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~ •i 'red ~~ts chance to re u g ate Eger. sulfide tmp Lrwww chron co. ,ontentichror~iclrlpaget/,7/1 Si091h2,main rm~ nctghbvrhood "lt messes up f~eop(c's roofs and uir conditioners. You can smell it inside •,~our house " r ast Nocembrr, [-armland paid $1.45 rruilion in penalties to the EPA and agreed to make $4 25 million in --zii;~,ct) improFCmcnts tv resolsu a titan} vfviolations, among them failure tv promptly report 29 ac.idenial hydrogen sulfide releases, known as "upsets," over afour-year period F.~r,?~land's output of hydrogen sulfide has fallen since the 1995 peak and is expected tv keep falling tr, perhaps 40,000 pounds per year only because an expansion project subjects it to new, stricter rules ia,l the expansion not gone forward. regulators say, the absence of federal and state standards would ha.c tied their hands f arrnland is no; an isolated case. Navajo ReFrting Co has been stinking up the southeastern New Mcvicu town of Artesia f~~r many years. Tha Los Angeles-Long Beach and Bay Area refinery belts in Cal;fvrnia aze proc;igious sources of hydrogen sulfide, sometimes released in window-shattering explosions The chemical has repulsed neighbors of an IBP meatpacking plant in Dakota City, Neb ,and the Dvrragcn synthetic-rubber plant in Odessa Residents of Corpus Christi's "Refinery Row" have learned to distinguish it from the ether industrial odors that drift into their homes. Hydrogen sul5de upsets almost always are dismissed as unavoidable accidents and go unpunished by regulators. although at some plants d;es~ occur so frequently tl;at workers and adjacent residents com; expect and dread them The stakes of such releases are high because of the chemical's potency and its propensity for settlnrg, ds pungent ti~g, in low spots ?sivtvrists has~e been known to pass through such clouds with their windows up and emerge seconds later gasping and wretching Still, "people hate a ca~'alier attitude abvrn this chemical," said Dr ;Myron Mehlman, an adjunct professor of ervirunmental and mmmunit} medicine at the Robert Wcod Johnson School of Medicine Piscataway, N .l "The;' ahti ays find excuses why we can't regulate it." In a sort of cvnsc~iativrl prize for public-hrrlih advocates, hvdrvge~~ sulfide w'as proposed f'ot and ;en~ains on an GPA "ex(remely `razardous substances" list drawn up for the 1990 law Companies tl•,at store or produce chemicals on this list must develop plans to present and respond to ac~idrntal r~rle:;ses. Routine emission co:;truls, howcser, aren't part of the picture :Lore was, in addition. a 199J EPA report to Congress vn hydrogen sulfide discharges associalr~l :citl~~ oil am_l gas production fhe stud}'s conchrsivn "From the limited data av„iL•.b!e, there appears tv be no evidence that a ;ignif•icant thn•~~c to pui~iic he•alrh or the environment exists from routine emissions (ivm sour oil sncj ,,a; s~;ls " Thr• authors iitun ;lock at o,l.,;; ?arp,e sarres of hydrogen sulfide, such as re9ineries 'Ai'.. ~!n:~i :~tq ~;i iii,lca it°.JI .t iilit;lC i'3IiG_ l+alli l'1 In !nC 1 Unt 73uf R' 1 ail F1cli1 it'd ra 1 I':CUdr^