Bucket Brigade calls for Dow data

An environmental watchdog group said Wednesday that the public still doesn't know how much ethyl acrylate was released from Dow Chemical in Hahnville last week, and criticized St. Charles Parish officials for not evacuating homes closest to the plant.

The Louisiana Bucket Brigade said residents need to know how much of the chemical, which can cause eye, nose and throat irritation, was in the air during the early hours of the release, which began July 7 around 4 a.m.

"Dow has tried to play down this release by calling it a bad odor," said Anna Hrybyk, the organization's program manager, at a Wednesday morning news conference. "The fact is that it was a chemical release and we do not know how much of the chemical was released. We do know that people were treated at the hospital because of this accident and that Dow has a serious, ongoing problem with this chemical. It's not a simple odor."

Dow spokesman Tommy Faucheux said the company acted appropriately by sending a technical expert to work with the parish's emergency operations center the morning of the release.

"I'm confident that we assessed the event correctly," he said.

In addition to last week's incident, Hrybyk said, the company reported airborne releases of fumes from the chemical on Oct. 20, 2008, and April 22, 2009, to the state Department of Environmental Quality.

"We are demanding that they come clean and say how much was released," Hrybyk said.

Michael Kernan, postmaster of the New Sarpy Post Office, said at the news conference that his eyes, nose and throat started to burn shortly after he arrived at work at 7 a.m.

"The St. Charles Parish maintenance unit was evacuated to St. Rose, but why didn't they evacuate the day-care center down the street?" Kernan said.

Day-care owner Deione Daniels said she and the 27 children at Deione's Early Learning Center were initially told that there was no health risk, even after she and her children started feeling symptoms.

"They told me the smell was really bad but that it was not hazardous," she said.

Ethyl acrylate can be smelled at concentrations of less than 1 part per billion, but isn't deemed toxic for a healthy adult until it reaches 30 parts per million.

The Oct. 20, 2008, release occurred when piping was being flushed; 9,587 pounds of material was released into the process sewer area because of "multiple valve failure." Because the area is open to the atmosphere, 168 pounds of the material evaporated over 14 hours, Dow's report to the Department of Environmental Quality said.

The company told the DEQ that the valves were not part of a preventive maintenance program, but one would be started in the future.

The April 22 incident released 24.8 pounds of ethyl acrylate into the atmosphere after a flaring system to vent vapors malfunctioned.

Scott Whelchel, St. Charles Parish's emergency preparedness director, said that the parish's emergency center operators must depend to some extent on information from industrial plants to recommend actions to protect the public.

The parish had bus drivers on standby throughout most of the week in case a large-scale evacuation was necessary, Whelchel said.

"The company has the expertise to tell us what is happening and what protective measures need to be taken," he said.

However, the parish's Emergency Operations Center logs show that its operators repeatedly pressed Dow for information on what was happening. It was the parish EOC that notified Dow of the stench wafting across the river after someone from Shell Chemical called in to report it shortly before 4 a.m.

Faucheux said that depending on the wind, the plant operators may not be aware of a problem if the site's perimeter air monitors don't go off.

Faucheux said Dow's priority is to let parish officials know immediately that something is going on, even as company personnel try to find out what is happening.

"It took us a little longer to nail down the issue, but as soon as we had something concrete, we shared it with the parish," he said.

This article was written by Matt Scallan of The Times Picayune
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/riverparishes/index.ssf?/base/news-6/1247722269323830.xml&coll=1

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