Forrest for the Trees

Environmental justice groups have been demanding for years that U.S. refineries stop using hydrogren fluoride, an extremely dangerous acid used as a catalyst in making high-octane gas constituents. Under “ideal” conditions, HF tends to form into a lethal plume, hugging the ground and putting people at risk of injury or death.

About 50 refinerines nationwide use hydogren fluoride, including 13 in Texas, more than any state.

Today, that call got a big boost from the United Steelworkers, who are now calling for a natiowide phase-out of HF.

“Hydrogen fluoride is such a deadly component, and there are new and safer technologies available,” said USW Vice President Gary Beevers in a press release. “It’s a matter of health and safety to us. It’s a matter of money to the industry. We think they should change to a safer alternative.”

In the past five months, three different refineries have had major HF releases, including one in July at CITGO’s Corpus Christi refinery, an incident I wrote about here (with follow-up here).

In that case, about 4,000 pounds of HF were released – the largest release of HF there in 20 years – after an equipment failure in CITGO’s alkylation unit. One worker, a member of the Steelworkers local, was severely burned and is still in intensive care in San Antonio.

The Texas Commissionon on Environmental Quality and CITGO claim that none of the HF blew into neighboring areas though that claim has been challenged by people in the Hillcrest area of Corpus, who have reported health effects they attribute to the HF release.

Although TCEQ has 16 monitors in Corpus, none is capable of measuring HF. TCEQ is relying largely on CITGO’s own monitoring data although the agency hadn’t seen any of the data as of August 11.

HF is serious business. In 1987, a burst pipe at Marathon Oil’s Texas City refinery led to the escape of 30,000 pounds of HF into the surrounding area. More than a thousand people ended up in the hospital and several thousand more had to be force-evacuated from the area.

On the issue of HF, there appears to be a growing blue-green alliance. The Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, Corpus’ Citizens for Environmental Justice, and the United Steelworkers are planning a mid-September meeting to discuss strategy on how to phase out HF.

Environmental justice groups have been demanding for years that U.S. refineries stop using hydrogren fluoride, an extremely dangerous acid used as a catalyst in making high-octane gas constituents. Under “ideal” conditions, HF tends to form into a lethal plume, hugging the ground and putting people at risk of injury or death.

About 50 refinerines nationwide use hydogren fluoride, including 13 in Texas, more than any state.

Today, that call got a big boost from the United Steelworkers, who are now calling for a natiowide phase-out of HF.

“Hydrogen fluoride is such a deadly component, and there are new and safer technologies available,” said USW Vice President Gary Beevers in a press release. “It’s a matter of health and safety to us. It’s a matter of money to the industry. We think they should change to a safer alternative.”

In the past five months, three different refineries have had major HF releases, including one in July at CITGO’s Corpus Christi refinery, an incident I wrote about here (with follow-up here).

In that case, about 4,000 pounds of HF were released – the largest release of HF there in 20 years – after an equipment failure in CITGO’s alkylation unit. One worker, a member of the Steelworkers local, was severely burned and is still in intensive care in San Antonio.

The Texas Commissionon on Environmental Quality and CITGO claim that none of the HF blew into neighboring areas though that claim has been challenged by people in the Hillcrest area of Corpus, who have reported health effects they attribute to the HF release.

Although TCEQ has 16 monitors in Corpus, none is capable of measuring HF. TCEQ is relying largely on CITGO’s own monitoring data although the agency hadn’t seen any of the data as of August 11.

HF is serious business. In 1987, a burst pipe at Marathon Oil’s Texas City refinery led to the escape of 30,000 pounds of HF into the surrounding area. More than a thousand people ended up in the hospital and several thousand more had to be force-evacuated from the area.

On the issue of HF, there appears to be a growing blue-green alliance. The Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, Corpus’ Citizens for Environmental Justice, and the United Steelworkers are planning a mid-September meeting to discuss strategy on how to phase out HF.

