Formosa Explosions

On October 6, 2005, in Point Comfort, Texas, there were a series of explosions at the Formosa Plastics Plant that caused numerous injuries and significant damage to the facility itself. The accident could have caused much greater destruction and if the fires had reached other areas of the plant, which stores thousands of pounds of highly combustible chemicals. Witnesses reported at least three blasts around 3:30 p.m. in an area of the 1,800-acre Formosa complex known as the Olefins 2 unit, where building blocks of plastics are made. The plant, Formosa's largest, employs about 1,500 people. Officials eventually ordered residents in the surrounding area to stay indoors and avoid the smoke. The fire was extinguished after about three hours, but county officials did not lift the shelter-in-place recommendation until just before 9 p.m. Following the blasts, many workers fled the plant, running across a field or driving. In the process many workers sustained injuries. Fortunately, there were no fatalities, but the explosions severely damaged a huge area of the plant and severely curtailed Formosa’s PVC production for months.

Our law firm, D. Miller & Associates, PLLC, currently represents approximately 1050 clients against Formosa Plastics Corporation, U.S.A, with respect to the explosions that occurred in Point Comfort, Texas on October 6, 2005 at its PVC facility there. A majority of these clients received medical treatment due to injuries linked to the explosions which occurred on October 6, 2005, and the aftermath. Following the initial explosions on October 6, 2005 and the week-long “burning” at the Formosa Plastics Plant, large amounts of excess contaminants were emitted from the plant until the end of November 2005, nearly two months after the initial explosions. Among our clients in this Mass Tort Case are approximately 53 individuals who were located very close to explosions when they occurred. This core group of 53 clients includes Formosa Plastics Plant workers, family members who were in the Formosa Plastics Plant parking lot, and other clients who were working at the nearby Alcoa Plant. Thus far, eight of our clients have undergone lumbar surgeries, due to the injuries they sustained. Furthermore, they as well as many of other clients have undergone physical therapy, as they continue recuperating from injuries they sustained while fleeing the Formosa Plastics Plant during the explosions. Many of our clients suffered back injuries while running, going through ditches, and scaling fences, while fleeing for their lives. In addition, many of the clients who were near the Formosa Plastics Plant during the explosions have received psychiatric treatment and psychological counseling, due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (P.T.S.D.).

Litigation has already commenced. In late 2006, a legal petition or “lawsuit” was filed in Texas State Court. The petition was filed in Port Lavaca, Calhoun County, Texas on behalf of approximately 50 clients who were all very close to the Formosa Plastics Plant at the time of the explosions. Furthermore, we will be preceding to litigation on behalf of additional clients, who were primarily located in Port Lavaca, Texas during the explosions. Our law firm, D. Miller & Associates, P.L.L.C., has teamed up with two other law firms on this promising Mass Tort case. Our litigation partners are Christian, Smith, & Jewell, L.L.P, located in Houston, Texas, and Marek, Griffin & Knaupp, a law firm with offices in Victoria and Port Lavaca, Texas. This Mass Tort case is set to go to trial in May 2008, with discovery having already commenced. Our core group of clients consists of some employees and mostly sub-contractors who were at the plant at the time of the explosions. They were the ones most exposed to the released harmful contaminants involved in this incident, including benzene and butadiene. The initial explosions were followed by a fire that burned until at least October 13, 2005. Therefore this was a three-stage event, with the explosions being followed by a continuing fire and “burn”, and finally the release of excess contaminants through the plant’s “flare” system for nearly two months after that. The flare system burns off excess contaminants.

The majority of our remaining clients are residents of Port Lavaca, Texas, who were exposed to black smoke, filled with harmful contaminants, and fumes that filled the local area as the accident site burned for over a week following the initial explosions. In addition, they were also exposed to excessive emissions that far exceeded E.P.A. regulatory limits from the Formosa Plastics Plant for approximately 8 weeks from October 6, 2005 through the end of November 2005. Following the initial explosions on October 6, 2005 and the week-long “burning” at Formosa’s Point Comfort plant, an Event Report from the T.C.E.Q. confirms that large amounts of excess contaminants were emitted from the plant’s flare system. Formosa had to shut its plant down after the explosions occurred, and they continued to emit harmful contaminants into the air, significantly above permitted EPA limits, from October until November 2005. Such emissions caused many of our clients in Port Lavaca, Texas to become sick for many months. Young children and older clients proved to be especially vulnerable, as they suffered from medical symptoms such as coughing, nasal/chest congestion, sleeplessness, anxiety, eye irritation, rashes, and breathing difficulty, due to the excessive levels of contaminants that were spewed forth into the environment by the Formosa Plastics Plant due to the October 6, 2005 explosions.

