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Dallas-Region EPA Stages Surprise Inspection at Intel |
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Written by Jeff Radford
Corrales Comment
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Monday, 25 January 2010 |
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First in a series
The Dallas regional office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) has responded to Corrales residents’ complaints about recent
worsening air pollution from Intel by staging a surprise, in-depth
inspection.
Findings from the five-day site visit are not expected before summer.
That may coincide with the final report by the U.S. Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) which has been investigating
pollution from the Intel Rio Rancho site since 2004.
Complaints have increased since Intel began ramping up production using
its secret new chemical “recipe.” Intel is nearing completion of
its $2.5 billion re-tooling to manufacture its ever-faster and smaller
(now 32-nanometer) microchips.
The huge Fab 11-X is now operating at 100 percent capacity, according
to the firm’s January 2010 Environmental Health and Safety Activity
Report.
Largely as a result of those citizen complaints in recent months, the
Dallas regional office of the EPA dispatched a four-member inspection
team to the Rio Rancho Intel plant December 7-11.
“Our agency conducted an in-depth inspection at the Intel facility for
compliance with the federal Clean Air Act,” EPA-Dallas public
affairs officer Dave Bary said January 12.
He was responding to a Corrales Comment request for information about the inspection and what had prompted it.
“The site visit was a response to several concerns expressed to us over
the past several months from citizens living around the Intel
facility,” he added. “We decided it was prudent to conduct this
inspection.”
Bary said the inspection resulted in no immediate enforcement actions,
and that findings from the site visit will not be released until this
summer. “We are still reviewing documents received at that time and we
don’t have a summary of the inspection yet. We expect the summary will
be available sometime this summer.
“It will be used to determine if any action is warranted.”
Bary said no air sampling or other testing was done.
The EPA visit to Intel was characterized as a surprise inspection.
Intel Environmental Health and Safety manager Sarah Chavez said it was
the first such EPA inspection since she began working there in 1993.
However, Bary said his agency’s last substantial inspection at Intel
was in June 2006, although he understood state air quality inspectors
had visited the site last June.
Attention is now being focused on what new chemicals —or possible
inadvertent chemical combinations— have been introduced into the new
manufacturing process.
Data supplied at the request of the Intel-funded Community
Environmental Working Group (CEWG) last month revealed that changes
have been made in the factories’ use of 52 federally-listed Hazardous
Air Pollutants (HAPs) and 57 different volatile organic compounds
(VOCs), the latter being mostly industrial solvents.
Compared to what it was doing in the third quarter of 2008, Intel
reported it has added 11 volatile organic compounds and three Hazardous
Air Pollutants in the past year. In the same period, it discontinued
use of five HAPs and 10 VOCs.
During the first quarter of 2009, the new, regulated chemicals used
were isoamyl ether; methyl iso butyl carbinol and propene. Added in
third quarter 2009 were bis(tertbutylamino)silane;
cyclohexane,1,1-[(diazomethylene bis(sulfonyl)]bis;
cyclohexane-1,4-dimethanolmonovinylether; 1,4 dioxane; 2-ethyl
1-hexanol; ethylene glycol; isoamyl ether and triflic acid.
Also added some time in 2009 was the new HAP titanium tetrachloride.
A related graph for “Total VOCs Usage Q3 2008 to Q3 2009” reveals a
dramatic increase in use of volatile organic compounds from February
2009 to September 2009. VOC usage went from roughly 40 tons in the
month of February last year to 100 tons in September 2009, the last
month for which usage is shown.
In theory, and by permit from the N.M. Air Quality Bureau, more than 90
percent of the VOC fumes vented away from the manufacturing stations
would be burned off by incinerators installed (since the mid-1990s) as
pollution controls.
Use of the incinerators enable Intel to be regulated as a minor source
of air pollution rather than a more tightly regulated major polluter.
But the incinerators, also called thermal oxidizers, have been
troublesome from the beginning.
