We are preparing for our Town Hall Meeting with the DEQ next week to address our concerns regarding toxic industrial emissions in our air around the neighborhood and our schools:
Neighbors for Clean Air Town Hall Mtg with the DEQ
Thursday, May 21st 7.00pm
Chapman Elementary School Auditorium
I want to challenge you to be part of a positive outcome to this meeting. We will use this meeting to deliver our petition. We are still a few hundred short of the goal of 1000 signatures. Can you pledge to "walk a block" of our neighborhood to get more signatures and to encourage people to attend this meeting? This could be yours, or you could sign up with me to walk areas of the neighborhood that still have yet to be informed adequately about this issue.
It is critical that, in order to garner the attention we need to this issue, we show our force in terms of number of people that are concerned about the information in the USA Today report. That means, yes: YOU. We need you at this meeting.
Remember, people can also now sign the petition on line at: www.portlandair.org
Friday, May 15, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
What's in our air?
I've been examining air pollution permits for gasoline terminals in Northwest Portland. You may be shocked at what I've found:
There are 467 petroleum storage tanks in Northwest Portland owned by six companies at seven separate terminals. Six of them store gasoline; the seventh stores crude oil for the manufacture of asphalt.
The permits say the terminals are a significant source of Volatile Organic Compound emissions, or VOCs, which arise from operations that include loading tanker trucks and trailers, loading and unloading marine vessels (barges and ships), the storage of products, handling and processing of oily wastewater, and fugitive-leak sources such as pumps, valves, and flanges.
Many of these compounds, like benzene, are carcinogenic. The terminals also emit massive amounts of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide and tiny particulates.
Two of the gasoline terminals are owned by Chevron. The others are owned by Equilon (also known as Shell), Kinder Morgan, Shore Terminals and BP. Paramount Petroleum owns the crude oil tanks. The oil comes from the Alaska Arctic, where oil rigs are displacing endangered polar bears and other wildlife. The oil is refined in the Puget Sound area.
All are clustered along NW St. Helens Rd and NW Front Ave. between Willbridge and Linnton. Each tank holds between several thousand gallons to 5.5 million gallons. Collectively, they are able to store as much as 200 million gallons of gasoline at any one time -- or perhaps even more -- when they are filled to their rated capacity.
Some of the tanks are as old as 1910. Who knows how safe they are. They are connected to the Olympic Pipeline, which carries gasoline from refineries in Puget Sound north of Seattle, to Portland. You might remember an explosion at the north end of the pipeline in Bremerton 10 years ago -- on June 10, 1999, to be exact -- killing three youths: one who was 18, and two others, both age 10. The massive fireball sent a plume of smoke 30,000 feet into the air, visible from Anacortes to Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
Ten years ago, a Cascadia Times investigation revealed that the DEQ was failing to address the massive, illegal and uncontrolled vapor emissions from the gasoline terminals, even though those emissions contributed to repeated violations of the Clean Air Act within the city of Portland year after year. Local citizens filed suit and won a settlement against Chevron, and the DEQ cracked down on the polluters with new regulations requiring them to install vapor control equipment.
Before 2001, the terminals emitted as much as 1,392 tons per year of VOCs, much of it released to the air during transfers of gasoline from barges to shore. But even with the control equipment, the terminals today still emit 1,090 tons of VOCs per year. The decrease amounted to a sizeable 21.6 percent reduction in the amount of VOCs in our air, but a lot of dangerous fumes remain.
I wonder if the neighbors are going to be happy with just this 21.6 percent decrease, given the high amounts of pollution that schools in Portland are facing, as reported last December in USA Today.
You'll want to know what Northwest Portland neighbors are doing to fight the DEQ and the polluters, which includes ESCO, a steel mill. Watch this space for an important announcement to be made soon.
There are 467 petroleum storage tanks in Northwest Portland owned by six companies at seven separate terminals. Six of them store gasoline; the seventh stores crude oil for the manufacture of asphalt.
The permits say the terminals are a significant source of Volatile Organic Compound emissions, or VOCs, which arise from operations that include loading tanker trucks and trailers, loading and unloading marine vessels (barges and ships), the storage of products, handling and processing of oily wastewater, and fugitive-leak sources such as pumps, valves, and flanges.
Many of these compounds, like benzene, are carcinogenic. The terminals also emit massive amounts of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide and tiny particulates.
Two of the gasoline terminals are owned by Chevron. The others are owned by Equilon (also known as Shell), Kinder Morgan, Shore Terminals and BP. Paramount Petroleum owns the crude oil tanks. The oil comes from the Alaska Arctic, where oil rigs are displacing endangered polar bears and other wildlife. The oil is refined in the Puget Sound area.
All are clustered along NW St. Helens Rd and NW Front Ave. between Willbridge and Linnton. Each tank holds between several thousand gallons to 5.5 million gallons. Collectively, they are able to store as much as 200 million gallons of gasoline at any one time -- or perhaps even more -- when they are filled to their rated capacity.
Some of the tanks are as old as 1910. Who knows how safe they are. They are connected to the Olympic Pipeline, which carries gasoline from refineries in Puget Sound north of Seattle, to Portland. You might remember an explosion at the north end of the pipeline in Bremerton 10 years ago -- on June 10, 1999, to be exact -- killing three youths: one who was 18, and two others, both age 10. The massive fireball sent a plume of smoke 30,000 feet into the air, visible from Anacortes to Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
Ten years ago, a Cascadia Times investigation revealed that the DEQ was failing to address the massive, illegal and uncontrolled vapor emissions from the gasoline terminals, even though those emissions contributed to repeated violations of the Clean Air Act within the city of Portland year after year. Local citizens filed suit and won a settlement against Chevron, and the DEQ cracked down on the polluters with new regulations requiring them to install vapor control equipment.
Before 2001, the terminals emitted as much as 1,392 tons per year of VOCs, much of it released to the air during transfers of gasoline from barges to shore. But even with the control equipment, the terminals today still emit 1,090 tons of VOCs per year. The decrease amounted to a sizeable 21.6 percent reduction in the amount of VOCs in our air, but a lot of dangerous fumes remain.
I wonder if the neighbors are going to be happy with just this 21.6 percent decrease, given the high amounts of pollution that schools in Portland are facing, as reported last December in USA Today.
You'll want to know what Northwest Portland neighbors are doing to fight the DEQ and the polluters, which includes ESCO, a steel mill. Watch this space for an important announcement to be made soon.
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