‘It’s a waste of our time:’ Frustrations at Marathon Refinery public meeting

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- After two months of waiting, El Paso residents were invited by the Marathon Refinery in South-Central El Paso to a meet-and-greet presentation and forum organized at Riverside High School in the Lower Valley on Tuesday night.

Elected officials at the city and state level from Mayor Renard Johnson to State Rep. Vincent Perez were present and spoke to attendees who hoped to receive accountability from the company, according to them.

But to the hundreds of residents who attended, and even other city officials, the entire event was not what they had hoped out of Marathon.

El Paso's Marathon Refinery general manager spoke with reporters before the meeting started, but didn't take any questions.

"I had very low expectations for tonight, and it didn't even meet that," City Representative Josh Acevedo said.

For nearly an hour, Marathon officials shared details of the Aug. 4 incident -- which they referred to as an "odor event."

Preliminary reports show that the El Paso Marathon Refinery released more than 15 tons of pollutants on August 4, and now residents are encouraged to join their public meeting on Tuesday to learn about the investigation results. 

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality previously reported that the refinery released 20 air contaminant compounds, including nearly 4,000 pounds of carbon monoxide, over 1,000 pounds of sulfur dioxide, and more than 10,000 pounds of propylene.

The El Paso Hispanic Chamber says the meeting is expected to discuss the air monitoring results, operational changes, improvements to community notification and details of the release of contaminants.

Some nearby residents said the gases irritated their eyes and caused nausea, and several others even reported smelling a strong odor during the incident.

Sisters Connie and Josie Hernandez have lived in El Paso for over 60 years and currently reside just a few blocks from the Marathon Refinery, and they say they have every intention of attending this meeting to demand transparency.

"I'm hoping that this meeting will bring some sort of commitment, accountability from them to place safety features," said Josie. "Because it's our lives, it's our lives, and I think most of us did not realize that until this big flare up happened."

The sisters told ABC-7 they remember working outside at the time of the flare-up, and smelling what they called "toxic air."

Now, Josie says they're concerned for their health, knowing now what's in the fumes and realizing that they're ingesting the fumes daily.

She told ABC-7 exactly what she experienced that moment while doing her yard work.

"I noticed that the flame was like really roaring, and I called Connie and I said 'Look at this thing!" Josie says. "It was dark with the orange flame and it was really nasty looking, but I didn't know what had happened until I heard the news later on that night. So when I found out, I said 'Gee, that's a lot of stuff that we ingested' and we're like maybe three blocks away from it."

At Tuesday's meeting, some residents said they didn't get the answers they wanted.

"We know that nothing's really going to happen, they keep saying if it happens again, it's going to happen again. We know it's going to happen again," Chris Telles said.

Rep. Acevedo said Marathon could have gone in a different direction about the incident report.

"They could have had a map in sight that said, if you want to go talk about the emissions, go over here: the pollution, the health scare, or whatever. They did this as a very performative measure, something to check the box." Acevedo said.

Marathon declined an interview with ABC-7 prior to Tuesday.