The Lanxess chemical plant in Charleston’s Neck area has experienced five leaks of highly toxic substances since 2018 that were reported to state health officials but not to the nearby Rosemont community, according to the summary of a new state report made public.
Last week, the Charleston City Paper reported how a North Charleston civil rights activist wanted the plant closed following a leak of 10 pounds of phosphorus into the community.
The five other leaks residents were not aware of have the community more on edge.
“Every time that alarm goes off, someone calls me to ask what’s going on,” said Arthur Edwards, parliamentarian of the Rosemont Neighborhood Association. “We don’t know, as a community, of any of those other incidents,” he stressed.
The company notified the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) of one leak in 2018, three in 2019 and another in 2022, according to an agency email to the City Paper. An alarm system, however, did not alert Rosemont residents to those mishaps, Edwards said. The leaks involved derivatives of chlorine, phosphorus and sodium.
The new information “should give us grounds to mount an effort to get the plant closed,” Edwards said. “If it is just Rosemont, we don’t have a leg to stand on, but with other surrounding communities, we’d have a better chance.”
Other leaks that prompted the company to sound an alarm occurred in May 2022 and November 2019. The DHEC summary report shows the May 2022 leak and one in March 2023 were low-level leaks of phosphorus that did not require reporting to DHEC.
Lanxess spokesman Michael Mackin said in an email, “We understand that the recent phosphorus release has raised questions and increased apprehension among the local community. First and foremost, we take these incidents and community concerns very seriously. The safety and well-being of our employees, the community, and the environment are of utmost importance to us.”
Lanxess and state health officials met last week with Rosemont residents to discuss the most recent leak on June 21 of 10 pounds of phosphorus. During that meeting, residents complained they were not immediately notified of the leak. Company managers stressed they’ll improve communications with the community, and the plant is operating safely.
Mackin said in an email the community alarm is activated if a release could affect people near the plant. However, when an “operational event” poses no public or environmental threat away from the plant, nearby residents are not notified.
Rosemont residents near the plant may hear the alarm for on-site employees, he explained. “We are actively looking into ways to better differentiate these alarms to not cause confusion and to effectively communicate with … nearby residents,” he said.
Residents fear a repeat of a June 17, 1991, explosion at that plant that killed nine workers, injured dozens and rattled the windows of houses near the plant. At that time, Albright & Wilson owned the plant.
Following the June 21 mishap, S.C. Rep. Wendell Gilliard, D-Charleston, whose district includes the chemical plant, asked plant and health department officials to meet with residents. Gilliard worked at the plant during the 1991 explosion. After that explosion Albright & Wilson promised it would sound the alarm to alert residents of a leak, he said. Lanxess purchased the plant in February 2018 from the Belgian chemical group Solvay.
Mackin said since Lanxess acquired the plant, the company reported “on-site events that did not pose a threat to the community but did require reporting to the regulatory agency based on different thresholds. Therefore, the discrepancy in community alarms versus the list that DHEC provided is likely to be attributed to those reportable events that did not pose any off-site impacts, thus not signaling an alarm within the community,” he said. The company, he added, reported the incidents “as part of our goal to operate in full compliance with … [the] laws and regulation.”
Gilliard said he spoke with DHEC and Lanxess officials during a July 7 conference call. He said they discussed providing a report of prior leaks, notifying the community and possible fines against the plant for not alerting the community.
A DHEC spokesperson said a siren that warns the community of a leak is not a state requirement. “DHEC is currently working with Lanxess and community members to establish a new methodology the facility can implement as standard protocol for keeping nearby residents aware of any incidents, even though most incidents or releases remain on-site and don’t have any off-site impacts,” the agency said in an email to the City Paper.
“It would be best to shut the plant down,” Gilliard said. “Why endanger the people in Rosemont who’ve been neglected for decades when it comes to that plant?” Gilliard said the large volumes of toxic chemicals shipped by rail to the plant also threatens the wider Charleston community.
Building a coalition
Nancy Buttons, president of the Rosemont Neighborhood Association, said she will ask the association’s leaders if they want to seek a collaboration with neighborhoods in North Charleston and Charleston to call for closing the plant.
“We are going to discuss it first,” she said because the 200 Rosemont residents are the closest to the accident-plagued plant. “We want that company gone. We don’t want them to be our neighbor anymore,” insisted Buttons, who said she’s been “sucking up” fumes from the plant since she was a child.
Residents in downtown Charleston, North Charleston and West Ashley, she added, can be harmed by a catastrophic accident at the plant.
The plant manufactures phosphorus trichloride and numerous derivative products, such as flame-retardant additives and intermediate products for the agrochemicals industry.
Tyler Dugas, who moved three years ago to Rosemont from Florida’s west coast, is a community liaison to the neighborhood association. The nearby planned Magnolia development and the new businesses along Meeting Street Extension should also be concerned about the plant, he said.
The 189-acre Magnolia site could become the city’s largest commercial and residential development since Daniel Island was annexed three decades ago. Construction could begin within two years through a partnership with Houston-based Highland Resource and Portman Holdings in Atlanta.
“The developers of Magnolia have a vested interest in helping to mitigate” what happens at the plant,” Dugas said. “It will directly affect the residents and visitors to that development.”
Magnolia spokesman Jonathan Scott said the day of the June 21 leak “we were in direct contact with the president of the Rosemont community association. We want to continue to support Rosemont in any way we can, and at the same time we realize all of the surrounding neighborhoods could potentially be involved, including Wagner Terrace, West Ashley, Union Heights, Osprey Point and others. Moving forward, we’re going to continue to grow our relationships with all of our neighbors to be in close communication about issues that may impact the entire area.”
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