POTTER TWP. — A combination of two cleaning agents likely caused white foam to collect near a river outfall at Shell's ethane cracker plant last month.

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The company deployed its maritime spill operator in early August to remove and test piles of foam that unexpectedly appeared on the edge of the Ohio River, ultimately determining small amounts of two commercial cleaning products — Simple Green and ZEP — caused the bubbling.

Cleanup crews removed the foam before it traveled beyond a boom placed to keep the degreasers from entering the larger Ohio River, company leadership said at a Wednesday community meeting. The two agents were regulatorily approved for use at the plant: Simple Green for cleaning and ZEP as a release agent for paving asphalt roads.

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“We didn’t get any reports of harm to wildlife, our contractor that did the cleanup was proactively monitoring the vicinity and downriver,” said cracker plant production manager Michael Burke. “We’re going to continue to monitor these outfalls and make sure nothing enters the water that shouldn’t be there.”

The foam hasn’t made a reappearance in recent days, Burke said. Shell will remove the absorbent boom put in place for collection while leaving the protective boom “just to make sure if there’s another future occurrence we catch it and keep it on site,” he said.

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“At the end of the day, we’re sorry for the visual impact that this caused,” Burke added. “It didn’t meet our expectations.”

The foaming incident prompted Beaver County residents to ask “what’s next?” at the virtual meeting hosted by Shell Wednesday evening.

In September 2021, Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection issued the company violations for “malodorous air contaminants” detected outside of the plant’s property line. State regulators said Shell violated air pollution laws when a strong chemical odor related to corrosion prevention activities wafted into Beaver County. In March 2022, Shell reported a 2,500-gallon sulfuric acid spill at the cracker plant, but the discharge was caught in a pre-existing secondary containment tank and didn't leave the site.

“The site isn’t even operating yet, and you’ve already had to make notifications about stuff ending up in the air and water that weren't supposed to be there,’ one participant said Wednesday. “How do we have confidence things won’t just get worse as you start up?”

Plant manager Bill Watson quickly responded, insisting that Shell is dedicated to community health and environmental protection.

“When things don't go according to plan, our commitment to you is we’re going to learn from those events and we’re going to improve going forward,” Watson said.

Construction of Shell’s ethane cracker plant in Beaver County — once among the largest building projects in the nation — is now 100% complete. Operators still plan to have the site online and producing plastic pellets by year’s end, with local plant managers estimating operations could begin by the end of summer.

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Shell says cleaning agents caused white foam near river outfall