Friday's big stink

This week government investigators were still trying to figure out what happened on Friday when an invisible cloud of noxious fumes descended on La Conner and Swinomish, causing some people to suffer respiratory problems.

Apparently a maintenance operation went stinky at the Shell Puget Sound Refinery at March’s Point northwest of La Conner. On Monday the refinery had a recording on its phone line stating that it had “experienced a problem while doing maintenance work on the east flare which resulted in an odor issue.”

The recording also has a claims phone number, 855-276-0771, for people who suffered injuries.

At about 3:45 p.m. on Friday, people in La Conner and on the Swinomish Reservation began noticing a nasty stench. To some, it smelled like the next door neighbor was burning old tires.

On Caledonia Street, in La Conner, a man in a pickup suddenly pulled over, jumped out of the cab, ran about 15 feet away and stood looking at his vehicle for a couple of minutes. He said he thought his truck was on fire, the smell was so strong.

At La Conner Retirement Inn, resident Elizabeth Smith said she had to evacuate because the noxious air was affecting her breathing. She went to her daughter’s home, which was in an area the odor wasn’t as bad.

On the Swinomish Reservation, where more than 1,000 homes are located, including the Shelter Bay Community, artist and Swinomish Senator Kevin Paul said he was outside working on a project, when “all of a sudden, something hit me.” He said he put down his paint brush, walked to the sidewalk to see if someone was burning something. “My first thought in my mind was burning tires,” he said.

Then the acrid odor triggered a memory — years ago Paul used to work at the refinery. “I recognized the smell,” he said.

One young Swinomish family left their home and stayed in a motel in Mount Vernon because the fumes were affecting their small children. And some elderly residents reportedly wound up in emergency rooms with breathing problems.

Dennis Richards, spokesman for Island Hospital in Anacortes, said he was unable to confirm hospital visits related to the incident, mostly because of patient confidentiality laws and partly because the emergency room staff didn’t note a higher-than-usual number of respiratory cases.

Still, the odor hung around for hours — people at a Friday evening fundraiser on the north end of La Conner were still smelling it at around 7 p.m.

Katie Skipper of the Northwest Clean Air Agency said there were more than 30 complaints to the agency on Friday afternoon. “We’re still investigating,” she said. “We know it was on a flare,” she said. This week her agency is still ramping up the investigation and has a lot of information gathering to do, she said.

Although the agency is bound by law to deal with pollutants in the air, as opposed to offensive odors, “The fact that this odor had an effect on a lot of people is of great concern to us,” Skipper said.

Governor Jay Inslee’s office contacted La Conner Mayor Ramon Hayes on Saturday after learning of the refinery incident. Jaime Smith with the governor’s press office said Inslee was con-cerned about the communities affected.

Smith said that while the gover-nor’s office has no jurisdiction over air quality issues, they’re monitoring the situation and will be happy to help facilitate a speedy investigation.

A statement released by Shell Puget Sound Refinery maintains that, based on the company’s own air monitoring and monitoring by an independent contractor over the weekend, “no detectable levels of harmful compounds were found.” The statement claims that the odor was a result of “non-detectable levels of sulfur-based compounds.”

In other news outlets, Swino-mish Tribal Chairman Brian Cladoosby has told reporters he demands answers and is skeptical of the refinery’s contention that the fumes were harmless.

Tribal officials have not returned calls to this newspaper, however.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency is also investigating, said spokesman Mark MacIntyre. “We’re comparing notes with the Northwest Clean Air Agency, and we’ll work with the tribe and others to make sure we get a better picture of what happened up there and what the health effects are,” he said.

So far, he said, it’s impossible to say whether laws were broken or the refinery’s permit was violated. Still, he said, “We do want to make it clear to people that if laws were violated, we will enforce those laws.”

According to Northwest Clean Air Agency reports, the Shell Puget Sound Refinery has paid more than $83,000 in fines since May for violating emissions standards. Six of the eight violations it paid for occurred since March last year.

Shell refinery spokesman Cory Ertel said, “we’ve been in really close contact with the environmental agencies” to determine the cause of Friday’s problem.

At the time, “there was main-tenance work being done on the flare system,” he said. Work was shut down as soon as odor complaints started coming in, he said.

“We want to get fully into the cause to make sure this kind of odor issue never happens again,” Ertel said. “We apologize to our neighbors.”