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Environmental Health Reports
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Executive Summary
Across the country, petroleum refineries, chemical plants and other
industrial facilities use and store large amounts of hazardous
chemicals that, if subject to an accident or attack, would release
dangerous toxins. Such releases could injure or kill thousands of
people that live in communities in close proximity to these facilities.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) warned in 2000 that an
accident or terrorist attack at one of 123 chemical facilities could
put more than one million individuals at risk of injury or death from
toxic chemical exposure. Incidents at another 700 facilities could
endanger at least 100,000 people each, and 3,000 facilities could
affect more than 10,000 people each.
Many of these facilities,
however, present an unnecessary risk to their surrounding communities.
Industries often have multiple options for carrying out similar
processes, and some of these options are inherently safer than others.
Facilities that use fewer or small quantities of hazardous chemicals,
or even make changes to storage pressure or other processes, eliminate
the possibility of on-site chemical accidents and make themselves less
appealing terrorist targets.
Petroleum refineries stand as a
stark example of the unnecessary risk posed by such facilities in the
event of an attack or accident as well as the opportunity to mitigate
this risk by using safer alternatives to toxic chemicals.
Many
petroleum refineries use hydrofluoric acid in their processing, which
poses a great public safety risk both because of its extreme toxicity
to humans as well as its propensity to form a toxic aerosol cloud when
released. A catastrophic event at one of these facilities could cause a
potentially lethal release of hydrofluoric acid, forming a stable
aerosol cloud above the facility and surrounding neighborhoods.
Exposure to hydrofluoric acid results in devastating burns, and pain
associated with the exposure may be delayed for up to 24 hours. If the
burn is not addressed, tissue destruction may continue for days.
Inhalation of fumes can cause symptoms ranging from severe throat
irritation to pulmonary edema.
Petroleum refineries using hydrofluoric acid endanger millions of people.
Specifically:
• Of the 153 petroleum refineries in the United States, 50 use hydrofluoric acid in their processing or store it on-site.
•
These 50 refineries, using and storing 10.7 million pounds of
hydrofluoric acid, endanger more than 15.6 million people living in
surrounding communities in 20 different states.
•
With 12 refineries using hydrofluoric acid, Texas has more than any
state. Louisiana has five oil refineries that currently utilize
hydrofluoric acid, and Illinois and Montana have four.
• The five
states with refineries using and storing the most hydrofluoric acid
include Texas, Louisiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Montana.
•
Refineries using hydrofluoric acid in Pennsylvania endanger almost four
million people residing in their vulnerability zones, according to
conservative estimates. Refineries using hydrofluoric acid in Illinois
endanger more than 3.6 million people, ranking the state second. New
Jersey ranks third.
• Illinois, Louisiana and Pennsylvania all
have two facilities in the list of the 10 facilities with the most
people residing in their vulnerability zones.
Fortunately,
hydrofluoric acid is not the only material oil refineries can use in
their refining processes. Many other refineries already use sulfuric
acid, a safer alternative, in the alkylation process. This
cost-effective switch diminishes the appeal of refineries as a
terrorist target and mitigates the public health and safety
consequences of an accident. In addition, a new technology, solid acid
catalysts, will soon be available for widespread commercial use,
offering an even safer option than the use of sulfuric acid.
Petroleum
refineries are but one example of the facilities that pose an immediate
risk to public health in the event of a terrorist attack or chemical
accident. Refineries also are not the only example of facilities that
could make cost effective changes to manufacturing processes to reduce
or eliminate the use of hazardous chemicals—and therefore the
associated threat to public health.
Unfortunately, most
industrial facilities have not responded to the increased awareness of
terrorism by switching to inherently safer technologies. Instead,
industry organizations such as the American Chemistry Council have
placed emphasis on increasing physical security measures.
Hiring
more guards, building higher fences, and placing more lights may all be
part of a strong security plan, but this does not actually reduce the
threat to the community. Switching chemicals and processes to something
less volatile not only reduces the chemical hazard to the community,
but also reduces the need for costly add-on security measures and the
attractiveness of the facility as a target for attack.
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