Trial began Sept. 11 against BP over Texas refinery emissions -- lawsuit asks $10B in damages
(Reuters) - Trial began on Wednesday (Sept. 11) in the first four of 48,000 civil lawsuits filed against BP Plc for pollution from the 460,196 barrel per day (bpd) refinery it owned in Texas City, Texas until early this year, according to court documents.
The four suits allege that people were harmed when the refinery released vapors into the atmosphere from its hydrocracking unit during a 40-day period in 2010. The city had a population of 45,099 in 2010, according to the U.S. Census.
Since the first lawsuits were filed in 2010, the British oil company has denied the claims that people were harmed by the emissions, which included 17,000 pounds of benzene, according to notices filed by the refinery with Texas pollution regulators.
BP said in a statement on Wednesday that: "Neither the community air-monitoring network nor the BP fence-line monitors showed elevated readings during April and May 2010 and we do not believe that any negative health impacts resulted from flaring at BP's Texas City refinery during this period."
More at http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/11/us-refinery-trail-bp-texascity-idUSBRE98A18A20130911 .
[font color=green]BP sold the Texas City refinery on February 1, 2013 for $2.5 billion to Marathon Petroleum Corporation.[/font]