Storm spreads stench from oil refinery.
(From Philippine Daily Inquirer)
Byline: Mei Magsino
BATANGAS CITY-It was not only the rains or the monsoon winds that residents living near Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp.'s (PSPC) refinery in Barangay Tabangao here had to endure the past three days but also the foul stench from the facility's emissions.
In a complaint, the barangay chairs of Malitam, Libjo, Sta. Clara, Calicanto, Tabangao, Sta. Rita, Wawa, Bolbok, Cuta and San Isidro appealed to Mayor Eduardo Dimacuha and the city council to conduct an immediate investigation.
They alleged that the refinery had been violating Presidential Decree No. 984 or the Anti-Pollution Law.
Roberto Kanapi, PSPC general manager for external affairs, said the stench could have been come from the crude oil tanks in the refinery, but added that it was inherent in all petroleum and even non-petroleum companies.
"What happened here was that nature seems to have conspired against us. The monsoon wind blew the odor up north to the residential area that came only in the '90s. Shell has been here since 1962. We're doing everything we can to make sure that this doesn't happen again," Kanapi said.
According to Bing Veneracion, Shell Tabangao's operations manager, the company had been conducting studies to determine where the odor came from.
Shell investigators at first suspected the LPG flare tower as the source. The tower burns excess hydrocarbons.
Veneracion said they also suspected ships that unloaded the crude oil, possible leakage from trucks that transferred the fuel, and even hydrocarbon leaks.
But he discounted all of these possible angles when the odor lasted longer than expected. The stench remained even after the ships and trucks had long gone.
Hydrocarbon leaks cannot last long as the automated alarms of the plant could detect and stop the leaks immediately after it was detected, Veneracion said.
On April 28, the residents of Tabangao, Malitam, Libjo, Wawa, San Isidro and Sta. Clara had already complained of the foul odor. From May 25 to 27, the odor spread throughout Barangay San Isidro, a residential area with a population of about 5,000, and even reportedly reached the neighboring barangays of Wawa, Sta. Clara and Libjo.
It was up in the northern side of the city that the stench was the foulest and longest.
Dr. Baby Clerigo, a dentist and resident of San Isidro, said several children in her neighborhood vomited after smelling the foul stench for three days.
Frequent asthma attacks have also been reported in households here and in nearby barangays.
Their complaint, according to Tabangao Barangay Chair Joel Caaway, was further compelled after a grassfire hit the area near Shell Gas Eastern Inc., where the company's liquefied petroleum gas was processed on May 18.
Although the 45-minute fire burned only a grassy area 200 meters from the LPG tanks, it raised the fears among residents of the barangays near the compound.
"The fire could have caused the entire refinery to explode, and it might affect the entire city," Caaway said.
But Veneracion said the fire could have been caused by a spark from the flare tower that burns the excess hydrocarbons in the gas plant. "That is a very remote chance because the flare is as far as 200 meters from the grassy area."
Another possibility, he said, was that some people "who now squat in our buffer zone could have accidentally started that fire."
"That grassfire was even impossible to reach the propane and butane tanks because those were already too far and the ground was also designed and equipped with materials that could prevent fire," Veneracion stressed.
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