The company responsible for this week’s black plume in Houston’s sky has been accused in a federal lawsuit of dumping hazardous waste in the water during Hurricane Harvey.
Intercontinental Terminal Co.’s former hazardous waste specialist in Deer Park sued the company in February 2018 for gender discrimination and then in December amended her compliant to include allegations that the company intentionally released more than a million gallons of hazardous waste into flood waters during Hurricane Harvey to save money.
Releasing such waste would violate both state and federal law. In documents filed in the Southern District of Texas, ITC denied the allegations. ITC declined to comment on the pending litigation.
ITC, a liquid storage terminal owned by the Japanese behemoth Mitsui & Co., has stored petrochemicals for companies including Chevron, Phillips 66 and Exxon Chemical Company. It has been battling a chemical fire in Deer Park that raged from Sunday to Wednesday morning, filling the Houston skies with black smoke. But the allegations of past environmental violations undertaken as cost-saving measures have not previously been reported.
The former hazardous waste specialist, Mary Hart, paints a different story. Far from taking appropriate actions during the disaster, ITC took advantage, she alleges.
“Releasing hazardous waste into the flood waters during Harvey, as opposed to treating the waste, saved ITC millions,” her complaint reads.
Hart, who worked at the company from 1990 to 2017, says she was working in the environmental lab when Carl Holley, at the time a vice president of the company, demanded that the lead environmental operator release the hazardous material stored in ITC’s tanks into the flood. She says that despite being told the release would be illegal, Holley insisted, losing his temper.
For more on this story, visit https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Deer-Park-company-battling-fire-accused-of-13702979.php.