What else is at plant where gas leak that shut down Delaware Memorial Bridge occurred?
Maddy LauriaJust three months after official operations started at a new bio-ethanol plant along the Delaware River, a gas leak brought Thanksgiving weekend traffic to a halt on Delaware Memorial Bridge and put a scare into nearby residents.
The highly flammable gas, ethylene oxide, is used in a variety of products, but Croda Inc.'s new plant north of New Castle is among the first to use renewable materials to produce the compound.
Below is a breakdown of the company that owns the plant and the chemical that leaked.
What we know about the leak that closed the Delaware Memorial Bridge
What is Croda?
Croda Inc.’s industrial site at Atlas Point, near the Delaware Memorial Bridge, is where the international company manufactures surfactants, substances that act as agents that can bind oil and water to make products such as face creams, toothpastes, paints and laundry detergents.
Croda uses corn-based ethanol instead of petroleum-based products to make ethylene oxide, the chemical needed to create those emulsifying agents. State environmental regulators granted Croda a permit to manufacture ethylene oxide in 2015.
According to documents stored in DNREC’s online environmental navigator, Croda’s ethylene oxide plant is capable of producing 30,000 metric tons of ethylene oxide annually.
When did operations begin?
The company told state officials on Sept. 25 that ethylene oxide operations began on Aug. 24, and the chemical first reached storage tanks on Aug. 29, according to correspondence between Croda and state officials.
DNREC inspected the site on Aug. 20 and found that Croda was in compliance with all regulatory and permit requirements, documents show.
“Croda Inc. had an excellent inspection,” DNREC Environmental Engineer Melanie Smith wrote in a letter attached to that inspection.
What is ethylene oxide?
Ethylene oxide is a colorless gas – or colorless liquid below 51 degrees – that is produced by catalytically reacting ethylene, a hydrocarbon, and oxygen, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It mixes well with water and is considered extremely flammable in liquid form, but also flammable as a gas. Ethylene oxide is considered to be a human carcinogen, and exposure to the chemical can cause a slew of medical problems including skin rashes, breathing problems and, in severe cases, coma.
According to the CDC, the chemical is used to sterilize hospital supplies and cosmetics, as a fumigant and in the manufacture of antifreeze and other chemicals.
'Traffic nightmare' over as Delaware Memorial Bridge reopens, highly flammable gas leak contained
Are there other dangerous chemicals at this site?
The site is monitored and inspected for emissions, which are pollutants or chemicals released during the manufacturing process.
Those chemicals can include the release of ethylene oxide, propylene oxide, 1,4-Dioxane and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), a third-party inspector wrote in a letter. The manufacturing process also releases permitted levels of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide, sulfur oxide and particulate matter.
In the most recent state inspection, the site was described as “a major source of NOx and VOC,” where emissions are controlled through a variety of equipment and monitored by “semi-annual leak detection and repair inspections” of the storage areas.
No violations were found during that inspection, documents show.
Has Croda had other problems?
There are 10 violations connected to Croda Inc. in DNREC’s violations database, dating from 2008 to 2016.
Those violations include failure to monitor or record emissions, a previous unpermitted release of ethylene oxide in 2008, improper marking on hazardous waste containers, beginning construction without proper stormwater and sediment control plans, best management practice violations, failure to make a timely application for permit renewals, excess emissions and failure to regularly inspect or maintain inspection records for storage areas.
How is this industry allowed in the Coastal Zone?
The Atlas Point site near the Delaware Memorial Bridge is one of 14 grandfathered sites within Delaware's Coastal Zone, a strip of land along the Delaware River, Delaware Bay and Atlantic coast that faces additional regulatory scrutiny under a 1971 environmental law.
Last year, Gov. John Carney signed a bill that would allow those grandfathered sites to be redeveloped. That marked the first change to the environmental law in its nearly 50-year history.
None of the operations at Croda's plant have been subject to that new bill because they take place on the existing footprint of the industrial site.
The company's original request to start the ethylene oxide manufacturing operation did require a Coastal Zone Act permit, but because the site has long been considered a manufacturing site, it did not constitute a new industrial use – which would have previously been banned by the act.
How long has the site been on the Delaware River?
British-based Croda Inc. previously was granted approval for a $170 million bio-ethanol plant at its Atlas Point site, which the company bought from Uniqema in 2006.
A manufacturing operation has been at Atlas Point for more than 75 years, decades before Delaware’s Coastal Zone Act was signed into law.
When Croda sought approval for its plant, then-DNREC Secretary David Small said that the project will end the need for long-distance rail shipments of hazardous ethylene oxide from the Gulf Coast to the company's plant near the Delaware Memorial Bridge.
The site, which has a 179.6-acre footprint, also is used by Fuji Film to manufacture ink and colorants mainly for ink-jet printers. That process, along with ink technology research efforts, takes place on a different part of the site.
Another parcel within Atlas Point recently sold to Sobieski for offices and a training center, according to DNREC.
Croda, according to its 2016 report, operates facilities in 36 countries. Eight of those operations are in North America.
Contact reporter Maddy Lauria at (302) 345-0608, mlauria@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @MaddyinMilford.
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