We asked residents within a few miles of the site of the explosion that killed 15 workers and injured more than 100 at the British Petroleum (BP) refinery here on March 23 if this is how the air has been since that day. While there were a variety of answers to other questions, they all replied the same to this one: “No. This is how it always is.”

The blast took place in the isomerization unit, where octane-boosting gasoline ingredients were made. It had been shut down for maintenance and was in the process of being put back on line. The refinery, BP’s largest in the United States and the third-largest in the country, produces 3 percent of the total gasoline consumed in the United States.

As we talked with workers in their homes with the refinery looming in the background, we learned more about the explosion and the daily hazards the facility creates. We were told of windows being blown out, the ground shaking, and instant cracks in buildings. Some had friends and relatives who worked in the plant and waited for hours to find out if they survived. Others were working at nearby industries when they heard the blasts and felt the shock.

Most of those interviewed expressed concerns about what the air they are breathing since the blast might be doing to their health. BP and government officials have claimed that the explosion had “minimal impact” on air and water quality. The report from BP to the National Response Center just after the blast records the company’s answer as “no” to the question on whether there was any community impact because of hazardous material release. In collaboration with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), however, the company kept inspectors out of the plant for more than a week after the explosion due to concerns for the inspectors’ safety threatened by a benzene gas leak. A large tank in the refinery containing more than 500,000 gallons of benzene was ruptured by materials from the blast and was leaking until it was covered in foam, seven days later. BP allowed access to the site nine days after the blast.

Workers said they heard reports from co-workers about vehicles near the unit, including one with a diesel engine that revved up uncontrollably just before the explosion, a sign of gasses getting into the truck’s intake valves. One worker described radio messages exchanged in the plant just before the explosion asking tensely if the liquid shooting out of a 100-foot ventilation tower in the isomerization unit was water or chemicals. A worker at a nearby chemical plant also expressed his concern over the growing use of vacuum trucks by BP to deal with the many spills. He said he had long been concerned about the pollution results as the trucks then vent the chemicals in gas form into the air. But he was now thinking of the explosive possibilities as gasses from different cleanups combine in the trucks.

Production continues at the other 29 refinery units, taking full advantage of the skyrocketing prices of oil. BP workers have told local papers they have had to continue to work without respirators, just yards from the barricades that surround the blast zone. The company issued a statement claiming that, “By definition, areas outside the barricaded area are deemed to be safe.”

A retired refinery worker, who worked for 28 years at the plant when Amoco owned it, told us of the unsafe practices he had seen in his years on the job. These included the pressure not to report accidents or other problems that tarnish the company’s record. In fact, at the time of the disaster, BP had just finished throwing a catered lunch near the isomerization unit for contract workers to celebrate “another week without injuries,” the Houston Chronicle reported. Survivors told the media that neither workers who were injured as they ran to escape, nor others meeting in windowless trailers nearby, knew that this unit was about to be restarted after a long period of maintenance as they worked around it.

As we drove by the plant offices April 2 we noticed that BP had not seen any need to change its banner, “BP. Safety First.”

Later, we talked to Jackie Escamilla at his apartment near the BP refinery. He said he had been in class at Texas City’s College of the Mainland when the refinery exploded. He was presenting a paper he had written on the 1947 industrial accident that leveled the city. “After World War II, people came to Texas City, looking for jobs at the plants,” Escamilla’s paper began. “This was the 11th largest shipyard in the world. The population soared to 18,000, with 3,000 employed in the major industries. It was April 16, 1947, at 9 a.m. A small fire was discovered on the ship the Grandcamp. It was being filled with ammonium nitrate fertilizer. The fertilizer was under a government program to be shipped to the Midwest from Texas City. There was no safety enforced at the time.”

A full inquiry of the 1947 blast was never completed and serious safety problems over the years have continued, he said.

Escamilla said his presentation was cut short by a loud bang followed by another one. Then all the classes stopped and officials evacuated the school.

BP and government officials have said it may take up to a year to discover the cause of the explosion and have tried to counter reports that speed-up and cutting corners on safety could be the reason. “We do not produce day to day just to make a quick buck,” BP’s chief executive officer Lord John Browne claimed last week.

Some Texas City residents and other workers, however, say they know the cause—the bosses’ drive to increase profits that puts workers’ lives at risk every day.

Steve Warshell and Brian Williams contributed to this article.
 
 
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