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FISCAL YEAR: 2012
1. PRINCIPAL DEFENDANT: Pelican Refining Company, LLC
W.D.  Louisiana  2:11-CR-00227
2. DEFENDANT: Byron Alford Hamilton
W.D.  Louisiana  2:11-CR-00130
3. DEFENDANT: Michael LeBleu
W.D.  Louisiana  2:11-CR-00266

In a joint factual statement filed in court, Pelican, headquartered in Houston, admitted that the company had knowingly committed criminal violations of its operating permit at the refinery located in Lake Charles, La. The violations were discovered during a March 2006 inspection by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) and the EPA, which identified numerous unsafe operating conditions. Pelican also pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for submitting materially false deviation reports to LDEQ, the agency that administers the federal Clean Air Act in Louisiana.

Pelican admitted to the following:

Pelican had no company budget, no environmental department and no environmental manager;

In order to comply with a permit issued under the Clean Air Act, the refinery was required to use certain key pollution prevention equipment, but that equipment was either not functioning, poorly maintained, improperly installed, improperly placed into service and/or improperly calibrated;

It was a routine practice for over a year to use an emergency flare gun to re-light the flare tower at the refinery designed to burn off toxic gases and provide for the safe combustion of potentially explosive chemicals; because the pilot light was not functioning properly, employees would take turns trying to shoot the flare gun to relight the explosive gasses;

Sour crude oil was stored in a tank that was not properly placed into service and remained in the tank after the roof sank;

A caustic scrubber designed to remove hydrogen sulfide from emissions was bypassed;

A continuous emission monitoring system (CEMS) designed to measure the hydrogen sulfide levels in refinery emissions was not working properly; and

Pelican provided false information to the states of Louisiana and Texas concerning the laboratory testing of asphalt.

The criminal investigation is being conducted by the EPA Criminal Investigation Division in Baton Rouge and the Louisiana State Police, with assistance from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. The case is being prosecuted by U.S. Attorney Finley, Senior Trial Attorney Richard A. Udell and Trial Attorney Christopher Hale of the Environmental Crimes Section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.



July 6, 2011
Byron Hamilton, the Pelican vice-president who oversaw operations at the Lake Charles refinery since 2005 from an office in Houston pleaded guilty on July 6, 2011, to the crime of negligently placing persons in imminent danger of death and serious bodily injury in violation of the Clean Air Act as a result of negligent releases at the refinery. Hamilton was sentenced to 1 day of incarceration, 12 months supervised release, and ordered to pay a $5,000 federal fine.
CITATION: 18 U.S.C. 1519, 42 U.S.C. 7413(c)(4)
October 31, 2011
Pelican’s former asphalt facilities manager, Mike LeBleu, pleaded guilty to a negligent endangerment charge under the Clean Air Act. LeBleu was sentenced to 1 day of incarceration, 12 months probation and ordered to pay a federal fine in the amount of $4,000.
CITATION: 18 U.S.C. 1519, 42 U.S.C. 7413(c)(4)
December 15, 2011
Pelican was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Richard T. Haik Sr. to pay a $12 million penalty, which includes a $10 million criminal fine and $2 million in community service payments that will go toward various environmental projects in Louisiana, including air pollution monitoring. The criminal fine is the largest ever in Louisiana for violations of the Clean Air Act. Pelican is also prohibited from future operations unless it implements an environmental compliance plan, which includes independent quarterly audits by an outside firm and oversight by a court appointed monitor.
CITATION: 18 U.S.C. 1519, 42 U.S.C. 7661a
STATUTE:
  • Clean Air Act (CAA)
  • Title 18 U.S. Criminal Code (TITLE 18)

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