Updated: National Security Experts Warn Of Mass Causality Chemical Disaster

UPDATE: Find a TRAA Summary Fact sheet on large quantities of toxic HF used at refineries here: https://tinyurl.com/mwfubpv2

Torrance Refinery Action Alliance or TRAA Sept. 29 released a report detailing reactions by national security experts and environmentalists on the Environmental Protection Agency or EPA draft rule to prevent chemical disasters, and it’s not good.

TRAA noted, after 9/11, EPA was designated the lead agency for reducing vulnerability to deliberate attacks on the nation’s chemical facilities.

National Security experts led by former Governor and EPA Administator Christie Todd Whitman submitted their third letter, warning of terrorist attacks on refineries and chemical facilities using chemicals that can cause mass casualities and called for conversion to commercially proven safer alternative technology. 

Joining scores of environmental and chemical disaster prevention organizations and more than 100 speakers in the course of the three-day EPA public comment hearings ending Sept. 28, the experts that included General Russel Honore of Katrina recovery fame stated  “as individuals with extensive experience in national security and environmental protection, we must tell you that the rule is not nearly strong enough to protect Americans from chemical disasters.”

The EPA rule, “Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention Proposed Rule,” released in August, 2022 for public comment, fails to make communities safer and will not prevent accidents involving chemicals that can cause mass casualties.

The EPA correctly recognized Hydrofluoric Acid or HF, and other lethal chemicals, capable of causing mass casualties, as major concerns requiring an analysis of safer alternative technology. The recently proposed rule would allow the continued use of HF in large quantities in the 42 refineries still using it.

The confirmation of the definite existence of commercially proven alternatives was repeatedly cited by witnesses as an important improvement over past rules. Unfortunately, The EPA rule makes conversion to a safer alternative — voluntary.

Many of the speakers at the EPA Hearings, highlighted HF as an exceptionally hazardous risk for low income and communities of color already facing high environmental justice burdens. Speakers ranged from the New York State attorney general to the United Steelworkers and to residents living in close proximity to these facilities. Combined, these individuals made urgent appeals for relief from these life-threatening risks as well as long-term impacts to health. 

National environmental organizations like Earthjustice and Union of Concerned Scientists, as part of the Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters, presented powerful data. They warned of the threat of an inevitable release from increasing climate change events and earthquakes as demonstrated by the newly discovered fault lines running near California HF refineries.

Ignoring the previous warnings from National Security Experts on the extreme danger from HF, the EPA rule ignores both the terrorist threat and the threat from climate change natural disasters. Focusing only on past accidents. Barack Obama called them “Stationary weapons of mass destruction.” Joe Biden who lives in the Trainer, Pennsylvania refinery “circle of risk” stated “Inherently safer technology is critically connected to homeland security.”

The EPA cited 1,500 chemical releases causing 17,000 injuries and 58 deaths between 2004 and 2013 with hundreds more each year since. 

The Department of Homeland Security noted in its proposed Chemical Facilities Anti-Terrorism Standards: “The consequences of a security event at a facility are generally expressed in terms of the degree of acute health effects (eg fatality, injury), property damage, environmental effects, etc…The key difference is that they may involve effects that are more severe than expected with accidental risk.”

Acknowledging there are “commercially proven alternatives” (American Petroleum  Institute), the EPA rule incomprehensibly leaves the decision of whether to convert to a vastly safer alternative “to the owners and operators” most of whom have shown that they have no intention of upgrading their facilities.

When released to the air, HF can create a toxic ground-hugging cloud that can move on the wind and injure or kill those in its path as seen in this impactful and chilling video produced by Channel 10 in Philadelphia.

According to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, “A significant release of HF from refinery operations as a result of accident, natural disaster or intentional acts, could be catastrophic, resulting in severe health effects and mass casualties.” There are more than 40 communities in the US under this threat. These communities are typically underserved, environmental justice burdened communities, as well as communities containing critical and irreplaceable workforces such as dock workers in New Orleans, soldiers on military bases and scientists at aerospace centers.

TRAA continues to call for conversion where it is practical from chemicals that can cause mass casualties to commercially proven safer alternative technologies with all due haste.