It happens alot around the Corpus Christi area and although they are usually minor explosions it is very scary just the same. Oddly enough I heard about the chemical plant explosion in west Texas yesterday from my sister who lives in Nebraska. We have family living in Big Springs but fortunately they are alright and there were no human fatalities in the explosion, but the black poisonous smoke still drifts through the air.

I remember passing by the smelly plant on our way into the town of Big Springs from my little home town of Colorado City that is located just 28 miles away often when I was younger. The huge tanks of rusted metals stood tall on both sides of the interstate with black clouds of smoke out of its stacks.Whenever we passed my sisters and I always held our noses and made silly remarks about the fumes being strong enough to make your eyes water.

Back in those days, before they started setting much more stricter and healthier safety laws, it was true the toxic fumes that poured through that plant were very strong and hazzardous, but it was before we knew just how toxic those fumes really were. Strange how these smelly little plants have been putting up such big stinks all around the globe.

I don't know if they will try to rebuild another one there in Big Springs but if they do it will have to be built by the newer and stricter standards which will make it a safer and healthier one, and although it sounds extreme... maybe the destruction of the refinery will be what it takes to make that happen.

Explosion at Big Springs Alon Refinery has the full story and lots of pictures of the burning plant

There are alot of outdated chemical plants like that that have been running for many years and are in dire need of removal or updating. Infact just last year Corpus Christi hosted (thanks to Citgo) the first criminal trial of a refinery in U.S. history and as a result Citgo is the first refiner to be criminally convicted. Not only were they found guilty of leaking toxic chemicals out into the air by not properly covering their tanks but they falsly reported the levels of the chemicals that were escaping and ... they violated the bird treaty act .

I was outraged about all of this and when I found out that innocent birds were migrating for miles just to end their journey in a pool of oil that was diguised as a refreshing water hole ... well it made me sick to my stomache. Ducks and Pelicans were removed from two large uncovered tanks by the company (Citgo) officials and nothing was done to remedy the situation. I can't understand how any one could knowingly let something like that happen. And all these violations had been going on for years. Of course Citgo made sure they were in complete compliance of every regulation by the time they were actually brought to trial for it.

CITGO owns and operates deep conversion refineries strategically located in Texas, ... some of which are operated by Koch Pipeline Company, which has broken major environmental laws for years in this area. But Corpus Christi is hardly the only place where Koch has been accused of violating environmental standards. In 2000, Koch was fined $35 million -- the largest civil penalty ever imposed on a company under federal environmental law -- for more than 300 oil spills into lakes, streams and waterways from its pipelines and oil facilities in six states. In one case, the Environmental Protection Agency reported, almost 100,000 gallons of oil was spilled in Texas and caused a twelve-mile oil slick on Nueces Bay and Corpus Christi Bay.

This story aired on MTV and Roling Stone magazines' reality show a little over a year ago, in January 2007."The Dark Side of Texas: Pete Maiden Reports on Corpus Christi's Koch Industries "

Here is the press release  Local Connection for Environmental Justice on local issues in Corpus Christi, Texas.  (pdf)

A friend of mine  still living in my little hometown of Colorado City says that the huge old refinery storage tanks that sat up on a hill at the edge of town for as long as I can rememember, have been torn down and they found that the containors had been leaking toxic chemicals into the air as well as absorbing it into the ground, for years. They are finally trying to clean it up but alot of damage has been done. It has compromised the health of the people there and they have the same symptoms as people living here in Corpus Christi and other parts of the world that have been exposed to dangerous chemical spills . Many people have suffered years of health problems from it and the oil companies are trying to dish out big settlements to compensate the people but ... money can't replace the loss of their loved ones or restore their good health nor can it return their better quality of life that was stolen from them.

 And just a couple of months ago I found out my son is living right on the edge of  a landfill disposal site that is leaking poisons into the waterway in Robstown (a small town on the outskirts of Corpus Christi)  which has presented a different kind of problem. My son was unaware of the nearby hazzard when him and his girlfriend  moved in about 4 months ago, but now the city is making plans of how to evacuate the whole community so that the toxic stuff  can be deported out of there. I am very worried for their safety and the safety of my unborn granchild that will be arriving in a few  months.

Texas Environmental profiles   explaines some more about the types of landfill disposals like this one.

You can check out the Pollution in your community, or get a national report on water quality on The Pollution Information site.

And you can find out more on air Pollutions hereNaturual Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Air Pollution  and hereEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA)  The Plain English Guide to the Clean Air Act ,which provides a brief introduction to the 1990 Clean Air Act. The 1990 Clean Air Act is the most recent version of a law first passed in 1970 to clean up air pollution.

In February 2006, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the results of its national-scale assessment of 1999 air toxics emissions. It includes details of their findings on 177 air pollutants (a subset of the air toxics on the Clean Air Act's list of 187 air toxics plus diesel particulate matter), as well as a a national-scale assessment for the year 1996 of 33 air pollutants (a subset of 32 air toxics on the Clean Air Act's list of 188 air toxics plus diesel particulate matter. 

We must keep working on ways to prevent further poisioning of our earth, our people, our nature, and all of our vital natural resources.

Below are a couple of pictures I took of the Chemical plant in Corpus Christi Texas (owned by Koch Industries)  on Jan.25,2008 

 

Hi, I was just checking by and I was surprised to see the name Big Springs, TX . That is where I was born 45 yrs ago. My daddy was from there. My mom was from MS. I haven't been back since we went to my Granddaddy's funeral when I was 15. My daddy's parents owned a small motel there at one time. Seeing the pics reminded me of how FLAT and OPEN it is out there. Mama said when I was a baby and we came to MS to visit her mom from there I would just lay and stare up at the trees (I'm sure that was so different from Big Springs ) I still love trees.
I'm sure the explosion won't help their economy much. From what I had heard several years back it wasn't having a great economy then.

Wow that is scary stuff about where your son is. I hope they will all be ok.

You know many people think the Bible says that money is the root of all evil but what it actually says in 1 Timothy 6:10 is the LOVE of money is the root of all evil and it is so true. Many companies have done whatever they wanted and could just to make a dollar without any thought to what could happen to other people.

Wow, born in Big Springs, small world ;-)... Yes we visited family there just last summer, I posted about my "West Texas Journey", and the land is still the same ,lots of flat ,wide open spaces.the economy there has been down for years, mostly all that is left now is oilfield drilling. But I still miss it because I have some great memories from growing up around there.