They quickly clogged up with silica dust due to burning a particular
VOC, hexamethyldisilazane, now suspected as a cause of pulmonary
fibrosis. When the incinerators failed, or had to be shut down for
frequent preventive maintenance, the VOC waste stream routed there just
poured untreated into the air over Corrales.
Current re-vamping of Intel’s Rio Rancho plant includes replacing the
old incinerators with new ones from a different manufacturer. About
half have been replaced so far, adding redundancy so that if one unit
goes down, VOCs can be routed to another incinerator.
Intel’s charts also show a dramatic increase in release of HAPs to the
air from May to September 2009. This past September a total of around
470 pounds of hazardous air pollutants were emitted, according to
Intel’s chart labeled “HAPs Emissions Totals Q3 2008 to Q3 2009.” A
related chart indicates those may be mostly hydrofluoric acid,
hydrochloric acid and chlorine.
The CEWG established in 2004 has members from New Mexicans for Clean
Air and Water and from the local chapter of the American Lung
Association, among others. The group has tried for several months to
determine what might explain the recent increase in citizen complaints
about pollution coming from Intel. Much of the data given above is from
Intel’s response to nine questions posed by CEWG.
Among those are:
• “What have been the changes in chemicals over the last year?”
• “Were there any other sources of chemicals that could account for these [reported health] effects?”
• “What symptoms were associated with the chemicals that have changed
over the last period of time and what were the exposure limits?”
• “Were there known interaction effects [interactions among chemicals] causing these impacts?”
• “Were there time exposure effects that could explain these symptoms?”
• “Plot production variability to check for correlation.”
The data released last month by Intel also shows that a toxic pollutant
previously suspected of causing health problems, hexafluoroethane, was
“no longer tracked in 2009,” presumably because it is no longer being
used. However that HAP is not shown in Intel’s list of “Chems removed
from tracking since July 2008.”
Retired Los Alamos National Laboratories chemist Fred Marsh, a member
of Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water (CRCAW), has warned of
repeated detection of hexafluoroethane in air samples collected around
Intel.
In 2004, Marsh identified hexafluoroethane is the most likely chemical culprit for making nearby residents sick.
“An important question is whether carbonyl fluoride is formed from the
large quantities of hexafluoroethane used and released by Intel,” Marsh
remarked.
“Carbonyl fluoride is of special concern because its structure and
toxicity are so similar to those of phosgene, the chemical warfare
agent, that it is called fluoro-phosgene.”
(See Corrales Comment Vol.XXIV, No. 21, December 17, 2005 “Risks Assessed From Chronic Toxic Exposure.”)
Marsh noted “the fact that [Intel consultant TRC’s Fourier transform
infrared air monitor] detected carbonyl fluoride 622 times during
measurements on Intel property in August 2003 is difficult for me to
ignore.
“Nor can I ignore Intel’s third quarter report for 2003 which includes
TRC stack testing data in which carbonyl fluoride was measured on
Scrubber 8s.4.2ab at 2,280 parts per billion and again at this same
scrubber at more than 1,600 ppb.
“This is the same Central Utility Building scrubber that is closest to
Corrales residential areas, whose malfunctions, according to the Intel
whistleblowers have been the source of many of the toxic pollutants
that reach Corrales.”
(See Corrales Comment Vol.XXII, No. 10, July 5, 2003 “Second Intel Whistleblower Goes Public.”)
It was not clear from the data provided to the CEWG last month what
chemical may have replaced use of hexafluoroethane nor what the
toxicity properties of such a substitute might be.
But the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry took
special interest in Intel’s use of hexafluoroethane when its
investigators began a community health consultation in 2005.
The Atlanta-based sister agency to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
is completing its report after issuing a draft a year ago. ATSDR says
it will release its final report by summer 2010.
