unfavorable reproductive effects in women. Flares are also common sources of significant greenhouse gas emissions.
Flares are devices that are used to burn waste gases that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere as a result of certain industrial processes.
Flares that are well-maintained should have a high “combustion efficiency,” which means they should combust nearly all toxic waste gas elements, such as VOCs and HAPs, and convert them to water and CO2. The agreement, which is the eighth of its sort since 2013, aims to improve the flaring practices of the Westlake firms.
For starters, it requires the company to reduce the amount of waste gas sent to the flares, lowering the amount of flaring. Second, when flaring is required, the corporation must improve the combustion efficiency of its flares. The Westlake firms will take a number of initiatives to reduce the amount of waste gas sent to their flares at each location.
Instead of sending the gases to be combusted in a flare, all three sites will use a flare gas recovery technology that recovers and “recycles” them.
The flare gas recovery technology will allow Westlake to repurpose these gases as either a fuel or a product for sale at its operations. The agreement stipulates that the Westlake firms must construct and run devices and monitoring systems to ensure that the gases supplied to the flares are efficiently combusted.
The consent decree, which was filed in Louisiana’s Western District Court, is subject to a 30-day public comment process and ultimate court approval.