La Conner weighs in on refinery project

The comment period on the proposed Tesoro Anacortes Refinery “Clean Products Upgrade Project” environmental review ends Monday and the Town of La Conner has made itself an official party of interest.

Councilwoman MaryLee Chamberlain first brought the issue up early in April and garnered a consensus of support from her colleagues on the dais to study the project.

At the last meeting the council voted unanimously to send its comments on the project’s environmental impact statement in the form of a resolution.

Tesoro proposes to upgrade its refinery and to expand production of xylene, a colorless, odorless chemical used in plastics and other applications.

La Conner’s issue is that xylene is toxic and the town wants the refinery to establish very high standards in the “care and monitoring and addressing exposure to xylene…” according to the resolution.

Furthermore, it wants the xylene production to be subject to a separate environmental review process; wants more emphasis on worker safety and wants more community workshops so local people have more opportunity to come up to speed on the issue.

In February 2015 La Conner and Swinomish residents experienced firsthand what can happen in a refinery mishap when an invisible cloud of noxious fumes settled on the town and reservation.

Some people wound up in hospital emergency rooms, others fled and took their families to motels for the night and the local drug store ran out of sore throat remedies over the next few days.

That incident did not involve Tesoro; it was the neighboring Shell Refinery and was caused by improperly burning off gasses. Shell paid fines totaling more than $200,000 over the incident to the Northwest Clean Air Agency and the state department of Labor and Industries.

Links to the Tesoro environmental impact statement with project information are on the Skagit County website, skagitcounty.net. Written comments are due May 8 and the county’s website details how comments can be submitted.