The agency has already initiated consultation and perhaps cooperation
with Dallas EPA officials. Results of EPA’s December 2009
inspection at Intel will likely be included in the ATSDR report.
When N.M. Air Quality Bureau officials came to Corrales January 7 to
present the latest proposed revision to Intel’s air pollution permit,
they listened for more than an hour to complaints about an increase in
odors and irritants coming from the Intel plant.
Roberta King, a resident of El Rey Drive who has followed the
controversy for 16 years and regularly attends CEWG meetings, insisted
on regulatory action to address the complaints. “This has been going on
for six months at this accelerated level. And it isn’t just the people
who have always complained.”
Attending the January 7 meeting was a former Intel engineer, Chris Grotbeck, who became a whistleblower in 2003.
“I have been watching this interaction for a little over 20 years, and
I’ve seen it from both sides,” said Grotbeck. “I worked for Intel for
about 15 years, and I designed a lot of the systems and pollution
control processes at the Rio Rancho plant.”
Typically, when a problem is identified, he said, “The normal
process is to see the result and track it back to the source.
“If you had a botulism outbreak, you’d find out who’s affected,
find out what they ate, track the shipping records on the cans back to
the packaging plant, and stop the [contamination].
“Well, this whole process here has a disconnect in the middle. The
disconnect comes from the complexities in terms of air flow from stacks
into the surrounding geography. It’s something that can’t be nailed
down.
“And you’ve got the complexities of chemical effects on human beings,
some of which are not quantifiable. Things like the synergistic effects
of combinations of chemicals that aren’t quantifiable.
“So there’s a big gap in the process of getting the health effects back to the source.
“I’ve watched this ‘Mexican stand-off’ for 20 years, and there doesn’t
seem to be an end in sight. Maybe the process needs to be re-examined
with the assumption there are so many complexities to tying the effects
to a cause that you need to bypass those with a new approach.
“It’s true, we’re learning a lot more about chemicals, about air flow
and a lot about community interactions, but the question is: following
this normal process of cause-and-effect, are you going to get anything
done?”
Grotbeck summed up. “We have to realize this process of going from the
result back to the source is compounded by so many complexities that
we’re never going to get there. We have to start looking at other
solutions.
“The effect is obvious: there are numerous people complaining. And they
are not in collusion somehow just complaining for the sake of
complaining.”
Jay Stimmel, the Air Quality Bureau staffer handling Intel’s latest
proposed revision to its air pollution permit, all but conceded.
“There are different people complaining now, new people, and it’s
increasing. So something is happening. We understand that. What the
cause is, the source… that we don’t know, we don’t have an answer.”
Even so, the Air Quality Bureau signed off on the new air pollution permit as Intel requested a week later on January 14.
Reports of health problems related to Intel pollution intensified last
fall as the microchip factories continued to ramp up production in its
re-tooled facilities. Since mid-October, Intel has been operating at 80
percent capacity or greater in its updated Fab 11X.
Nearby Corrales resident Joy Tschawuschian, the person who has
documented and reported most health problems related to Intel since
1994, provided this agonizing account last fall.
“We are livid that rather than improving the situation, things have
become worse with this new technology. There is continued damage to the
health of residents on an almost daily/nightly basis, plus damage
already done to our health in the past.
“Since I last reported, the skin on my eyelids is peeling. All around
the eyes, it is inflamed —a burning– since the last exposure. Neighbors
are coughing, skin on hands burning and itching, heaviness of breathing
noticed, also sinus and nausea problems —and it’s not the swine flu.”
Numerous industrial chemicals specific to Intel have been detected at
Tschawuschian’s home near the top of Windover Road, just a little below
the escarpment under Intel. ATSDR officials have visited her home and
obtained data from air samples collected there and other locations
around Intel.
Last fall, Corrales Comment requested a list of chemicals used in
the new chip manufacturing processes but it was not provided. A tour of
the facility to see changes in pollution control technology was also
requested. No date was set, and then last month, Intel said a tour
would not be permitted.
