A liquid hydrocarbon release from a storage tank at Marathon Petroleum's East-Central El Paso refinery on August 4 sent a strong sulfur smell drifting across several parts of the city, prompting a wave of resident complaints and renewed criticism from local officials over how slowly information reached the public. The hydrocarbons likely included some mix of gasoline, diesel fuel, or crude oil, according to details in the incident report.
Residents in Five Points and Manhattan Heights were among those who reported the odor, as the El Paso Times reported. In the Corbin Sambrano neighborhood, the fumes on the night of August 4 were described as undeniably strong. Marathon Petroleum, which operates the refinery, said the odor source was identified and that crews addressed the situation, and the company deployed community air monitoring as a precaution. That monitoring detected no readings indicating health risks, the company said.
Linda Favela said her family was kept awake that night by refinery alarms and sirens, and she said residents never received a notification explaining what was happening or what health precautions, if any, they should take. Favela had raised similar concerns in January, telling Texas Commission on Environmental Quality officials about frequent odors and fumes coming from the plant.
Commissioner Says His Office Waited 90 Minutes for Basic Facts
El Paso County Commissioner David Stout said his office took almost an hour and a half to learn what was actually happening at the refinery on the night of the release. He said the incident raised fresh concerns about inadequate information and transparency for both local officials and nearby residents. El Paso City Representative Josh Acevedo was also among the local officials tracking the incident as complaints mounted.
The Sembrando Esperanza Coalition, which includes nine historic El Paso neighborhoods, had already asked refinery officials last July to establish a dedicated phone number for reporting refinery problems and to create an alert system for nearby residents. According to the report, people who tried calling Marathon's public number, 915-775-3300, during the incident got no answer. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said it did not have immediate information about the incident, and Marathon did not respond immediately to additional questions.
Odor Incident Feeds Into Ongoing Permit Fight
Stout said the odor incident bolsters the county's pursuit of a contested-case hearing on Marathon's air-permit renewal application, which the company filed in December 2023. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality granted El Paso County's request in June and referred the matter to the State Office of Administrative Hearings, marking the first contested-case hearing over an air permit in the refinery's nearly 100-year history, according to KTSM 9 News. Marathon is fighting that order. State Representative Vince Perez formally petitioned regulators in June to contest the permit renewal, citing public health and emissions concerns in neighborhoods near Ascarate Park, where the review will determine allowable thresholds for pollutants including benzene and nitrogen oxides.
Under state procedure, administrative law judges hearing the contested case can only evaluate air-quality issues that were formally submitted during the official public comment period, as Hoodline reported in earlier coverage of the permit fight. Records compiled by Inside Climate News showed the refinery received five notices of violation for air emissions between 2018 and early 2024, a history community leaders have cited in pressing for state intervention. County commissioners authorized up to $40,000 in January 2024 to hire outside legal counsel and a technical adviser to challenge the permit renewal before state regulators.
Not the First Scare This Year
The August release follows an April 10 fire at the refinery that also rattled nearby residents, though it caused no injuries and was extinguished by trained teams, as Hoodline previously reported. Marathon deployed its air monitoring team in response to that fire, and a TCEQ investigation later found no off-site environmental impacts and no indication of off-site air-quality problems. Marathon determined that a seal failure on refinery equipment caused the April fire, and a TCEQ investigator determined the blaze generated no industrial or hazardous waste after reviewing the company's explanation.
The refinery, built originally as separate Chevron and Texaco facilities in 1928 and 1931 before being modernized and combined into a single operation in 1993, now processes roughly 133,000 barrels of crude per day and employs about 400 full-time workers, according to Marathon Petroleum's own fact sheet. The plant supplies the vast majority of fuel for El Paso County's more than 700,000 registered vehicles, where electric vehicles make up less than 0.5% of registrations, and past unexplained disruptions at the facility have triggered regional gasoline price spikes approaching $4 per gallon. Marathon completed a 45-day, $130 million upgrade at the refinery in July, employing up to 2,000 workers during construction, a project the company has touted as one of the largest recent industrial investments in East-Central El Paso.
