Lyondell hosted the first joint meeting with Lyondell and Equistar Community Advisory Panel (CAP) members on Friday, May 21, at 1:15p.m. in the Training conference Room. Attached is a listing of plant personnel and CAP members who participated in this meeting. Both Lyondell and Equistar will host routine monthly CAP meeting in June. During the June monthly meeting, the Lyondell CAP members will evaluate the joint CAP meeting format and a decision will be made on whether a quarterly format should continue. The Equistar CAP will meet and decide in July.

Dr. Larry Vinson, Lyondell CAP facilitator, opened the meeting and asked that each attendee give their name, occupation, and a brief description of their involvement with the CAP program. After brief introductions, Larry noted that because of the agenda items scheduled for the meeting, the 'In the News' item would be deferred until the next regularly scheduled meeting.

Ann Schiffman, Regional Public Affairs Manager, advised that Paul Bates, Assistant Plant Manager, would present an overview of Lyondell's Lake Charles Plant followed by Morgan French, Environmental Manager, updating the group on Environmental, Safety, and Health activities. Then, Mike Cain, Equistar Plant Manager, would provide an overview of Equistar's facility followed by Patty Palmer, Environmental Manager, making an update on their facilities' Environmental, Safety, and Health performance.

Paul Bates noted that Mathieson Alkali Works founded the Lake Charles Plant in 1934. The facility is comprised of 236 acres, completes approximately 14,000 shipments per year, and as of 4/30/99 employed a total of 1,030 Lyondell and contract personnel. This count is higher than normal because of the major TDI turnaround which was in progress during April and part of May. A site diagram was presented which gave a breakdown of the tenants located at Lyondell's Lake Charles facility--Olin, ARCH, BioLab, U.S. Filter, Reagent Chemical, and Praxiar. Slides were also provided to explain those products manufactured at Lake Charles and their final uses by the consumer.

Paul explained that the TDI facility had been in turnaround for forty-seven days. This turnaround is a part of the Manufacturing Excellence program in which all of the plant equipment is inspected, condition determined, repairs completed, and equipment returned to service. The Luxate Plant was also down for turnaround (fifty-seven days) during this period. The turnaround was completed with about 800 people on-site. There were no serious injuries and only two recordable injuries--a chipped tooth and a broken hand. There were no Tier 1 or II releases. The turnaround was lengthy because of the procedures involved to inspect and repair and/or replace equipment. The plan was executed and both plants--TDI and Luxate--are now at full rates. The safety and environmental performance during the turnaround was better than in any previous turnaround. The REDFISH behavioral safety program is believed to have helped reduce the number and severity of injuries. There were thousands of observations made of both Lyondell and contract employees.

Morgan next presented slides on the plant's safety and environmental performance. He also presented a slide showing black product flow, including what comes in as raw materials and where it goes out as product to the customer. TDI is shipped from Lake Charles in drums, railcars, and isotainers. The Luxate customers normally want a blended product which is completed on-site.

Dr. Monlezun asked about Lyondell's safety record since chlorine, ammonia, and phosgene are considered "hard on the lungs". What is Lyondell's confidence level? Morgan responded that hazard reviews are conducted on a regularly scheduled basis by a team of engineers who review the hazards and implement systems and administrative procedures to keep the chemicals in the pipes. This is included in the plant mechanical integrity program. Morgan was asked when the last significant release occurred. A 1,000- pound cholrine release occurred in June 1997.

Dr. Monlezun questioned the quantity of phosgene on-hand at any given time. Morgan replied that 55,000 pounds are on-hand at a given time. In the RMP brochure (copy provided to the group), a scenario was presented in which 55,000 pounds were released. This would extend out more than 25 miles. Based on this, Dr. Monlezun asked if the phosgene should be in a population center. The answer was that if the chemicals are properly managed, there is no reason why the chemical can't be in a populated area.

Marilyn White asked if phosgene could cause liver damage. Morgan responded that phosgene is a respiratory irritant. He also showed the group a phosgene badge worn by plant employees which indicated the amount of phosgene someone in the plant is exposed to at any time. Over the last couple of years there have been no serious phosgene exposures. There has been one fatality at the plant in the last few years and one or two specific incidents involving phosgene in the last 10-20 years.