In Tschawuschian’s October 17 letter to Intel’s new environmental
relations manager in Rio Rancho, Thom Little, she urged, “Please
understand that the new chemicals that are being used up there are
causing illnesses as serious as we had in the 1990s. Vision is blurred,
eyes are burning and skin is peeling off the eyelids.
“One breath of the toxic air causes choking, coughing and, in [a named nearby resident’s] case, gasping for air.
“The toxins collect in her westside patio and in her house. With
me, it settles all around my property and comes in the house. This
morning my eyes were swollen shut and inflamed. I could hardly see.
Each day my vision seems to be getting worse.
“The processs and chemicals your company is now using are drastically
deteriorating air quality downwind and downhill from your facility.
There was a period of time when we were happy not to have had to
report, so you can see the dramatic change that has occurred in this
airshed in the last several weeks.”
In response to a similar complaint three days earlier, Little e-mailed
that “the systems onsite were running without incident. The crew on
site investigated for odors and alarms and could not detect anything.”
Occasionally, but relatively infrequently, Intel technicians report a
malfunction or other conditions that could explain the reported
problems. Those might be down-time for maintenance on the incinerators
that are supposed to burn off waste solvent exhaust; a vent damper that
was really open when the computer monitor said it was closed; or
inadequate water for the sprays that should “scrub” out caustic acid
gases vented from the plant.
For example, Intel’s October-November 2009 Environmental Health
Activity Report notes that on October 9-14, one of the newly installed
Munters incinerators was out of operation for 131.52 hours due to a
faulty regulator. Presumably all of the solvents that should have been
burned there were diverted to the back-up unit. That second unit was
shut down the following day, October 15, for preventative maintenance.
Until recently there were no such back-up units.
More pollution control outages came less than two weeks later. Intel’s
monthly activity report notes that on October 29-30, the thermal
oxidizer for Fab 11X was shut down for 37.5 hours to replace bearings.
There was no back-up for that, so Intel dumped 267 pounds of untreated
volatile organic compound waste into the air, according to the report.
But far more often Intel reports back to complaining residents that all
systems were operating normally when they experienced problems. That
finding is actually more disconcerting to nearby residents with chronic
complaints they relate to Intel pollution: the factories’ normal,
routine operations result in what they consider to be intolerable
health effects.
Of the 13 complaint calls to Intel from October 16 to November 10, 2009
Intel’s response nine times was “All systems operating normally and no
unusual conditions or activities.”
Last spring, when ATSDR released its draft report, Intel responded to
the preliminary findings with an April 2, 2009 letter urging the agency
to issue an opinion that Intel Rio Rancho constitutes “no apparent
public health hazard.”
Such a clear exoneration is not likely given the testimony and monitoring evidence presented.
“It is our view that the contents of the present report does not
adequately reflect consideration of all of the available information
and has not adequately synthesized and integrated that large body of
information to inform the public of the absence of any public health
hazards related to the Intel-Rio Rancho operations,” the Intel letter
to ATSDR said.
Intel conceded that 17 chemicals detected in air monitoring could have
come from its operations, although nearly half of those may have come
partially from other sources as well.
The letter signed by Intel N.M. Corporate Services Site Manager John
Painter conceded that “A few chemicals, principally the fluorine
containing compounds, are relatively unique to operations
conducted by Intel at the Ro Rancho facility.”
Some of those chemicals were identified later in the letter as sulfur
hexafluoride, tetrafluoromethane, hexafluoroethane and hydrogen
fluoride.
Intel’s site manager urged ATSDR not to recommend additional air
monitoring. “Accordingly, Intel does not believe the ATSDR
recommendations for additional ambient monitoring are well founded. The
emissions inventory, modeling and monitoring data already in hand
strongly support the conclusion that there is no basis for air quality
health concerns in the vicinity of the Intel-Rio Rancho facility.” |
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