Equilon Illinois
The Wood River Oil Refinery is located near the Mississippi River in southwestern Illinois across from St. Louis, Missouri. Originally owned and operated by Shell Oil subsidiary Chicago-based Equilon LLC, the facility was sold in 2000 and is currently under the joint ownership of ConocoPhillips and Cenovus Energy and is operated by WRB Refining.
The refinery was built during the First World War by Shell Oil and was known as Roxana Petroleum. Shell turned the facility over to its subsidiary, Equilon, in the 1990s.
Operations
Current capacity of the facility is 306,000 barrels per day. Crude oil is delivered from the Gulf of Mexico and Canada via a system of pipelines. The refinery's primary products are gasoline, diesel and jet aircraft fuel in addition to propane and asphalt; as the largest refinery in the state of Illinois and among the nation's 10 biggest refineries, Wood River is the primary supplier of fuel to airliners at Chicago's O'Hare International airport.
Environmental Issues
In 1998, Wood River Refinery came under fire from the US Justice Department for "hundreds of environmental violations." Eventually, Shell paid over $1.5 million in fines for excessive release of sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. In addition, the company was required to spend half a million dollars in acquiring wetlands next to the river, which was then turned over to the state for purposes of habitat preservation and conservation.
Wood River Oil Refinery and Asbestos
During much of the 1900s, asbestos was chosen as a building material when fire or excessive heat was a danger. Materials that contained asbestos, therefore, were frequently utilized when erecting plants like Wood River Oil Refinery. A lesser-known property of certain types of the fibrous mineral is that they resist chemicals. As a result, asbestos was utilized in coating materials, safety clothes and benches. And although the asbestos did well in safeguarding against fire damage and in protecting lives from high heat, the mineral also exposed those same people to serious health risks.
Much of this asbestos was the form called amosite. Amosite is one of the amphibole varieties of the asbestos family of minerals and is generally thought to be more likely to result in disease than the serpentine form. This amosite, in the form of asbestos transite, appeared in labs and refineries across the US for decades before being banned as a construction material in the 1970s.
Like cement, asbestos transite could be laminated, molded into working surfaces and sprayed onto ductwork and pipes. For the most part, new items formed from transite were considered innocuous since the asbestos particles were trapped in the transite. With age, however, asbestos-containing transite grows prone to becoming powdery, allowing microscopic particles to float into the air. Asbestos when it is in this condition is considered friable, which means easily pulverized. In addition, laboratory ovens often were constructed with friable asbestos as part of their insulation linings.
Why Is Friable Asbestos Bad?
Asbestos particles, when they are friable, can be readily dispersed into the air. Diseases like asbestosis are known to result from the inhalation of asbestos. In addition, exposure to asbestos has been shown to be the leading cause of pleural mesothelioma, a rare and frequently deadly cancer affecting the mesothelium, the lining between the lungs and the chest cavity. Pericardial and peritoneal mesothelioma are linked to ingesting fibers of asbestos, which is likely if microscopic particles are released into the air and settle on food or in beverages.
Since scientific inquiry resulted in more knowledge of the risks of asbestos exposure, people today benefit from the protection offered by strict guidelines regulating how to use asbestos. Asbestos use was more prevalent, however, when most oil refineries were built. Before present-day rules were enacted, employees frequently toiled without protective equipment in environments where asbestos particles clouded the atmosphere.
The Time Bomb
In contrast to most on-the-job injuries, which are readily observed and known about immediately following the causing incident, asbestos-related diseases can take ten, twenty, or even thirty years to manifest. It can also be challenging to identify asbestos-related illnesses since the symptoms can be mistaken for those of other conditions. It is extremely important, therefore, that all that worked at or spent much time near sites like Wood River Oil Refinery ask their health care professionals for mesothelioma information. In addition, even people who commuted in the same cars with these people are also at risk, since unless effective decontamination protocols, such as using on-site showers, were in place, it was common for workers to bring home asbestos particles on themselves or their clothing. In some cases, mesothelioma surgery can be a palliative treatment.
Sources
ConocoPhillips Corporate Website - Wood River Refinery
http://www.conocophillips.com/.../index.aspx
Sorkins Directory Profile of the Week - WRB Refining, LLC
http://www.sorkins.com/sorkinspotwstl.asp
University of Wisconsin - Asbestos Containing Material (ACM) - Laboratories and Shops
http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/EHSRM/ASB/acmimages3.html
University of Wisconsin - Asbestos Disposal
http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/EHSRM/HAZEXCEPTIONS/a.html
US House of Representatives - Oil Refineries Fail to Report Millions of Pounds of Harmful Emissions (Prepared for Rep. Henry A. Waxman, Minority Staff Special Investigations Division Committee on Government Reform, 10 November 1999)
