TEXAS REFINERY ACCIDENT—BP’s Texas City refinery, which exploded in March, stores 800,000 pounds of dangerous hydrofluoric acid onsite.

Oil refineries needlessly place nearly two million people in Texas at risk of injury or death, according to a new report documenting the major threat posed by refineries using hydrofluoric acid.

“Industrial facilities like oil refineries are sitting ducks waiting for an adversary or accident to make full use of their disastrous potential,” said Luke Metzger, TexPIRG advocate. “Safer cost effective technologies exist but industry has failed to take the public out of harm’s way.”

The report, Needless Risk: Oil Refineries and Hazard Reduction, focused on the danger of oil refineries that use and store large amounts of hydrofluoric acid onsite. If released, hydrofluoric acid forms a cloud over surrounding communities—causing skin and deep tissue burns, serious bone damage, and even death.

The report documents cost effective alternatives to hydrofluoric acid at oil refineries. New facilities can be built using solid acid catalysts, completely eliminating the risk of a toxic cloud, for nearly the same cost as building a new hydrofluoric acid facility. Existing refineries could switch to sulfuric acid (which poses less of an off-site threat) or to modified hydrofluoric acid (which reduces the severity of the consequences of an accident).

Texas has had several harmful releases of hydrofluoric acid in recent years. In 1987, a release at Marathon Oil’s Texas City refinery sent 1,037 people to the hospital. In 1991, a release at Kerr Mc Gee’s Corpus Christi refinery killed two workers and injured five others. And although neither involved a release of hydrofluoric acid, recent explosions at BP’s Texas City refinery have drawn concern over the facility’s storage of 800,000 pounds of the chemical on site.

Senate Homeland Security Chair Susan Collins is currently drafting legislation to require facilities to change their chemicals and processes to protect their home towns.