An Exxon refinery releases plumes of smoke as it towers over rows and rows of small single-family homes, many of them built a century ago for, and still occupied by, oil industry workers.
Last year, the company said the refinery released 76,744 pounds, the worst year on record.
After a 3 October 2007 shutdown, for example, a ConocoPhillips refinery released a cloud of "yellow, metallic dust" containing what company representatives called "a mixture of iron, copper, nickel, aluminum, carbon, and other elements," according to the local DailyBreeze.com news service.
In addition, there are likely to be substantial fugitive releases of volatile organic hydrocarbon compounds from the transportation of oil by tanker truck and pipeline, from the transfer and processing of crude oil, and from the storage of product, and refineries release a number of processing-related air contaminants (U.S. EPA 2009).
— While the world was focused on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a BP refinery here released huge amounts of toxic chemicals into the air that went unnoticed by residents until many saw their children come down with respiratory problems.
Soon after the fine was agreed to, residents of Texas City filed a lawsuit against the BP refinery for releasing 538,000 pounds of toxic chemicals into the environment where many children came down with respiratory problems.
In the case, a whistle-blower revealed that the refinery had released about 91 metric tons of benzene, a volatile solvent and a known carcinogen, in its liquid waste streams in 1995, about 15 times the refinery's limit, according to the Justice Department.
Pumped into greenhouses to boost plant growth, it is also an input into the market-gardening business, where it can increase productivity by a quarter.In the Botlek area of the Netherlands, a Shell refinery used to release around 1m tonnes of CO2 a year into the air.
Several reports prompted by the refinery fire including one released this week by a panel headed by James Baker, a grand old oilman of American politics—have found that budgets and staff were stretched thin (see article).
The year the air district started the monitoring, 2006, Phillips 66 reported that the refinery's flares released 27,607 pounds of particulate matter, nitrous oxides, reactive organic gases, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide.
