AP PHOTO/CHARLIE RIEDEL
PLAYING
WITH FIRE
to have exerted a sense of primary authority. Records suggest that
oversight was spotty at best.
Neil Carman, the clean air director at the Texas chapter of
the Sierra Club, previously spent
more than a decade inspecting facilities like West Fertilizer while
working for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Unlike large industrial plants,
which the commission inspects
once a year, small operators like
West Fertilizer are inspected every five years or so, unless there
HUFFINGTON
04.28.13
is a specific complaint, he said.
He described oversight of such
small facilities as “minimal.”
In 2006, inspectors from Carman’s former agency responded
11 days after a report of ammonia odor at West Fertilizer and
discovered that the company
had failed to register two giant,
12,000-gallon anhydrous ammonia tanks as required. The manager, Uptmore, said he thought the
company was grandfathered into
air quality regulations and didn’t
need a permit to store the gas.
The Environmental Protection
Agency subsequently fined the
plant $2,300 for failing to turn
Mayor Pro
Tem Steve
Vanek of
West, Texas,
speaks to the
media in front
of city hall on
April 20.