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Placid Refining (2366), Port Allen

Causal Factor: Human Factors

LDEQ Accident Number
Accident Date
Point Source(s) Notes Amount of Release
n/a

2007-10-17
Seam tear in tank roof
Cause: Inadequate procedures for handling unstable gasoline.

Followup: No

Notes: Placid refinery has reivse Standard Operating Procedures and has instituted training for all operations and terminal personnel to prevent reoccurence.
Hydrogen Sulfide: 162.1 pounds
Volatile Organic Compounds: 23,779.0 pounds
110039

2008-10-13
Vacuum gas oil line
Cause: Operator error

Followup: No

Notes: Report states 'undetermined amounts' of pollutants emittedFire, water, and other materials that were not consumed were collected inside the curbed process and routed to Placid's waste water treatment facility.



108388

2008-08-26
Valve on heat exchanger
Cause: Maintenance error during turnaround

Followup: No

Notes: Vent line valve left open causing crude to ignite. Reiterated startup procedures to operators

105345

2008-05-04
Gasoline Storage Tank #67
Cause: Operator error

Followup: No

Notes: Refinery states that they are taking steps to enhance automatic tank monitoring to allow for redundant alarm and control mechanism. One worker had a bruised shoulder during cleanup.
Gasoline: 52,500.0 gallons
124744

2010-07-12
FLARE:Catalytic Hydrotreater, SRU #2 & #3 [EPN 18-74]
Cause: Power failure caused shut down of Catalytic hydrotreater, Sulfur Recovery Units # 2 and # 3 and resulted in flaring acid gas and sour water gas...and 12,681 lb SO2 emissions. ROOT CAUSE was an "errant setting on the Feeder Management Relay for Powerhouse 11. The relate was set to trip on an instantaneous over current to neutral."

Followup: No

Notes: RQ. Refinery letter states that "setting was disabled in the relay to prevent future errant power interruptions." LDEQ report states that incident will "be taken up at the next scheduled inspection. Need calculations and whether it could have been prevented the duration."
Sulfur Dioxide: 12,681.0 pounds
128541

2011-01-08
Frac Water Tank
Cause: A water supply line to a water storage tank was not completely closed and the valve was not broken or in need of repair.

Followup: No

Notes: IPT will develop a written checklist detailing the shut down procedures for the water feed and treatment area. The shift supervisor reported that water samples were clear and had no free hydrocarbons. IPT reported recovering 18,735 gallons of potable water in total.
Water or Wastewater: 18,735.0 gallons
150385

2013-08-14
outfall 006
Cause: Due to a plugged surface sewer in the refinery's waste water treatment plant during heavy rains, a modicum of treated process waste water intended for discharge out an LPDES permitted treated process waste water outfall was discharged out LPDES permitted stormwater outfall 006, brought about by operator error. Loss of sources of radiation is not at issue; the release point is subject to an LPDES permit.

Followup: No

Notes: Immediately implement remedial operator training and ensure all waste water equipment is functioning as designed.



159462

2014-10-16
Crude Unit, crude processing tower
Cause: Operations personnel was changing out a check valve on a line off a crude oil processing tower in the crude unit when reduced crude oil began leaking out of a valve inadvertently left open after preparing the line for service. The oil ignited causing a small fire.

Followup: No

Notes: Operations personnel evacuated persons in the area and opened fire monitors to contain the fire. Placid's emergency response fire team extinguished the fire in approximately 15 minutes and isolated the valves to stop the leak. Water and any residual oil not burned remained within the operating unit containment area and was sent to the wastewater treatment plant. Placid will conduct operator training to prevent recurrence.
Sulfur Dioxide: 37.0 pounds
#6 Oil: 699.0 gallons
153225

2014-01-06
Internal Vapor Combustor (source ID 1-91, EQT 0041)
Cause: During a review of trends on control equipment on 1/8/2014 it was noticed that Placid's internal vapor combustor (source ID 1-91, EQT 0041) was not operating. The combuster has the ability to control emissions from barge and/or truck loading from Placid's Tank Farm, however only Placid's Tank Farm was routed to the combustor during the outage. Placid has no known reason why the combustor failed other than abnormally cold weather. Placid has assessed the root cause as operator error as the shutdown alarm was not acknowledged.

Followup: No

Notes: Placid's engineering and terminal departments are currently reviewing adding alarms to the terminal control system. Report states that actual engineering calculations will be maintained by Placid and are available for review upon request. Additionally, this report was filed in conjunction with another incident of the same DEQ number and State Police number. The cases to not appear to be related and occurred at different times with different materials discharged. No State Police Report was included for either case. Second case with the same DEQ and LSP number is included in database with DEQ#1532250 to differentiate them.
1,3-Butadiene: 0.0 pounds
Benzene: 21.1 pounds
Biphenyl: 0.1 pounds
Butene: 4.0 pounds
Cresol: 0.0 pounds
Cumene: 0.7 pounds
Ethylbenzene: 6.8 pounds
Ethylene: 0.0 pounds
Isooctane: 22.1 pounds
Naphthalene: 0.7 pounds
n-Hexane: 75.9 pounds
Phenol: 0.3 pounds
Propylene: 0.0 pounds
Styrene: 0.7 pounds
Toluene: 114.7 pounds
Xylene: 53.9 pounds