Houston Chronicle by Perla Trevizo Feb. 16, 2020
Arkema and its executives to go on trial for releasing pollutants, injuring deputy sheriffs during Harvey
The criminal trial of the French chemical company Arkema and several of its top employees accused of releasing pollutants and assaulting two deputy sheriffs during Hurricane Harvey is set to start this week in Harris County.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office charged the company and its then-vice president for logistics Michael Keough last April, for allegedly telling county emergency officials that Arkema had real-time monitoring data of all of the trailers holding hazardous organic peroxides at its Crosby plant when that wasn’t the case. About nine months earlier, the state had brought another felony reckless charge against the company, its CEO Richard Rowe and its plant manager Leslie Comardelle for releasing toxic chemicals.
At the center of the state’s case is why Arkema didn’t move its organic peroxides, which are used to make plastics and must often be kept at temperatures at or near freezing to prevent the chemicals from self-combusting, as it prepared for the landfall of Hurricane Harvey. Also, the DA’s office says that the company misrepresented how closely it could monitor the temperature all of the hazardous material remotely to be able to warn emergency responders to safely evacuate.
More:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Arkema-and-its-executives-to-go-on-trial-for-15060936.php
