On August 25, 2023 at 9:45 AM, the EPA was notified by the National
Response Center of an incident involving an aboveground storage tank (AST)
containing sour naphtha catching fire at the Marathon Petroleum facility at
4663 W Airline Hwy in Garyville, St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana. According to Marathon Petroleum, the AST containing
sour naptha had a total tank capacity of 150,000 barrels. The fire from the AST
containing sour naptha spread to an adjacent AST which contained 300,000
barrels of diesel. There were several other tanks containing fuel oil, light
cycle oil, and sour gas oil adjacent to the compromised ASTs. The compromised
ASTs were about 0.5 miles away from the Mississippi River. The Mississippi
River is classified as Waters of the United States (WOTUS). Marathon
Petroleum and fire crews from neighboring facilities conducted firefighting
operations. The compromised ASTs had a secondary containment designed to
accommodate 110% of the tank capacities; however, due to the firefighting
efforts which could have resulted in the secondary containment being
overwhelmed, there was substantial threat of a discharge of oil into the
Mississippi River. The RP had contractors on-site conducting diversion and recovery
operations and conducting community air monitoring.
The Louisiana Department of
Environmental Quality (LDEQ) and Louisiana State Police (LSP) were on-site
conducting an assessment and provided state oversight to the RP. LDEQ also
conducted community air monitoring. The USCG was on-site to ensure their
jurisdictional zone was not impacted.
EPA and its technical assistance contractor (START) were
activated and mobilized to the incident. EPA conducted an assessment, integrated
into on-site Unified Command, conducted community air monitoring, and provided
federal oversight to the RP on cleanup actions. The spill location was in the
EPA’s Area of Responsibility; therefore, EPA was the lead agency. EPA demobilized on August 27, 2023.
