Residents express concerns about refinery

WOODS CROSS — With his house located just a couple hundred yards from the Silver Eagle Refinery, Jimm Kjelgaard has felt his share of explosions.

Back in January, he and his family were forced to leave their home when an explosion that injured four people spurred a widespread evacuation in Woods Cross. And now, with damage to his home from Wednesday's refinery accident that ruined some siding and fences and blew out windows in at least a dozen homes in nearby neighborhoods, Kjelgaard and several other residents are concerned about their home values and receiving proper compensation for their damaged residences.

"This community is going to remember that day for quite a while," said Kjelgaard, 38.

In response to the confusion community members have about the future, Kjelgaard and two others held a community meeting Thursday night to discuss organizing a neighborhood committee, which could serve as a representation of the community to the city council and refinery in the future.

The explosion, which several residents described as "house-shaking" and "terrifying," occurred after what some officials believed was hydrogen and diesel fuel leaking from a pipeline and igniting.

But initial safety investigations indicated Thursday that no diesel fuel leaked from the pipeline based on the size of the resulting explosion, said Donald Holmstrom, U.S. Chemical Safety Board investigations supervisor.

The explosion occurred within a diesel hydrotreater, a process unit that removes sulfur from diesel fuel. Based on the damage within the unit and significant damage to the immediate and surrounding area, it appears to be a flammable gas, Holmstrom said.

"This is only a preliminary investigation," he stressed. "One scenario is that hydrogen may have been circulating in the unit, but we just don't know yet. We'll be looking into that in our investigation."

Safety officials said the incident is the third refinery accident in Utah within the year — a fact that worries the chemical safety board.

"This is the most significant off-site damage of all the CSB has investigated thus far," Holmstrom said, except for explosions that occurred at CAI/Arnel, an ink manufacturing company plant in Massachusetts.

Safety board officials said they are continuing to investigate Wednesday's explosion and the Jan. 12 incident at the same refinery as well as an explosion a couple of weeks ago at the Tesoro Refinery in Salt Lake City. However, it is too soon to see any connections between the cases or what could have been done to prevent any of them, officials said.

e-mail: lgroves@desnews.com