Town welcomes curbs on refinery

PAULSBORO, N.J. -- Just about anyone who has lived awhile in this small town nestled between a fuel refinery and an asphalt refinery has grown accustomed to the rank smell.

''When you grow up around it, it's something that's always there," said Mayor John Burzichelli, who has lived for 45 years in this town of 6,600 people across the Delaware River from Philadelphia.

Burzichelli, who noted that he appreciates the plants' managers as ''good corporate partners," welcomed the Bush administration's announcement Wednesday that the CITGO Asphalt Refining Co. is among six refineries where the CITGO Petroleum Corp., the nation's fourth-largest retailer of gas, has agreed to reduce air pollution as part of a consent decree with the Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, and four states.

Although CITGO, a Venezuelan company that recently announced it was moving its US headquarters to Houston from Tulsa, Okla., admits no wrongdoing, the agreement accuses the company of violating the Clean Air Act and requires the company to install $320 million in pollution controls at the six refineries and pay a $3.6 million fine to settle a federal lawsuit.

''This is a good time for it," said Burzichelli, who is also a Democratic state legislator. ''It comes when oil companies are having record profits. So if ever they were in a position to make the investment, it's now."

The plant is to reduce by about 18 tons per year emissions of nitrogen oxides, gases that can cause serious respiratory ailments and worsen cases of childhood asthma, and to take other steps to limit releases of volatile organic compounds, according to the spokesman for the state of New Jersey.

The refinery, owned by CITGO since 1991, according to the asphalt plant manager who asked not to be identified, makes a liquid road-paving binder that is mixed with stone and aggregate stone.

The planned cleanup is overdue, said Leon McCormick, 45, who has lived in Paulsboro his entire life.

''It comes from this way and that way," he said pointing first in the direction of the CITGO plant and the Valero Oil Refinery, which are about 2 miles apart. ''But I have been here so long it makes no difference to me."

To a visitor or newcomer, the chemical-laden odor can make eyes water and lungs tighten against the air.

Laura Johnson, 36, who moved from Winona, N.J., three months ago said: ''I noticed it right away. It stinks. It smells like somebody's been dead a long time." Both Johnson and a neighbor, Yolanda Garland, 34, who has lived in Paulsboro for nine years, said they have suffered asthma attacks that they attribute to the pollution.

''I remember one year they set something off that smelled like rotten eggs," Garland said. ''Even closing the windows and putting on the air didn't keep it out of the house."

David Stout, 58, a lifelong resident, said the pollution had decreased over the years. ''I never hear anybody complain about it. Just some people who live along the creeks" that flow into the Delaware, he said.

Besides Paulsboro, the CITGO refineries named are in Corpus Christi, Texas, which has two facilities; Lemont, Ill.; Lake Charles, La.; and Savannah, Ga. The settlement requires CITGO to reduce yearly emissions at those plants by a combined total of 7,184 tons of nitrogen oxide and 23,250 tons of sulfur dioxide. Those refineries represent 5 percent of the nation's refining capacity.

''These additional improvements will ensure that the corporation reaches its goal of becoming an exceptional environmental steward," said Luis Marin, chief executive officer and president of CITGO, which is a unit of Venezuela's state oil company.

The CITGO settlement is the 12th reached under an EPA initiative begun in December 2000. Thomas Skinner, assistant administrator for enforcement at the EPA, said the agreements have cut air pollution by 200,000 tons a year at 48 refineries in 24 states.

The $320 million that CITGO is required to spend on pollution controls ranks fourth among the companies that have reached settlements over the past four years.

The largest was in the agreement with Motiva Enterprises, at $550 million.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.