Gulf Chemical to Pay $7.5 Million For Violating Texas Clean Air Act

Gulf Chemical will pay $7.5 million to Texas for violating environmental laws.

On Wednesday, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott resolved the State’s environmental enforcement action against Gulf Chemical & Metallurgical Corporation.

Under an agreed judgment, Gulf must pay the State $7.5 million for its Freeport industrial manufacturing facility’s failure to comply with state environmental quality laws.

In 2011, investigators with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality found that the Gulf facility unlawfully emitted air pollutants such as ammonia, nitrous oxides, sulfur dioxide, and various airborne metals.

They also found that the facility unlawfully discharged wastewater that contained toxic and hazardous metals, including arsenic, cobalt, and nickel. Soil samples tested near the facility revealed dangerous levels of toxic metals such as antimony, chromium, and lead.

Under the judgment, Gulf is also required to institute real-time metals monitoring equipment, which is new, cutting-edge technology and has never been implemented at any other industrial facility in Texas and only a handful of plants worldwide.

This is the third largest recovery from a single facility in the history of the Texas Clean Air Act. The largest was a $50 million settlement in civil penalties for unlawful pollutant emissions from BP Products North America’s Texas City refinery.