Kathy Landry asked if there were more incidents with contract workers. No, Austin (plant contractor) participates in the REDFISH safety program. Austin is also used at Lyondell's Texas plants. The employees are local employees, but we have the benefit of programs and practices from both Louisiana and Texas. There has been a downward trend in the number of safety incidents due to the amount of observations.
In review of the safety performance
injury and illness slides, it was pointed out that we want our employees to report all injuries/illnesses--both major and minor. We learn from the minor incidents which are used to prevent major injuries and more serious incidents.

Morgan next presented the environmental statistics. Notifications are required to regulatory agencies based on release quantities. At Lyondell, we have three categories of incidents:

Tier I - must be reported to federal agency
Tier II - exceeds trigger but is reportable only to state or local agencies
Tier II - not reportable to anyone but greater than one pound. This type incident is investigated by plant personnel to prevent it from recurring.

There has been on Tier I release at Lake Charles in 1999--1/14/99, a two pound spill of hydrazine. Hydrazine has a reportable quantity of one pound. Angie Camel questioned the affect of hydrazine on the human body. Morgan advised that it is a 'reactive' chemical. Personnel that clean up a spill site wear approved personal protective equipment.

Further, there has been on NPDES exceedance at Lake Charles in 1999. As shown in the presentation, 1998 was not a good year for NPDES performance. Each exceedance in 1998 was analyzed, corrective actions developed, and solutions to prevent recurrence implemented. There is an extensive list of permitted parameters in Lake Charles LPDES permit. This permit was written by the EPA based on Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) for the kind of plant. Effluent guidelines for OCPSF facilities look at typical discharges and establish plant limits. Our permit is based on what the best plants in the country could achieve. The permit is developed based on what technology is capable of achieving and biological toxicity testing. There is no toxicity in waters entering the Calcasieu River from our facility.

Kathy Landry, advised that she believed industries should be rewarded for working toward a safer environment.

Mike Cain, Plant Manager at Equistar, reported that the plant was built under Cities Service - in 1972, was shut down in 1982, restarted by Occidental Chemical in 1986, and became Equistar in June 1998. Equistar is a joint venture between Lyondell, OxyChem, and Millennium. Ethylene and propylene are the primary products. There are 112 permanent Equistar employees and 52 contract employees at the Equistar facility. Mike noted there had been some reliability incidents in January and February. He reported there had been record production in March and April. The employees are concentrating very heavily on reliability and are brainstorming to improve plant reliability. When there are problems in the plant, the chemicals are burned in the flare. Improving reliability will be good for everyone.

Patty Palmer next reported on Equistar's safety and environmental performance. She noted that the last recordable injury occurred in 1997 and the last lost time injury occurred in 1998. Equistar is very proud of their safety performance at the Lake Charles facility. It has been in operation for 13 years and, from the very beginning, there has been a strong philosophy on the protection of the workers.

Equistar has been a member of the Voluntary Protection Program with OSHA Star status since 1993. This facility was the first facility in the area to obtain OSHA Star Certification. OSHA established this program in the early 1990's to reward companies with very strong safety performance and philosophies. There is a very detailed checklist. Programs are in place so workers come to the plant and leave the plant without an injury. Working safely improves employee morale.

Equistar tracks notifiable release or spills that exceed a RQ either for the state or federal regulatory agencies. Near misses are also tracked. These are any spill or release that has a potential of becoming a reportable quantity occurrence. The small incidents can eventually become a large event, so the small incidents are tracked to prevent the large incidents. There have been no notifiables in 1999. The 'other' category includes those incidents that could result in an odor or public telephone call complaint.

Kathy Landry asked how much benzene is kept on-site at Equistar. The storage capacity is roughly 1,000,000 gallons of 35% benzene.

Reports are completed on all safety, environmental, or production upsets. These are then tracked and a root cause analysis completed on each. By tracking data, trends can be developed and areas determined where problems could occur. One are pointed out in this process is human actions. To help improve this area, the Training Department has been expanded with computer based training and training for operators on the day to day routine work to insure they are familiar with procedures.

