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United
States Environmental Protection Agency
Region VI
POLLUTION REPORT
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| Date: |
Saturday, July 25, 2009
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| From: |
Mark Hayes
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Subject:
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Citgo Refinery Fire
1801 Nueces Bay Blvd,
Corpus Christi, TX
Latitude: 27.8093090
Longitude: -97.4266880
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| POLREP No.: |
4
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Site #:
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| Reporting Period: |
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D.O. #:
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| Start Date: |
7/19/2009
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Response Authority:
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CERCLA
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Mob Date: |
7/20/2009
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Response Type:
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Emergency
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| Demob Date: |
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NPL Status:
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| Completion Date: |
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Incident Category:
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| CERCLIS ID #: |
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Contract #
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| RCRIS ID #: |
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On 19 July 2009, at approximately 0835 hours, an equipment failure resulted causing a fire of released Butane and a potential release of Hydrogen Fluoride from a #2 Alkylation Unit at the Citgo Corpus Christi east plant. Perimeter monitoring conducted by TCEQ and Citgo did not detect any VOCs or Hydrogen Fluoride. The fire fighting and water spray suppression appear to have prevented any releases from being detectable at the site perimeter. One injury resulted from the initial fire.
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On 24 July 2009 EPA perimeter air monitoring for VOCs and HF continues to reflect non-detect of HF. On 23 July 2009 CITGO continues to discharge the seawater used in fire fighting and vapor suppression through Outfall 004, a storm water outfall at approximately 3,000 gpm. CITGO samples the Outfall 004 at 4 hour intervals for the parameters for storm water plus pH and fluoride. TCEQ is grabbing split samples and analyzing for the waste water parameters in CITGO’s discharge permit. TCEQ will grab samples twice a day. At the 1900 briefing CITGO identified that Sealtech, the company contracted to seal the HF leaks on the Alkylation Unit, had sealed 3 of the 4 known leaks. CITGO now uses 3,000 gpm of seawater for vapor suppression and may continue until the unit’s internal monitoring system in the area of where the fire occured is restored. CITGO monitoring at the perimeter of the Alkylation Unit has not identified any airborne releases. CITGO is depressurizing the unit through an acid gas removal system and flaring the remaining gas through the flare.
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Incident response is being monitored. None planned by EPA at this time.
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Continue perimeter monitoring until hydrogen fluoride leaks have been secured and coordinate with other state and federal agencies.
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There has been a non-detect of VOCs and HF from air monitoring around the perimeter of the facility. Unauthorized discharge of water containing elevated levels of flouride into the nearby ship channel is on-going.
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response.epa.gov/CitgoRefineryFireCorpus
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