Shell sued by Texas over a major fire at Houston chemical plant

The state of Texas filed a lawsuit for environmental damage against Shell and the other owner of the petrochemical and refinery complex near Houston that caught fire in May.

In court documents, the Texas attorney general alleged that the enormous fire resulted in "mass quantities" of airborne pollutants and unauthorized wastewater discharges into nearby waterways. 

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality filed the civil complaint on August 7 in state district court in Travis County, Texas. The lawsuit asks for unspecified monetary penalties of over $1 million, as well as other relief related to alleged environmental violations at the Deer Park property.

According to the state, days of firefighting using “vast quantities of water” to cool parts of Shell’s sprawling chemical facility resulted in at least 68.7 million gallons of wastewater being unlawfully discharged into a storm-water pond and into the nearby Houston Ship Channel.

The complaint claims that Shell also allowed more wastewater than was permitted to pass through a water treatment facility in unspecified additional volumes.

The effluent traveled through a drainage ditch that ran over Shell's chemical manufacturing complex and the nearby refinery run by a Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, subsidiary known as Deer Park Refining Limited Partnership. The Pemex-owned company and Shell are both listed as defendants.

A spokesperson for Shell said on Saturday that the business was aware of the complaint and that it doesn't comment on ongoing legal matters. According to him, Shell is still looking into what started the fire at the Deer Park chemicals complex and rebuilding the area that was damaged.