There are three companies that adjoin the Equistar site--Westlake Polymers, Firestone, and Citgo. Any time there are problems at these sites, Equistar could be impacted. Equistar must therefore maintain a good working relationship with these adjacent facilities.

Dorothy Jones reported that Equistar would track the number of days since they last flared. The facility formerly tracked the number of events flared per year. When a facility exceeds six hours of smoke time from flaring in a ten-day window, this constitutes a violation. This also means that product is being burned. We must remember that the flare is an environmental control and a safety device. Equistar has done a lot of modeling and tried to take a worst case scenario where the plant goes to the flare with no steam. There were no ambient air standards exceeded at the fenceline.

In about 1994, the Equistar facility was preparing to go into a 30-day turnaround with purging through the flare. There was normally several phone calls from the community when the flaring occurred. Equistar's CAP members suggested that Equistar personnel make a walk-through of the immediate community to explain what would be occurring when the plant was being readied for the turnaround and the flaring that was anticipated. Following this walk-through, there were no phone calls to the plant from the community.

Following a question from Dr. Stevenson, Patty noted that at the last CAP meeting she reported that Equistar had received a NOV with a possible penalty for the plant upset of November 17 and 18, 1998. The plant exceeded the flaring smoke time of six hours in a ten-day period. Equistar personnel met with LDEQ to provide additional information. To date, there has been no additional information received from LDEQ.

Ann noted that the topic of the meeting had changed since the notice went out. The previous topic was the interconnection of the local industry. The graphics we were to use were too old and forced a change in topic. She reported that Levingston would attempt to update the chart which represents the various facilities in the area. The only copy that we now have is about 4-half years old and has numerous changes.

Bettsie Baker-Miller with the Louisiana Chemical Association made a brief presentation on the chemical industry in Louisiana, things that are currently going on in Baton Rouge, and things happening at LCA. LCA is a trade association that represents major companies with common concerns and common interests. LCA is comprised of 75 member companies with 100 facility sites. Most of the major chemical companies are members of the LCA. Education is one of the major issues in the LCA. We must maintain a skilled/trained workforce to meet industries needs. The chemical industry has a major impact on the State and has the most productive employees in the work force in Louisiana. In fact, Louisiana is the most productive chemical industry in the country. The employees are well paid and normally remain in positions until retirement. At present, 50% of the work force will quality for retirement in the next five years. The 'worker' hired today is much different from the 'worker' hired years ago. Therefore, children of today need to determine career paths and make choices so that they will be educated with skills necessary to meet the work force demands of the future.

The chemical industry in Louisiana is one of the safest industries someone can work in. The banking industry is the only industry that is safer than the chemical industry. Bettsie congratulated the Equistar Plant on their participation in the OSHA Voluntary Protection Program. In 1997, there are only 9 voluntary protection program sites in Louisiana.

In 1977, the State started collecting data concerning tumors in Louisiana through the Tumor Registry. Dr. Vivian Chen with the Louisiana Medical Center has been studying the database. This database is accepted by the World Health Organization (WHO). Dr. Chen will be in Lake Charles in the Fall at McNeese. Dr. Stevenson advised that all CAP members in the Calcasieu area have an invitation to this meeting.

Kathy Landry reported she has information on dioxin exposure in the parish. She noted that grab samples were recently taken at her home. She will bring the analytical results to the next Lyondell CAP meeting.

Bettsie reported there had been changes at the BESE Board. Eighth grade students are now preparing curriculum career paths. The Louisiana Department of Agriculture also has a Project Learning Tree. This program will be valuable to teachers.

The chemical industry is spending more time on public image and will continue to do so. It is important that the public understand all facets of our industry.
The group was asked to bring their 'In the News' articles to the next monthly meetings for discussion. The meeting adjourned at 3:15 p.m.

Meeting Dates:
Lyondell CAP - June 15, 1999
Equistar CAP - June 18, 1999; Topic: Meet the Employees