Environmental groups sue Shell for ‘repeated air pollution violations’ at cracker plant

Attorneys with two environmental nonprofits filed a federal lawsuit against Shell Thursday for “repeatedly violating permitted air pollution limits” at the company’s Beaver County ethane cracker plant.

The Environmental Integrity Project and Clean Air Council filed the complaint with the U.S. District Court for Western Pennsylvania, having previously filed a notice of intent to sue Shell earlier this year.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection has issued the company a dozen violation notices related to air quality since January 2022, the groups wrote in the suit, and Shell has submitted nearly 40 malfunction reports in that time. Still, “no enforcement actions or penalties by the state” have materialized, the plaintiffs said. Elevated levels of air contaminants like nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds and particulate matter from the petrochemical complex are harming public health, they said.

“The community will not tolerate dangerous pollution events that risk the health of families across Beaver County and beyond,” said Clean Air Council Executive Director Joseph Minott.

More: With Pa. plastics plant poised to open, residents decide: Stay or go?

Most recently, the lawsuit notes, air monitors at the Potter Township facility detected elevated levels of benzene following a mid-April malfunction at the site’s wastewater treatment plant. Shell reported a release of hydrocarbons, or an “oily water mixture,” as crews drained a tank in preparation for maintenance. The site's fenceline air monitors detected spikes in volatile organic compounds during the incident, and nearby air quality monitors detected spikes in particulate matter.

Those near the petrochemical complex reported a strong chemical scent causing watering, burning eyes, headaches, nausea and other respiratory issues. Rumors of a benzene spill at the plant circulated in the community, but DEP at the time reported “no evidence to date of a significant benzene release or spill.” Shell days later reported to the National Response Center that 300 pounds of benzene was released into the air during the incident, according to the lawsuit.

More: Questions remain after Shell air monitors detect benzene at Potter Twp. cracker plant

“Shell received $1.6 billion in taxpayer subsidies from the state to build this plant,” said Sarah Kula, attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project. “The very least this international corporation can do is to follow the law …”

The groups asked the court to affirm Shell violated, and is currently violating, the Clean Air Act, the Pennsylvania Air Pollution Control Act and its permit, calling for the plant’s shutdown until it’s in compliance. The lawsuit also presses for a civil penalty against Shell for each violation of the Clean Air Act up to $117,468 per day, per violation and a penalty for each violation of the Pennsylvania Air Pollution Control Act up to $25,000 per day, per violation.

Shell previously reported to the DEP that the plant exceeded its 12-month rolling VOC emissions limit of 516.2 tons during several periods, telling regulators that high-pressure gas flaring associated with startup activities was responsible for most of the exceedances.

More: Odors, pollution leave residents uneasy as Shell reports release at cracker plant

But the company in January deployed combustion equipment manufacturer Zeeco’s flare monitor technology to test flare efficiency. Shell told the DEP that the flare successfully destroyed a higher percentage of volatile organic compounds than what the company had previously calculated. The company then argued it hadn’t exceeded rolling VOC limits and revised its reports.

“Shell has not demonstrated that these results are appropriate,” DEP officials recently wrote to Shell environmental manager Kimberly Kaal. The technology is unproven, they added, asking Shell to provide further documentation and reserving the "right to … add a violation.”

The company’s permit imposes a 12-month rolling emissions limit of 328.5 tons of nitrogen oxides, too, which the plant has exceeded in at least four periods.

“Even if Shell emits zero emissions of NOx and VOCs for the next five months, it will continue to violate its (rolling 12-month limits) until September 2023,” the lawsuit states.

More: Shell hit with air permit violations; activists call for operations halt

Shell’s ethane cracker plant, once among the largest building projects in the nation and estimated to cost more than $6 billion, went online about six months ago. It's now temporarily shut down for repairs, including maintenance on the site’s flaring system.

“During commissioning, startup and early operations, not everything works exactly the way it was drawn up,” the plant’s general manager Bill Watson said at a recent community meeting. “There's millions and millions of moving parts that come together on this site. Some very, very big and others very, very small. It’s standard that it takes a while to get everything up and running smoothly.”

Shell CEO Wael Sawan said during a May 8 earnings call that the startup of the Potter Township plant has been slower than expected, according to Reuters.

“We continue to be hopeful that through the course of this year, we should bring it up to the levels that we had anticipated in the plan,” said Sawan. “It's been slower than we would have hoped for, but the team is doing a great job battling with some of the obvious technical niggles that startups typically have.”

The plastics plant is expected to contribute about $1 billion annually to company earnings once those “niggles” are resolved, Sawan said.

Company representatives maintain Shell is committed to complying with all county, state and federal regulations.

“When there is an issue, we work to fix it,” a statement read. “We learn from those issues and work to improve so that we can be the good environmental steward, neighbor and business partner this region wants and deserves.”

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Environmental groups sue Shell for ‘repeated air pollution violations’ at Beaver County plant