Environmental criminal charges filed against chemical plant over fire

A Texas county district attorney’s office on Monday filed five environmental criminal charges against a petrochemical plant that experienced a four-day fire.

“People living in Deer Park and the other neighboring residential areas near ITC’s plant deserve protection too,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement. “When public health is at risk, it’s a public safety concern.” 

{mosads}The charges were filed about a month after Intercontinental Terminals Company’s (ITC) Texas refinery tanks caught fire. The district attorney’s office added that ITC’s “make-shift dike” broke following the incident, leading to “large (and still unknown) quantities of xylene and benzene, highly toxic chemicals,” being sent “into Tucker Bayou, which flows directly into the Galveston Bay.”

ITC says that xylene is a solvent that occurs naturally in petroleum, according to CNN. The news network, citing the National Library of Medicine, noted that breathing the substance can cause death.  

“The Environmental Crimes Division’s review of the evidence demonstrates that the water pollution in Tucker Bayou was at criminal levels from March 17 through March 21, establishing probable cause to believe that the company should be criminally charged for each day it violated the law,” a statement said.  

ITC could be fined up to $100,000 for each of the alleged crimes. 

The cause of the March 17 fire, which burned for four days before being extinguished, is still being investigated. The fire led to no serious injuries, but caused several area-school districts to close and cancel after-school activities.