Too big to Fine, too small to fight back;Texas targets small business owners

Texas’ environmental agency targets small business owners for minor recordkeeping violations, while letting the corporate polluters off easy. Unlike many other gas station owners, Farahnakian fought back. He hired a local attorney to contest the fines, and the case landed before a judge at the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH), an agency that holds trial-like proceedings for legal disputes. After eight months of wrangling, during which Farahnakian provided documentation that he’d cleaned up the tanks, TCEQ agreed to settle for $27,000. Farahnakian took the deal. He says he had already spent $15,000 in lawyer fees and a year of his time dealing with TCEQ. Still, he’s upset at what he sees as the mismatch between the infraction and the size of the fine.“Why we have to pay $27,000 for one violation?” he asked. “Which world is like that? Which country is like that? And there is no leak.” In April 2015, just as Farahnakian’s woes were about to begin, a Citgo refinery a few miles away was malfunctioning. Citgo personnel had discovered that a stack at the plant was emitting more hydrogen cyanide than its air permit allowed. For two months, as Citgo later reported to TCEQ, the plant released more than 50,000 pounds of hydrogen cyanide into the air. Exposure to the chemical at high levels can be toxic to human health. Two and a half years later, TCEQ is still deciding whether to punish the company at all, and is even considering a request from Citgo to simply amend its air permit to retroactively bless the pollution.