By Molly Brackin, Monitoring & Evaluation Associate
January began as a relatively light month for refinery accident reports. The numbers of both citizen and NRC reports were down from previous month, which could either indicate that refineries were doing better or that no one was reporting. Either way, the accident rate picked up again in the last week of January. The LABB Emergency Response Team (ERT) deployed to both Chalmette and Baton Rouge in response to a flurry of reports that came into the iWitness Pollution Map. We went to Chalmette on January 27th because of the various reports detailing an odor permeating throughout the area. While we were talking to the residents of Chalmette we received word of high flaring coming from the ExxonMobil refinery in Baton Rouge. A few days later, on January 31st, the LABB ERT deployed to the Standard Heights neighborhood in Baton Rouge to talk to residents about what the saw and smelled during the flaring event. It is important to note that the incidents we responded to in Chalmette and Baton Rouge have no corresponding NRC reports from facilities. I cannot stress how important it is for Louisiana residents to report their experiences with pollution, because it is obvious that lack of reporting from facilities will continue to be a problem in 2014.
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