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How far from an oil refinery would you have to live to feel safe?

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DougoMan

Senior member
I'm thinking of buying a house that is about 3 miles away from a major oil refinery. I know many would argue that its emissions are regulated and it's safe to live 10 feet from a refinery. But for normal paranoid people, how far would you have to live to feel comfortable?
 
Normal people are paranoid? As far as air emissions, you're screwed anywhere in the same state. However, waste disposal is the important location.
 
Air emissions? That would be the least of my worries.

I'm more concerned about drinking water contamination if it's well water, and a 50 mile (random number) radius evacuation if something starts burning.

There's actually a si hueg oil depot within 20 miles of where I live. Meh.
 
DougoMan said:
I'm thinking of buying a house that is about 3 miles away from a major oil refinery. I know many would argue that its emissions are regulated and it's safe to live 10 feet from a refinery. But for normal paranoid people, how far would you have to live to feel comfortable?
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Farther than that. Also keep resale value in mind.
 
This makes we wonder how far the average person lives from an oil refinery. I just assumed America was one big polluted wasteland with factories everywhere.
 
From what I have read oil refineries burn off unwanted fractions. At the least I would be concerned with bad smells from a place that cracked petroleum. I would go to the house in question as often as you can and see if you can smell anything.

As for safety, a major accident and fire would probably contaminate your house. I would check my insurance to see if you are covered. While the refinery would be responsible it is possible they might declare bankruptcy and leave you hanging.
 
This depends on the state but go to your state's DNR or department of environmental quality website and lookup their permits. I'm not sure if all states have them online though and some states might only have them listed as active permits and not give any of the data.

Also check out their EPA risk management plan. Those aren't available online you have to go to a federal reading room to view them. You could also just download the EPA offsite consequence analysis pdf and pick chemicals that are found at a refinery guess an amount present and you'll get a distance to endpoint calculation. It's easy to do and the pdf has a lot of examples to walk you through it. The EPA's numbers will give you an overestimated distance. So if you come up with a mile for the "circle of death" using the EPA rules it really wouldn't be that far out.
 
DougoMan said:
I'm thinking of buying a house that is about 3 miles away from a major oil refinery. I know many would argue that its emissions are regulated and it's safe to live 10 feet from a refinery. But for normal paranoid people, how far would you have to live to feel comfortable?
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It depends.

Three miles upwind, I'd consider it.

Three miles downwind would be a no go for me.

Best of luck,
Uno
 
in my experience refineries are located in flat peripheral post-industrial hellholes.
I wouldn't live there.
 
I would want to be many miles downstream from one but would probably be OK within 5 miles otherwise unless they were screwing the water then I'd want to be far enough away so that's not a problem.


Brian
 
Fenixgoon said:
not very. i used to live 10 miles from a nuclear plant. would live near again.
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That's not a fair comparison at all. Nuke plants emit practically nothing, in fact a coal-fired plant will emit more than a hundred times more radiation than will a nuclear plant. Even at Three Mile Island, the worst nuclear power accident the US has ever had, the additional radiation dose to the surrounding population was less than half of a chest x-ray.

I'd live half a mile from a nuke plant, but I'd only consider being near an oil refinery if I was a few miles upwind.
 
I worked in several of the bay area refineries. There's no way I'd live closer than 20 miles from a refinery. Under NORMAL operating conditions, 3 miles would probably be fine...but "normal" operations just aren't all that normal.
It seems like they're always flaring off various fractions...and when they have a problem, the folks in the immediate area are always either evacuated, or told to "shelter in place," meaning you have to stay indoors with all the doors and windows shut. Air pollution, water pollution...those are just the smaller concerns about living too close to a refinery.
 
OP, moving to El Paso? That refinery is surrounded by housing. I work at one now and I see no issue with living near to one. I wish my I did so my drive wasnt +40 miles to work.
 
It depends on the age of the refinery. Oh wait, they're all old. Nevermind.


I lived about two miles from an older refinery and it was fine most of the year. Then the summer doldrums came. One would think one wouldn't pray for wind in Cheyenne, WY but wow, it stank when the wind stopped.
 
I'd need to live far enough away that I couldn't see or hear the place. 10 miles would make me feel safer. 3-5 miles would be just a little close for my liking....of course, I like to be close to restaurants and retail stores too. If there's enough money in the area, it might not be all bad.
 
Probably at least 10-20 miles away. Though probably more given an area that has one is probably in general not that great of a place to live. Then there's the economic factor, if there is a refinery it probably is good for the economy of that city so job security is probably good.

On the other hand, they could smack a nuclear reactor in my back yard and I would not really care all that much. I'd probably want to get a geiger counter that will trigger an alarm if readings are too high, but under normal operations the plant would be fairly green. I don't think they even spew out anything bad at all.
 
Red Squirrel said:
On the other hand, they could smack a nuclear reactor in my back yard and I would not really care all that much. I'd probably want to get a geiger counter that will trigger an alarm if readings are too high, but under normal operations the plant would be fairly green. I don't think they even spew out anything bad at all.
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They don't spew much except steam. What you would worry most about is fuel rod storage and containment. In many cases, they store spent rods in storage pools....the water in the pools is contaminated, but also the if the rods ever aren't totally submursed, they can heat up and will pollute the air. Not a huge risk if they follow procedure and watch those pools.
 
Scarpozzi said:
They don't spew much except steam. What you would worry most about is fuel rod storage and containment. In many cases, they store spent rods in storage pools....the water in the pools is contaminated, but also the if the rods ever aren't totally submursed, they can heat up and will pollute the air. Not a huge risk if they follow procedure and watch those pools.
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Again...that's in NORMAl operations...just ask the folks in Fukushima how that's working out for them...😉
 
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