Three days after Christmas in 1998, a newly refurbished Huntsman Petrochemical plastic plant began disgorging thick black smoke over Odessa. This smokestack flare, which lasted for 25 days, contained a smorgasbord of such toxic chemicals as benzene, butadiene and propylene. 

A Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission (TNRCC) inspector described the flare as “a bright orange flame and a black smoke plume that extended vertically approximately 1,500 feet.” For the next several weeks, Huntsman and the TNRCC functioned like damage-control twins, issuing a steady stream of reassuring—albeit misleading—platitudes. 

The TNRCC’s air point man in Midland, Mike Hagan, told the public that there was little cause for concern, though he declined to comment on any potential health risks that the flare posed.³⁹ 

On December 29, Huntsman Vice President Johnny Lasiter promised that the heavy smoke would subside by that afternoon. With the flare still blazing a week later, company officials announced on January 4, 1999 that the smoke would subside by the following day. Company officials also now revealed that the flare released 594 pounds of the potent carcinogen benzene in its first three days. A south Odessa resident complained that the air at her home 4.5 miles from the plant “smells like [I have my] nose up a tailpipe.” 

During the flare’s first two weeks, regulators, legislators and company officials coined catchy bromides. “People in this area are used to having high levels of contaminants in the air,” the TNRCC’s Hagan said. “Unusual odors do not alarm them."⁴⁰ Bad smells “are just part of West Texas, just part of our environment,” added state Rep. Buddy West, R-Odessa. A Huntsman official on day two of the flare pronounced it “good news” for the local economy.⁴¹ 

But these statements did not speak for the predominantly African-American residents of south Odessa. On January 11, the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) delivered more than 3,000 health complaints to the TNRCC from this community’s residents. Since the flare began, south Odessans reported a rash of symptoms, including burning eyes, sore throats, shortness of breath, asthma attacks, bronchitis, nausea, sinus problems and property damage from the “settling of soot on property.”⁴²  

The day after the NAACP delivered these complaints, the TNRCC suddenly announced its intent to hold Huntsman accountable for regulatory violations. The TNRCC is negotiating a so-called “notice of enforcement” with the company. In this process, however, agency officials have said that they will not act without the company’s consent. 

Company Chief Executive Officer Peter Hunstman flew to Odessa on January 12 to disavow any links between the health complaints and the still-burning Huntsman stack. “Do I believe it’s [the rash of complaints] directly related to what we are doing here at this facility?” he asked. “No, I personally do not believe that.”⁴³  

Although the flare burned for weeks, neither Huntsman nor its regulators bothered to place air monitors at the plant. Instead, they relied on computer models designed by Huntsman and an existing air monitor at an elementary school more than a mile away from the plant. As Huntsman’s Reggie Baker told an angry crowd of south Odessa residents on January 29, 1999, “You do not have the data available that you need. Without that data, on a timely basis, how can you hold us and others accountable?”⁴⁴