Opponents question how the Westwin refinery project will affect residents and the environment

Some Comanche County residents are not convinced that the cobalt/nickel refinery proposed by Westwin Elements will be good for the community.

While questions pertaining to health and the environment have been asked from the beginning, residents also have begun to ask more detailed questions about the refining process and safety precautions, permitting, construction, jobs and the widespread effects that might result.

John Fedrick said Westwin hasn’t addressed all of his concerns, adding that officials at the Dec. 4 town hall “cherry picked” the questions they chose to elaborate on and nothing was resolved there. He said residents he has talked to also say their questions aren’t being answered.

Some of Fedrick’s questions are influenced by his background. He has worked as a chemist in the oil and gas industry, and spent much of his career involved in environmental issues.

“So, my concerns come from the environmental perspective and are some of the questions I want addressed,” he said, adding answers and solutions would make residents feel better. “I don’t believe they want to deliver that.”

Fedrick said while the town hall meeting addressed safety measures within the plant, no one addressed what would happen outside the facility. He wants more details about how Westwin will ensure “nothing gets out” and the environmental monitoring he said is necessary to protect residents and Westwin itself. That’s important to the landowners in the area, he said, citing their concerns about their land, their animals and their crops.

He said external monitoring is important for multiple reasons; for example, residents in the air quality sensitive group (those who have breathing issues, for example) need to know when it might not be safe to go outside because of what is in the air. While some draw parallels to problems residents already see at the west industrial park, Fedrick said existing smells are “more nuisance than health-related.”

“It smells bad, but it’s not up to the level to be hazardous,” he said, adding while some production activities have a strong smell when problems are occurring, nickel has a mild, musty smell. “It doesn’t really alert you.”

Fedrick said the region already suffers from a lack of continuous air monitoring, especially for this type of activity. Lawton has one ambient air monitor in the north part of the city, but Fedrick said it also needs one near the Westwin site. He said the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality also should have routine air sampling and testing, beginning now so the area has a “baseline” reading to compare with future air. He also suggested fence line monitoring to prove that no particulate matter is escaping the property. The steps will soothe community concerns, he said.

“You have to entertain those questions,” he said. “Sometimes, you have to entertain them for a long time, if you want to operate in the community.”

Fedrick and Becky Lekey said they also are concerned about nickel oxide (a refining byproduct) that is toxic when inhaled. Fedrick said Westwin spend the town hall meeting explaining nickel carbonyl, but didn’t explain that plain metallic nickel has risks under prolonged exposure. And, nickel oxide can accumulate in pastures and farm ponds, he said, adding it could be a cleanup problem in the future.

Lekey, who has spoken at meetings of the City Council and Comanche County Commissioners, said she remains concerned about environmental issues that she feels haven’t been addressed. She said while Westwin’s chief engineer addressed issues associated with nickel carbonyl (the vapor process that will produce pure nickel in powder form), Westwin hasn’t addressed the other hazardous components that will be waste products. She said while the public has been told there will be no waste produced, she wants to know about materials that will be collected daily during the refining process, about the maintenance processes involved in cleaning up those materials and how often it would be done.

Lekey also said local officials must insist on monitoring at the plant site.

“We need monitoring, monitoring, monitoring,” she said.

Lekey also wants details about Department of Environmental Quality oversight, explaining that Westwin doesn’t have a history of operating this type of facility, so “there is no history for them.” And, that makes it difficult to know how the plant will operate, she said, adding none of the questions she had at the town hall meeting were answered.

“I emailed eight or nine, and not one question was answered,” she said.

Larry Cotton, who has monitored the issue since public meetings began in February and who has met with Westwin officials to address concerns, said the issue can be compared to the process the community watched as tenants in today’s west industrial park opened. Not all concerns were addressed, Cotton said. He pointed to the Goodyear plant, explaining its process to build whitewall tires creates tiny rubber particles that are ultimately vented into the air. He also pointed to one land owner who fought with Republic Paperboard for six years, claiming it was contaminating his land (nearby residents also have complained about smells from the plant for years, he said).

Cotton said Westwin Elements could add to the problems, and he is concerned about children who already live in the area, as well as those in families that will be moving into a new housing addition being built at West Lee Boulevard and Deyo Mission Road.

“There’s a big community of young people who live out there,” he said. “The children can be more affected by heavy metals than we adults, because they are growing.

“New families are coming in there, with children. If they (Westwin) go to the production process, those children will be affected by the heavy metals more than we are.”