Dow to reduce flaring at Gulf Coast plants
Sarah Houlton
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Dow Inc. has reached a deal with U.S. authorities that will eliminate large amounts of air pollution from four of its Gulf Coast petrochemical manufacturing facilities.
The settlement is with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice, and also the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.
The settlement resolves allegations that Dow and two subsidiaries, Performance Materials and Union Carbide, violated the Clean Air Act by failing to operate and monitor industrial flares correctly at the facilities. Infractions include oversteaming the flares, and failing to ensure that volatile organic compounds and other pollutants were efficiently combusted.
Air Quality Regulators in “Cancer Alley” Have Fallen Dangerously Behind ProPublica 1/29/2021
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This article was produced in partnership with The Times-Picayune and The Advocate, which was a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network in 2019.
The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality needs to do a better job of identifying industrial polluters that don t properly report emission violations, and it should enforce those violations more aggressively, according to a new management audit by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s office.
Air Quality Regulators in “Cancer Alley” Have Fallen Dangerously Behind
An audit found that the time it takes the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality to issue penalties to polluters has doubled. Some companies that have been known to violate air quality rules were able to keep at it for years, or even decades.
Jan. 29, 6 a.m. EST
A plant looms behind apartments in St. Gabriel, Louisiana, which lies in “Cancer Alley,” the stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge where a high concentration of petrochemical facilities contributes to some of the nation’s worst toxic air pollution.
In 2003, the Louisiana Supreme Court rendered its landmark decision in
Corbello, et al. v. Iowa Production, et al. Since then, Louisiana courts have seen a steady stream of “legacy litigation” claims being filed. Legacy litigation claims generally concern alleged contamination arising from historic oil and gas operations under theories of both breach of contract and tort. Recently, those typical types of claims have been supplemented in some legacy litigation cases with citizen suit allegations based on the Louisiana Environmental Quality Act.
The Louisiana Environmental Quality Act, Louisiana Revised Statute §§ 30:2001
et seq., was originally enacted as the Louisiana Environmental Affairs Act which became effective on January 1, 1980. In 1983, the Louisiana Legislature created the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality and renamed the Louisiana Environmental Affairs Act as the Louisiana Environmental Quality Act. The purpose of the Louisiana Environmental
Dow settles with EPA over flaring in Texas, La.
Jacob Dick, Staff writer
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The Dow Chemical Co. is tackling the world s plastic pollution. (Photo provided)
Dow Chemical will have to spend close to $300 million on equipment upgrades and pay $3 million in fines as a part of a settlement with federal agencies and the state of Louisiana over emissions from its plants there and in Texas, the agencies announced.
The company will have to install and operate air pollution control and monitoring technology on 26 industrial flares, some of them at plants in Orange and Freeport, after action by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice.