Mitsui & Co Ltd Intercontinental Terminals Co. faces five environmental criminal charges in March following a chemical fire. It released toxic chemicals from its Deer Park, petrochemical facility in Texas into the waters. Notably, the water flows into the Gulf of Mexico. Here in this article, we are going to discuss Mitsui ITC Fire and official’s statements.
A three-day blaze consumed 11 storage tanks. Thus a containment wall breach spilt toxic chemicals xylene and benzene into the waterway. It halts traffic in the nation’s busiest port i.e. Houston to the Gulf of Mexico waterways.
According to district attorney Harris County, ITC could face penalties of up to $100,000 for each of the five charges.
The fire caused a dyke to break at the facility and spilt the aforementioned toxic chemicals into the waterways for five days.
However, ITC did not comment as response immediately.
An attorney for ITC, Michael Goldberg said, “Although we have not seen the charges, there is no question that there was a large fire and an enormous effort to extinguish it which resulted in a discharge into Tucker Bayou.
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Alex Forrest said, “The discharge from the ITC fire into Tucker Bayou is a clear water pollution case.” Forrest is an environmental crimes division chief prosecutor with the district attorney’s office.
Last month, State’s environmental regulatory authority i.e. Texas Commission on Environmental Quality along with Harris County filed a lawsuit against ITC. Both authorities are seeking civil penalties and recovery of County’s costs of responding to the March fires.
The response of Harris County costs around $1.9 million. County employees devoted many work hours to pollution control, firefighting, law enforcement and public health.
However, Harris County will still determine if other possible charges could follow but only after other local and federal agencies complete their investigations.
In addition, Inspectors from TCEQ, US Chemical Safety Board, Harris County and Environmental Protection Agency also started investigations. They will investigate the cause of the fire that destructed 11 tanks.
For now, this was everything about Mitsui ITC Fire. for more updates on this, stay tuned to Daily Patron.
