State environmental regulators are investigating a facility that caught fire near Odessa a couple of months ago that allegedly led to oilfield-related chemicals and liquids spilling into a local neighborhood.
Driving a golf cart along her property, Ruth Douthit points to where sludge washed out of Permian Basin Containers after it caught fire earlier this summer. The 69-year-old lives right behind the facility with her husband and has been dealing with the consequences from the chemical fire for months.
“See, all the weeds died,” she said, pointing to a stained piece of ground glistening in the sun. “Look, you can see the oil.”
Prior to the fire, the facility was packed with large plastic containers, some filled with petrochemicals, according to local officials. Once the site burst into flames on July 23, the water used to extinguish the fire mixed with those chemicals, creating a noxious mixture that flooded the surrounding neighborhood. Since then, Douthit has had to stare at the wreckage.
“Burnt vehicles and [a] trailer burnt completely,” she said. “It just looks like a bomb went off.”
The fallout from the fire has dragged on for weeks, displacing some nearby residents. A nauseating stench covered the surrounding area around the site. The fire has reignited multiple times and there are growing concerns over environmental contamination.
Douthit worries about potential health impacts and wonders what the future looks like for her and her husband. In recent weeks, the situation around the facility became so unbearable they moved out of their home into a rental property.
“We were planning on retiring here, but I’m still not sure we're going to be able to,” Douthit said. “I’m scared to death something’s going to happen.”
Douthit and at least 18 other people who live near the site filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Permian Basin Containers — claiming the company’s negligence led to the fire. Adam Dinnell, the attorney spearheading their case, described the facility’s towers of plastic totes as “a disaster waiting to happen.”
“You had large 200 gallon plus containers of all different varieties of liquids,” he said. ”Some marked, some unmarked, stacked five, six, seven deep on top of each other while still full.”
The lawsuit alleges that residents were told by staff at Permian Basin Containers that there were no harmful substances at the facility, despite plastic containers appearing to contain oil or having warning signs on them that said “Flammable.” According to Dinnell, environmental testing has found signs that dangerous chemicals like benzene, which can cause cancer, have seeped into the ground after the fire.
“What we’ve already seen is that these chemicals that were released from the facility have gotten into the water table and are impacting the groundwater supply,” he said.
The neighborhood around Permian Basin Containers is located just outside of Odessa in an unincorporated area and residents largely rely on water wells, making potential groundwater pollution a devastating prospect.
State regulators are now conducting multiple investigations into Permian Basin Containers — examining potential pollution along with how the company was operated before the fire. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has not released its findings yet. However, Odessa’s Republican State Representative Brooks Landgraf has been monitoring the situation and believes there are reasons to believe the company was not being run properly.
“It does appear that there were at least a few permits that were supposed to be obtained by this particular operator that were never even applied for,” he said. “If that’s the case then we have what amounts to an illegal facility.”
It’s still not clear what chemicals were present at the site when the fire broke out, but according to state records, the company was only registered to manage nonhazardous waste.
According to Grace Tee Lewis, a senior health scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, nearby residents should have been able to find out what was being stored at Permian Basin Containers if there were dangerous chemicals present.
“People who live next to industrial facilities have a right to know what’s being stored on site,” she said. “[They] have a right to know what emergency plans are in place to protect, not only their health, but also their property and the environment.”
Permian Basin Containers has not responded to multiple requests for comment from Marfa Public Radio and court filings did not list an attorney for the company or its representatives as of Thursday.
Cleanup and environmental remediation efforts are currently underway at the facility along with the surrounding area. Still, officials say it has been a slow process. This facility wasn’t unique in the Odessa area, according to Ector County Judge Dustin Fawcett, who said there are dozens of similar companies that service the oil and gas industry.
From Douthit’s perspective, these kinds of companies should never be built near neighborhoods
“No residential area should have to put up with something blowing up and you being scared about it and then it happening,” she said.
Landgraf has vowed to Douthit and other residents that he will look into drafting legislation that would prevent dangerous chemicals from being stored near residential areas. Currently, his staff is also researching if there are any existing laws that are applicable.
In the meantime, Douthit and her neighbors are waiting to see if their lives will ever return to normal and if the fallout from the fire will ever be fully cleaned up.