See my coverage of today’s “Sovereignty or Recession” rally in Austin here.

From time to time, I’ll be blogging on non-enviro stuff.

Tomorrow, I’ll be at the “Sovereignty or Secession” rally in front of the Capitol for what’s sure to be one helluva good show. I’ll post a report tomorrow afternoon at the TO blog — video included (go easy on me as this will be my first time trying to shoot and edit a video report).

The rally’s being organized by the Texas Nationalist Movement, a group that calls itself “the largest organization promoting freedom and Texas Independence.” The point of the event, according to the group’s press release, is to “demand that the Governor and Legislature to [sic] support Texas sovereignty under the 10th Amendment or to call for secession.”

These are basically hard-core secessionists whose anti-government beliefs are about as far out as you get.

Overlap with the Alex Jones-New World Order crowd, tea party protestors, birthers and other far-right fringoids is extensive. In other words, these are the people Gov. Perry’s been doing a dangerous little dance with for months.

The event was called off at one point (for reasons discussed below) but is now set at 11am.

Musta been a conspiracy, a/t Gerry Donaldson, one of the organizers:

The reason for this change is that MoveOn.org decided to schedule 2 separate events on the SAME DAY to push Obamacare! Seems a little “convenient” that they would try to block out a big portion of the day on the SAME DAY we are telling the federal government that we want to ROLL BACK our government to its originally intended, limited role; doesn’t it?

We are obviously a real threat to the Marxist agenda that MoveOn.org and Obama’s administration is trying to shove down our throats.

The secessionists say they plan to “counterprotest” the pro-health care reform event. It will be interesting to see what guns the secessionists choose to bring. But don’t worry: they promise no violence.

This is not and should not be a violent confrontation. Violence is not condoned by anyone involved.

However!

However, we are exercising our rights and our duty to compel the restoration of our sovereignty and rights (alter our government) or it will leave us with no choice but secession.

On the Texas Nationalist Movement website, they claim that Gov. Perry “bowed out,”, implying that he had agreed to speak at some point. However, I called Perry’s office and a spokeswoman said the governor had declined an offer to speak on August 10th. “We called and told them he wouldn’t be able to make it,” said spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger.

A decade ago, objections from environmentalists were the principal roadblocks to new plant construction. But most of the concerns over safety and waste disposal have been allayed while the environmental lobby now acknowledges that nuclear power generation is environmentally benign.

That’s Bernard Weinstein arguing in a San Antonio Express-News op-ed piece today that new nukes are so kewl even crazy environmentalists are now, kinda sorta, for them! Weinstein offers no examples of environmental groups or leaders who consider nuclear power “environmentally benign” and I doubt he’s going to fnd many.

Sierra Club and Public Citizen, two of the most important environmental groups in the state, are actively fighting proposed new nuke plants. I know of no Texas green groups in favor of building new plants. Business-friendly orgs such as Environmental Defense and NRDC have said that nuclear would be okay once a solution is devised for radioactive waste disposal, security threats are addressed, etc, etc. Hardly a ringing endorsement.

Maybe Weinstein is alluding to Patrick Moore, someone who once long ago had something to do with Greenpeace and now makes his living as a paid consultant for the nuclear industry. He’s the guy the pro-nuclear people drag out to say, “Even the enviros are for it…!” Moore was in Texas doing that very thing last year.

Btw, who is Bernard Weinstein? The SAEN identifies him at the bottom of the op-ed like this:

Bernard Weinstein will become associate director of the Maguire Energy Institute in the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University in September.

That’s true but, guess what, Weinstein is also a paid consultant to the nuclear industry. According to a bio, Weinstein’s clients have included Reliant Energy, Entergy (second-largest nuclear generator in the U.S.), and the Nuclear Energy Institute. Why didn’t Weinstein or the SAEN feel the need to disclose this fact to their readers?

I’ve got emails into the two asking just that. If and when they write back, I will post their responses.