How 60-year-old weather data is flooding Texas with pollution
As the heavy rainfall of Hurricane Harvey thundered down on the Texas Gulf Coast at the end of August 2017, the roof on a massive ExxonMobil storage tank “partially sank.” The collapse caused the facility to release more than 185,000 pounds of pollutants, including carcinogenic compounds like benzene. That same week, Harvey damaged storage tanks at eight other similar facilities.
Petrochemical storage tanks often have floating roofs that sit right above the product, and the unusually heavy rainfall caused tank roofs to sink, partially submerge, or float and release their contents into floodwaters. In total, the storage tanks released 3.1 million of the reported 8.3 million pounds of excess pollution that were emitted during Harvey.
Many of these accidents could have been prevented if the tanks had been designed to account for the heavier rainfall events brought on by climate …