Petrochemical company Arkema Inc. will pay Harris County $1.1 million to fund local safety improvements, according to a settlement announced Tuesday, seven years after a plant fire spread hazardous chemicals during Hurricane Harvey.
Complete Story
09/12/2024
Arkema Will Pay $1.1 Million and Improve Safety After Chemical Disaster During Hurricane Harvey
By | Houston Chronicle
In 2017, floodwaters from the hurricane inundated the Arkema facility in Crosby and cut off power to trailers cooling the company’s temperature-regulated organic peroxides. The highly flammable chemicals ignited, releasing toxic smoke. More than 200 people living within 1.5 miles of the facility were evacuated and 21 people sought medical attention, according to the Chemical Safety Board.
Arkema executives previously faced criminal charges for the blaze but the case ended with no convictions in 2020. The new settlement announced by Harris County Attorney Christian D. Menefee ends the county’s environmental enforcement lawsuit against the company filed in 2017.
“The changes Arkema has agreed to have significantly improved how future incidents will be handled, ensuring our community and first responders get the information they need quickly,” Menefee said.
Arkema committed to implementing new flood controls including a large detention pond, reinforcing buildings, raising generators and upgrading fire safety protocols.
The county attorney noted the urgency of improving flood safeguards, citing climate change and increasingly frequent severe weather events. “It’s crucial that facilities housing hazardous materials are thinking about disaster preparedness,” he said.
In the months following the chemical fire, internal documents from the company documented “nine days of chaos” that culminated in the decision to intentionally burn chemicals that posed a danger to the public. A Chemical Safety Board investigation released in 2018 recommended a suite of safety improvements to reduce flood risk, and said that none of Arkema’s safeguards met company or industry standards for extreme, Harvey-level flooding.
The Arkema facility sits within both 100-year and 500-year floodplains, according to current maps. This means it has a 1% chance of partially flooding each year. In 2023, the Chemical Safety Board reviewed changes to Arkema’s flood plans since the disaster and found the company was now adequately prepared for the risk.
