State Sen. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, has filed four bills in response to the fire that erupted nearly three weeks ago in ExxonMobil’s north Baton Rouge refinery.
The move comes after Fields told a room of north Baton Rouge residents he would bring forth legislation aiming to improve the way statewide emergency notifications are handled. After the blaze erupted in the Exxon facility, nearby residents claimed emergency responders failed to notify them of potential hazards in a timely manner, while some said they were never notified.
“The whole point here is not to be punitive toward industry—obviously, we have to have industry—but I think industry wants to be good neighbors,” Fields says, adding he anticipates some opposition but is meeting with industry in hopes of coming to a resolution. “These accidents will happen, but we’ve got to have the proper protocols in place.”
One of the bills—Senate Bill 399—changes the public notification process during an emergency condition, which is defined in the legislation as any condition one could “reasonably expect to endanger the health and safety of the public, cause significant adverse impact to the land, water, or air environment, or cause severe damage to property.”
Specifically, the bill requires industry to notify state government “immediately” of the emergency, which would mean within 15 minutes. (Currently, “immediately” means within one hour.) Once they receive the notification, the deputy secretary of the Department of Public Safety & Corrections would develop or utilize an electronic or telephonic notification system that, in addition to any other appropriate technology, includes cell tower or cellular base station location to help disseminate information to the public.
From there, owners or operators of the industrial facility must immediately report to the department any reportable release of any hazardous material that caused the emergency condition, with the department again notifying the public through an alert system. After the nature, quantity and potential off-site impact of a release are determined, industry has 24 hours (rather than the currently allowed seven days) to develop and release a written notification report.
“There was nothing in the [seven-day] report that I could find that the company didn’t have notice of in 24 hours,” Fields says.
Related bills filed by Fields include:
• Senate Bill 367, which would require real-time air monitoring systems be installed in certain facilities;
• Senate Bill 316, which would raise penalties for violating the state’s “Right to Know” law;
• Senate Bill 400, which would raise penalties for violating the federal Environmental Quality Act.
Regarding language in Senate Bill 400 indicating that every penalty amount would double, Fields says “that amount was put in place because we were facing a Feb. 26 deadline, but we’re speaking with industry now and will likely change the amounts.”Â
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