Something is not right in Bayou Vista, Texas. On January 13, a notorious oil refinery owned by Marathon Petroleum spewed “catalyst dust” for nearly 24 hours, which coated the lawns, cars, and houses of this small community two miles from Texas City. Residents were not informed what was going on, but eventually Marathon fessed up to the incident and offered residents $400 to wash away the innocuous sounding substance, which is not so innocuous the more one reads about it. Catalyst is used to refine crude oil into gasoline, and can include aluminum, fine sand, and other heavy metals.

Most folks know that “out of sight, out of mind” is not a best practice, and the residents of Bayou Vista are getting fed up with the answers, or lack thereof, from Marathon and state officials about why this happened and what should be done about it. According to a story that appeared more than a month later on Houston Public Media, residents are still reporting health problems associated with the incident. They have begun to dig deeper and are not letting Marathon off the hook. One resident got their hands on what’s called a Material Safety Data sheet, which describes the dangers of the catalyst. According to the HPM story, the sheet describes how “the catalyst should not be flushed down sewers, onto soil, or into waterways. It warns that the catalyst might burn the lungs, cause allergic reactions, and could be a ‘cancer hazard’.”

As residents of Bayou Vista continue to meet and organize, the insoluble catalyst could still be causing problems for families and their pets, who could have easily tracked the substance into houses where testing has not been done. It is also unknown how much of it has collected and concentrated in waterways. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more on this developing story.

http://texas2.sierraclub.org/newsletter-extra/336