On the day of the explosions, plant officials were desperate to move contaminants away from where the explosions and fires began. Yet, a large amount of contaminants burned “on the ground”, which were situated near the Olefins Two Unit. Such burning emitted contaminants at very high concentration levels “low to the ground”, which impacted those at the plant itself and those situated nearby, in Point Comfort, Texas, at the Alcoa Plant down I-35, and others in the immediate vicinity. The wind was blowing towards Point Comfort, Texas at the time of the explosions on October 6, 2005. A few hours after the initial explosions, the wind shifted away from Point Comfort and Port Lavaca. The fire and explosions occurred at the Olefins Two Unit. There were contaminants near the explosion that burned on the ground, with more of an impact on Point Comfort and the immediate vicinity, but at the same time, they were burning excess contaminants through the flare at the Olefins One Unit. The flare at the Olefins Two Unit was not operational at the time of the explosions. They did that to prevent further, larger explosions. Then, as they continued to burn through the flaring system, contaminants carried for miles, with prevailing winds, towards Port Lavaca during sustained winds. When the explosions and fire began, plant officials began “venting” huge amounts of process contaminants away from the site of the explosions, to avoid larger explosions and fires, and more “impact”.

Formosa Plastics Corporation (FPC) is Taiwan's top petrochemical company and among the world's largest producers of polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Formosa Plastics Corp., U.S.A., is a part of Taiwan's Formosa Plastics Corporation, which has annual revenues of nearly five billion dollars. The company produces nearly 1 million tons of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) each year, contributing to the parent company's ranking as one of the world's largest PVC suppliers. It is a multi-billion dollar corporation. Formosa Plastics Corporation is a member of industrial giant Formosa Plastics Group. Polyvinyl chloride is the plastic known at the hardware store as PVC. This is the PVC from which pipes are made, and PVC pipe is everywhere. The plumbing in your house is probably PVC pipe, unless it's an older house. PVC pipe is what rural high schools with small budgets use to make goal posts for their football fields. But there's more to PVC than just pipe. The "vinyl" siding used on houses is made of polyvinyl chloride. Inside the house, PVC is used to make linoleum for the floor. In the seventies, PVC was often used to make vinyl car tops. Yet, PVC is also known to be one of the most toxic and noxious substances in the organ chlorine family of chlorine-based industrial poisons. PVC is one of the most toxic and noxious substances in the organochlorine family of chlorine-based industrial poisons.

The Texas Gulf Coast is home to many of the nation’s largest refineries and industrial plants. The region's biggest manufacturer of polyvinyl chloride, known as “PVC”, is Formosa Plastics Corporation, which is a multi-billion-dollar company. The Formosa Plastics Plant in Point Comfort, Texas manufactures the raw materials necessary for PVC. Formosa Plastics was heralded as a “savior” for Calhoun County when construction began in the 1980’s on its $1.3-billion-plus PVC plant in Point Comfort, Texas. Yet Formosa earned a negative reputation by the mid-1990's in terms of safety. It is considered by many to be the worst from among a dozen Texas PVC-related facilities. In January 2006, it was formally announced that Formosa Plastics Group, which owns the world's biggest processor of plastics for pipes and imitation leather, plans to invest as much as $1.5 billion in the United States and Taiwan to tap rising demand for chemicals and energy. The parent company will invest approximately $1.1 billion in Texas over the next five years to expand chemical production and build a power plant. The parent company plans to build a 163,293 tons/year polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, plant in Texas, and a 300-megawatt power plant that will burn petroleum coke, a cheaper alternative to natural gas.

Formosa Plastics has a dismal safety record, based on numerous industrial accidents and excessive emissions. The chemical industry, as a whole, reported that its air pollution emissions by 47% between 1987 and 1993.  Yet, meanwhile, Formosa Plastics has been creating more air pollution.  For example, according to EPA reports, Formosa's operations in Point Comfort produced 27,000 pounds of toxic air emissions, but by 1997, toxic air emissions reported at the facility had risen to 700,000 pounds.  Meanwhile, in December 1998, the Formosa Plastics Corporation of Taiwan dumped nearly 3000 tons of toxic industrial waste in a Cambodian field. Tests determined that the waste material was contaminated with high levels of Mercury as well as a possible hazardous mixture of other metals. Formosa Plastics Corporation indicated the waste was shipped to Cambodia due to the threat of public protests in Taiwan. After Cambodia's threat to sue, it was agreed that the waste would be shipped back to Taiwan. Also in 1998, in Point Comfort, Texas an explosion containing EDC injured 26 workers, rattled windows 35 miles away, and contaminated a back waterway into the bay with levels up to 400 ppm of EDC. Then, in April 2004, Formosa's plant in Illinois exploded and killed 6 workers and injuring many more. Unfortunately, industrial facilities such as Formosa’s Point Comfort facility are all too commonplace in the United States, and particularly in Texas. The safety of workers, employees, and others in the community becomes compromised for financial reasons. We continue to represent our Formosa clients nearly two years since the explosions in Point Comfort, Texas as we fight for our clients to receive significant compensation for such damages as physical injuries, financial losses, future medical expenses, and doctors’ visits. We seek justice on behalf of our clients on the Formosa case, who are citizens of the community and plant workers, via litigation which has begun in Calhoun County, Texas.