Texplainer: Who Oversees Texas' Fertilizer Plants?
Hey, Texplainer: Which state and federal agencies were responsible for overseeing and regulating the fertilizer plant in West that exploded last week, killing 14 and injuring at least 200?
There's no single agency responsible for inspecting fertilizer plants and enforcing their regulations; the task falls to a wide range of state and federal agencies. Here's a look at what the agencies do — and the role they played in monitoring the West facility.
1) The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality monitors and enforces air quality and emissions at such plants.
Larry Soward, a former TCEQ commissioner who is now interim director for the nonprofit Air Alliance Houston, said the agency generally inspects plants about once a year, unless a complaint is filed, which would spur a separate investigation. But Neil Carman, the clean air program director of the Sierra Club’s Lone Star chapter, told The Texas Tribune that not all fertilizer plants receive routine checks by the commission. Carman, who from 1980 to 1992 served as an inspector and investigator for the predecessor to the TCEQ, said that because the West plant was relatively small, it would've been inspected “at most once every five years.”
The plant was constructed in 1962, prior to state and federal requirements to obtain permits for emission of air pollutants, but lost its “grandfathered” status in 2004 when state law required older plants to follow new regulations.
The facility currently has two permit authorizations with the TCEQ. The first is for two 2,000-gallon anhydrous ammonia storage tanks, and was issued in 2006 after a “technical review” of the plant. The other is for “material loading and storage operations of dry fertilizer materials,” which was issued after the last inspection of the plant by the TCEQ in 2007.
2) The Office of the State Chemist,
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http://www.texastribune.org/2013/04/23/texplainer-which-agencies-oversee-and-inspect-fert/?utm_source=texastribune.org&utm_medium=alerts&utm_campaign=News%20Alert:%20Subscriptions
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