First held scoreless, then bankruptcy, now pollutant factory near campus

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Community concerns have ranged from questions about what materials will be handled at the facility to additional noise and how materials released from the facility could impact the quality of life for nearby residents.

Subra said the concerns are valid, given that the permit gives the company the ability to release 198 chemicals to the air. Of that, Subra said, only five chemicals have specific limits on how much can be released.

Although some of the vapors in the barges will be sent to a flare to burn off the material, there will also be quite a bit released to the air, Subra said.

From the flare itself, the proposed permit would allow for 13.14 tons of air pollution to be released a year including benzene, a known carcinogen; chloroform, which is considered a probable carcinogen; and 1,2-Dichloreoethan, which may cause cancer in humans, Subra said.

The facility would pump out any remaining liquid in barges into on-site storage tanks that would then be loaded onto trucks for sale or disposal. Remaining vapors in the barges would then be sent to an enclosed flare.

Slawo Lomnick, with the Department of Environmental Sciences at LSU, walked through how flaring works, describing how difficult it is to burn certain chemicals with high efficiency and the complications flares can encounter.

In addition, he said, it’s important to remember that as some chemicals are burned they may be destroyed only to create new compounds that aren’t accounted for.

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