HurricanesAfter 18 months, hurricane vulnerability documents arrive — but they're thin
During Hurricane Katrina, rushing water caused one refinery’s oil tank to rupture, sending oil into more than 1,700 homes a mile away. And the Houston area has many schools and neighborhoods that are less than a mile from large refineries and oil storage terminals. Eighteen months ago, we asked the government for documents that should have shed a lot of light on Houston’s vulnerability to a massive hurricane. After finally receiving them, it turns out the documents are basically useless.
Eighteen months ago, the Texas Tribune and ProPublica asked the federal government for some documents.
At the time, we were investigating what will happen the next time a massive hurricane hits Houston, and because the city is home to a massive oil refining complex, we knew a big oil spill was one likely consequence.
It’s happened before: During Hurricane Katrina, rushing water caused one refinery’s oil tank to rupture, sending oil into more than 1,700 homes a mile away. And the Houston area has many schools and neighborhoods that are less than a mile from large refineries and oil storage terminals.
For months, The Texas Tribune and ProPublica tried in vain to get specific information about what could happen if any of the thousands of massive oil tanks along the Houston Ship Channel sprung a leak during a hurricane; whether companies that owned the tanks were prepared; and whether nearby communities understood the risk. Our last hope, we were told, were documents called “Facility Response Plans” that big facilities must submit to the Environmental Protection Agency.
So we asked for the plans submitted by more than a dozen oil refineries and storage terminals that sit along a 50-mile waterway known as the Houston Ship Channel.
That was in January 2016. The documents finally arrived late last month, but they shed little new light on our original questions.
Ever since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to get any information about the risks of an accident happening along the Houston Ship Channel. That was apparent as we fought to get these documents.
A month after our initial open records request, we got a call from EPA lawyers. They said the documents were “voluminous” and, before releasing them to us, the agency would have to consult with the Department of Homeland Security because of potential sensitive information in the plans.
That agency is basically the place where public information requests go to die.
There was a way to potentially avoid this, or at least speed it up, the EPA said: Narrow the scope of your request. Ask only for a portion of the plan known as “vulnerability analysis.”
That seemed reasonable. According to federal law, those documents “address the potential effects (i.e. to human health, property, or the environment) of an oil discharge” on nearby “water intakes, schools, residential areas, businesses,” and other places. So we agreed to tweak our request.
