Woods Cross still waiting for answers from refinery

WOODS CROSS — The Woods Cross City Council says it wants more — a lot more — from Silver Eagle Refinery officials.

Council members want to talk about an eight-point plan to involve the community, a plan that includes: holding an emergency-planning meeting with city personnel, holding a public open house, creating a citizen panel and providing details to the public about a Jan. 12 explosion that injured four workers and led to widespread evacuations in Woods Cross.

Most of all, they want to be reassured that the refinery is doing everything possible to make sure a similar explosion doesn't happen again.

So it was mostly a letdown for the council and mayor this week when operations manager Gil Higham was the lone representative from the refinery to participate in what was supposed to be a discussion about how Silver Eagle will be a good neighbor in Woods Cross.

Higham told the council that the cause of the explosion was operator error by workers who were clearing a line with nitrogen gas and bypassed a stabilizing mechanism. The gas forced fumes out of 440,000-gallon Tank 105, which was nearly full at the time. The fumes ignited, and a flash-fire resulted, seriously burning two refinery operators and two contractors, all of whom have since been released from the hospital.

One of the employees is working twice a week, and the other has been back at work for about a month, Higham said Tuesday. One of the contractors is still working, and the other left for another job.

Higham said safeguards have been put in place so a similar bypass can't happen again. Repairs also have been made to the tank, which the refinery hopes to bring online again as soon as possible.

But when Councilman David Hill asked Higham what parts of the community-involvement plan the refinery was following, Higham said he hadn't heard of such a plan.

"If you haven't seen it, then there doesn't seem to be a great deal of commitment on the part of the refinery to spending any money to look at these types of issues," Hill said.

Council members expressed frustration that Silver Eagle president David McSwain didn't attend the discussion because of prior Tuesday night commitments, and they asked Higham to make sure someone who could discuss the community-involvement plan would attend the next council meeting, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. May 5.