A loophole in air quality laws, which are designed to protect human health, is regularly exploited by energy companies to release hundreds of tons of air pollution over their permitted levels says a new report from the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) and Environment Texas. As one example, an Exxon refinery in Beaumont released more than 400 hundred tons of smog-causing chemicals in a single event last October, exponentially above its permit.
"Even the most well maintained industrial plants might experience the occasional accident, a breakdown of some equipment," says Ilan Levin Texas Director of the EIP, and that was what these loopholes were designed to address, but as the report shows through the companies own self-reporting, that isn't what is happening.
"What we are finding is that most of the air pollution that we have documented in the report is aresult of either pre-planned maintenance, or operator error or old and breaking down equipment," says Levin.
Guest:
- Ilan Levin, Texas director of the Environmental Integrity Project