Montana Refining
Montana Refining Company refines crude oil from southern Canada into gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel and asphalts. This refinery is now owned and operated as a subsidiary of Connacher Oil and Gas Limited, based out of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
With the refinery located on a hill just above the Missouri River, an environmental hazard is posed each time an oil spill occurs on any of the 56 acres of land that houses the facility. Oil spills and noxious fumes have come from the oil refinery in the past, putting the health of those living nearby at risk.
Environmental Violations
Montana Refining Company was required to pay penalties for several environmental violations throughout its history:
- In 2003, the oil refinery at Great Falls continued to transfer 700,000 gallons of gasoline despite a broken vapor combustion unit designed to prevent fumes. Two years later, in 2005, Montana imposed a $140,000 fine on Montana Refining for the release.
- Between 1999 and 2004, Montana Refining Company reported five oil spills, including a 1,200-gallon spill in December of 2000. By 2004, the company only had a staff of four, out of 90 total employees, who devoted themselves to environmental issues.
- In 1995, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and the EPA issued a hazardous waste permit to the Montana Refining Company to oversee the facility's disposal of wastes, review of surrounding land once used for waste and to take any corrective actions against the company for violations.
Oil Refineries and Asbestos
During much of the 1900s, the mineral called asbestos was used as insulation when flames or temperature extremes were a risk. Materials that contained asbestos, accordingly, were commonly used when building plants such as Montana Refining Company. Resistance to reactive chemicals is perhaps a less well-known property of some forms of asbestos. As a result, asbestos was utilized in protective clothing, work surfaces and lab equipment. Asbestos, however, came with a notable downside that was not understood or at times deliberately ignored: debilitating and sometimes lethal medical conditions were found to be the result of exposure to asbestos.
Much of this asbestos was the form called amosite. The brown color associated with amosite is a result of iron in its chemical makeup; this also causes amosite to be resistant to corrosive chemicals like those produced in oil refineries. This amosite, in the form of asbestos transite, was used in oil refineries and laboratories throughout the United States for decades before being banned as a construction material in the 1970s.
Asbestos transite could be molded into working surfaces, laminated and sprayed onto pipes and ductwork in the same way cement could. As a rule, new items built with transite were innocuous since the asbestos fibers were trapped in the transite. Tiny fibers of asbestos enter into the atmosphere, however, as this transite ages and becomes prone to crumbling. Asbestos when it is in this condition is called friable, a term used to describe materials that are easy to crush. Also, industrial ovens often were fabricated with friable asbestos in insulation linings.
Why Friable Asbestos Is a Problem
Asbestos particles, when friable, can be easily released in the environment. When someone breathes these particles, they can damage the lungs, causing asbestosis or cancer. Another unusual, but often lethal, asbestos-related disease is mesothelioma. The pleural variety of the disease, which attacks the tissue that lies between the lungs and the pleural cavity, is the most common. When those airborne particles settle on food or in beverages and are subsequently swallowed, pericardial or peritoneal mesothelioma can occur, though they are rarer than pleural mesothelioma.
Increased pressure from medical scientists, citizen groups and the media resulted in laws regulating the use of asbestos. Asbestos use was more common, however, when facilities such as Montana Refining Company were constructed. And in way too many instances workers used asbestos-containing materials when they did not have the protection of protective equipment.
The Lurking Hazard of Asbestos
As opposed to many job-related injuries, which are easily observed and known about soon after the causing incident, asbestos-related diseases may take many, many years to appear. It can also be hard to identify asbestos-related diseases since the symptoms resemble those of other disorders. Hence, it is extremely important for folks who worked at or resided near places like Montana Refining Company to ask their physicians for a mesothelioma treatment guide. Furthermore, even people who commuted in the same cars with these people are also in danger, as unless strict decontamination policies, such as using on-site showers, were enforced, it was all too easy for personnel to bring home asbestos particles on their skin, in their hair, or on their clothes. As there is no mesothelioma cure, early diagnosis is key.
Sources
Associated Press - Montana Refining Co. Fined $140,000
http://www.helenair.com/news/state-and-regional/article_8a2d25e6-8a53-5685-b266-264b0d794e14.html
Connacheroil.com - Montana Refining
http://www.connacheroil.com/index.php?page=refining
DEQ.MT.gov - Montana Refining Company Fact Sheet
http://www.deq.mt.gov/HazWaste/RCRA/RCRAFactSheets/MRC/RCRAMRCFactSht.mcpx
MontanaRefining.com - Montana Refining Company, Inc.
http://montanarefining.com/
Eric Newhouse - Little Great Falls Refinery Sets Big League Standards
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/news/stories/20040107/localnews/179287.html
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
