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A West Bountiful refinery will install new pollution-control technologies as its owner pays a $1.2 million penalty to the EPA in a settlement over alleged Clean Air Act violations at the Utah refinery and two others.
The Environmental Protection Agency believes the Texas-based HollyFrontier Corp. failed to comply with fuel-testing requirements, resulting in the sale of 42 million gallons of fuel between 2006 and 2011 that did not meet federal standards. These violations are thought to have taken place at three HollyFrontier refineries located in Utah, Kansas and New Mexico; the gasoline was sold in Utah, Texas, New Mexico and Idaho.
HollyFrontier reported to the EPA that the violations resulted in the release of an additional 10 tons of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), a classification of chemicals that contribute to the formation of ozone.
In Utah, VOCs are also thought to contribute to the formation of harmful particulate pollution during inversions.
And there is a growing body of medical research that VOCs themselves are harmful to human health, said Tim Wagner, executive director of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment.
"Even at very small levels, it can have some pretty dire health consequences for people with respiratory illnesses and in young children," he said.
Given the potential health consequences, Wagner said he believes its is critical that the EPA does "what needs to be done to ensure that refineries are complying with the law."
The new pollution controls HollyFrontier has agreed to install would reduce the Woods Cross Refinery's emissions of VOCs by about 96 tons over four years.
Though the alleged violations occurred at three refineries, just Utah's will receive the pollution-control technologies to mitigate the impacts of the noncompliant fuel.
HollyFrontier has agreed to hire a third-party investigator to look into the company's compliance with fuel regulations at five other refineries.
Mike Astin, an environmental manager at the Woods Cross Refinery, said he wasn't familiar with the details of the settlement because it was handled on a corporate level. But he said the local refinery is already prepared to install the agreed-upon pollution controls — they're just waiting for the settlement agreement to be finalized.
The proposed settlement is still subject to a 30-day public comment period — which has not yet been scheduled — and to final court approval.
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