By the LNA Environmental Committee
Linnton-area residents live in the midst of 515 petrochemical storage tanks that, on any given day, hold more than 170 million gallons of gasoline, diesel, chlorine, anhydrous ammonia, and other hazardous chemicals. These tank farms, aka the Critical Energy Infrastructure or CEI Hub, were not built to withstand an earthquake. They release dangerous airborne emissions daily. Other communities across the U.S. have already installed pollution and accident control devices or moved tanks to make them safer. We learned recently why this is necessary after a lot of discussion with tank farms neighbors in Portland, Maine. No one has ever measured Linnton tank farm emissions. The EPA recently ordered Maine and Massachusetts tank farm owners to measure emissions from exhaust vents for gas and asphalt tanks identical to those found in Linnton. Their emissions were 30 times higher per gallon stored than what our tank farm owners are reporting to DEQ. We finished writing a new report on this in March 2021, available at:
We wrote a letter to the tank farm owners endorsed by local 30 organizations. A representative of some of those owners responded and there has been dialog. We need more Linnton volunteers to help with editing, writing, and research. We want to be ready for a more public, media-oriented approach to this problem and we want to apply for grants that pay for accurate monitoring. This can involve as little or as much time as you have available.