Hurricanes pose growing risk to Coast industrial sites with toxic chemicals
When Hurricane Sally seemed poised to make landfall in western Jackson County, Walter Abram was nervous.
He works at the Mississippi Phosphates Corporation superfund site, where the accumulated byproducts of decades of fertilizer production cover about 300 acres, spread over two piles called stacks. When a single inch of rainfall hits the area, it can generate up to nine million gallons of contaminated water.
It’s Abram’s job to make sure all of that water is held in a system of ditches and ponds and then treated before it can be safely released into the surrounding waters of Bayou Casotte.
If the system fails for any reason, like excessive rainfall, phosphoric acids, heavy metals and radioactive material can spill into the bayou, killing fish and vegetation. So Abram was watching the forecasts — storm surge of up to 11 feet and tremendous rainfall dumped for hours by the slow-moving storm — warily.
“They can say there’s going to be a half inch of rain, and I get nervous,” Abram said. “You’re not gonna outrun that rain.”
Studies have shown that climate change is likely to make hurricanes in the Gulf are stronger, slower, wetter, and more prone to rapid intensification. This season, Sally, moving at a snail’s pace and dropping tons of rain, and Delta, intensifying rapidly, were perfect illustrations of those trends.
When a storm hits an industrial plant or superfund site, home to contaminated land and toxic chemicals, the fallout can be especially dangerous, for people and the environment alike.
In the three coastal counties, perhaps no area is more vulnerable to serious environmental consequences due to hurricanes than Pascagoula, where Mississippi Phosphates’ neighbors include Chevron, Ingalls, Halter Marine and, until it closes at the end of the year, First Chemical.
Abram and his colleagues prepare as best they can. There have been no spills since the Environmental Protection Agency took over management of the site in 2017. Still, every forecast creates anxiety.
“Mother nature does what she wants to,” said Matt Vice, maintenance supervisor at the site. “We’re as prepared as you can prepare. An act of nature, you can’t control.”
Increasing risks
Along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Coasts, about 1,000 superfund sites, contaminated by hazardous chemicals, are at serious risk of coastal flooding, according to a July 2020 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Mississippi Phosphates is one of them. A 2019 Government Accountability Office study found the site faces the “highest flood hazard” and could be damaged by a Category 4 or 5 hurricane.
In 2017, Hurricane Harvey flooded 13 superfund sites. The San Jacinto River toxic waste pits released an unknown quantity of dioxin, which can cause cancer and reproductive issues, into the river.
Chemical plants, refineries and other industrial facilities that are still operating can also release hazardous materials, especially if they’re reluctant to shut down production as a storm approaches or if they lack adequate hurricane preparation plans.
During Harvey, industrial plants released an extra 8.3 million pounds of air pollution beyond permitted levels. After the storm, residents near industrial areas said they experienced new trouble breathing, rashes and fatigues.
Residents of Cherokee Forest, the neighborhood closest to the Bayou Casotte Industrial Park, are well acquainted with strange odors and noises from their industrial neighbors; they’ve been fighting for years for stricter regulations or help leaving the area.
The industrial sites affect their hurricane experiences, too.
During Hurricane Georges, wind bowed in the french doors leading to a balcony at Michael Devine’s house, just across the road from the industrial park. Rainwater blew in. Before long, his two children said their eyes were burning.
He says he saw an orange flare coming from the industrial park. Devine, who worked as a lab shift supervisor at International Paper, believes Chevron was burning something that night.
“I told my wife, take the hand towels, soak ‘em in water,” Devine recalled. “We gotta have something we can breathe through, ‘cause our throats were starting to burn, our eyes were watering and our nostrils were running. Only thing we can do is take those towels and tie our faces with them.”
The next day, his house and vehicle were covered in a dark residue that smelled like pure crude oil.
Devine and his family evacuated for Hurricane Katrina. When they returned home a few days later, three 55-gallon industrial drums had washed up on his property. One of them was busted. Devine couldn’t read the labels to figure out what might have spilled onto his yard.
He called the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, which came to pick them up. Devine never did find out what was inside the drums, but he was told it was a very good thing he had not opened them.
“I know the safety measures you have,” Devine said. “But you can’t control nature. If something were to happen, there’d be nothing you could do to control the chemical leakage out here.”
Preventing spills
At Mississippi Phosphates, major spills have happened at least three times, all when the company was still operating.
In 1998, a spill caused by Hurricane Georges got little attention because it was overshadowed by an oil spill at Chevron. In 2005, a spill killed trees, marsh grass, oyster beds and mullet in Bangs Lake. In 2013, Mississippi Phosphates discharged more than 38 million gallons of acidic wastewater, killing more than 47,000 fish and forcing the closure of Bayou Casotte.
The company went bankrupt in 2014, leaving taxpayers to pay for the massive project of capping the gypsum stacks and treating the acid rainwater that runs off them. Environmental Protection Agency employee Craig Zeller, who serves as remedial project manager, said it will likely cost $200 million to complete the clean-up.
Abram is one of the 10 or so employees at the site who also worked for Mississippi Phosphates when it was in operation, so he’s seen two very different attitudes to environmental risk management. He far prefers the EPA’s approach.
“I guess corporations get greedy,” he said.
When a hurricane approaches, preparation at the site begins well in advance.
“We were ready to handle an 18-inch rainfall should it have occurred,” Zeller said. “Had we had more rain than 18 inches, we would have had to get creative.”
Getting creative essentially means shifting water around to various storage buckets and treating it later.
Sally brought 30 inches of rain to Pensacola. Abram said it takes 35 to 40 inches of rain to trigger spillover at Mississippi Phosphates.
A few days after the storm, all was quiet at Mississippi Phosphates. Zeller’s colleague, Adam Acker, had arrived from the EPA’s office in Atlanta for a routine check-in at the site.
Vice and Acker drove through the facility, past rickety metal structures that longtime employees say were rusting even when Mississippi Phosphates still operated. Huge rolls of astroturf were stacked amid the unused structures, waiting to be unfurled over the second stack, where the capping process is projected to take at least a few more years.
One of the pumps brought in for Sally still sat on the stack that has already been covered by topsoil and grass. Astroturf was chosen to cap the second stack because the first one has to be mown twice a year, which costs around $60,000 every time, Vice said.
As he drove, Vice described the site, their storm precautions, and the three years of smooth sailing since the EPA took over. Acker, who’s relatively new to the project, said he learns more about the massive clean-up project every time he visits.
“It sounds like y’all have been lucky down here a long time,” he said.
