{"id":26684,"date":"2013-04-18T15:31:17","date_gmt":"2013-04-18T20:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=26684"},"modified":"2013-04-24T17:28:19","modified_gmt":"2013-04-24T22:28:19","slug":"texas-investigated-west-fertilizer-plant-in-2006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2013\/04\/18\/texas-investigated-west-fertilizer-plant-in-2006\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Investigated West Fertilizer Plant in 2006"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tceq.state.tx.us\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality<\/a>\u00a0has\u00a0released the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tceq.texas.gov\/news\/releases\/4-18west\" target=\"_blank\">records history<\/a>\u00a0of the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/kutnews.org\/post\/west-texas-15-fatalities-estimated-fire-under-control\" target=\"_blank\">West<\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_26688\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2013\/04\/18\/texas-investigated-west-fertilizer-plant-in-2006\/state-investigated-west-fertilizer-plant-2006-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-26688\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-26688\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2013\/04\/state-investigated-west-fertilizer-plant-20061-300x206.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"206\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2013\/04\/state-investigated-west-fertilizer-plant-20061-300x206.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2013\/04\/state-investigated-west-fertilizer-plant-20061.jpeg 440w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">TCEQ<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A citizen complained to the TCEQ in 2006 of a strong ammonia smell coming from the West Fertilizer Co.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/kutnews.org\/post\/west-texas-15-fatalities-estimated-fire-under-control\" target=\"_blank\">Fertilizer Co.<\/a>The plant was built in 1962, before the federal government required\u00a0such facilities\u00a0to have\u00a0federal\u00a0air permit authorizations for certain chemicals.\u00a0The plant did not\u00a0receive\u00a0the authorization until 2004.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>In 2006, a citizen filed\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www2.tceq.texas.gov\/oce\/waci\/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.complaint&amp;incid=76859\" target=\"_blank\">an official complaint<\/a>\u00a0with the TCEQ. The complaint said that the \u201cammonia smell [was] very bad last night from Fertilizer Plant,\u201d and that the smell \u00a0\u201clingered until after they went to bed.\u201d The TCEQ investigated the plant and issued a violation because the plant had not gotten the required authorization.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>After a commission investigation in 2006, the plant received two air permit authorizations for \u201cdry fertilizer materials\u201d and for \u201ctwo 12,000-gallon anhydrous ammonia storage tanks.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Records show\u00a0that the\u00a0TCEQ\u00a0has\u00a0visited the plant several times since issuing the permit but noted no concerns about the company. There have not been any recorded complaints about the company since 2006.<\/p>\n<h5><em>Olivia Gordon is a reporting intern with StateImpact Texas.<\/em><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality\u00a0has\u00a0released the\u00a0records history\u00a0of the\u00a0West Fertilizer Co.The plant was built in 1962, before the federal government required\u00a0such facilities\u00a0to have\u00a0federal\u00a0air permit authorizations for certain chemicals.\u00a0The plant did not\u00a0receive\u00a0the authorization until 2004. In 2006, a citizen filed\u00a0an official complaint\u00a0with the TCEQ. The complaint said that the \u201cammonia smell [was] very bad last night [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":97,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[59],"tags":[296],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26684"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/97"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}