Shell is withholding or slow to release information to the public about flaring, orange glows in the sky and strange noises at its ethylene cracker plant in Beaver County, which started operating in November, an environmental group said this week.

Noise complaints from residents — mostly about intermittent “popping sounds” — increased in January around the gigantic petrochemical complex in Potter, set along the Ohio River, members of Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community said during its monthly Eyes on Shell meeting.

Shell was slow to respond to claims that a “big boom” noise heard by hundreds around 8 p.m. on Jan. 20 came from the cracker plant, environmentalists said. The plant takes the first step of converting ethane from natural gas into plastic pellets that can be used commercially.

Shell Polymers Monaca, the multibillion-dollar plant’s formal name, said Jan. 21 in a Facebook post that “the loud noise many residents heard late last evening was not a result of any activities associated with the plant.”

The company defended itself Thursday.

“We will and have alerted the community in the case of an unplanned flaring event, and given advance notice in the case of planned work that requires the visible activation of the flare,” Curtis Smith, head of the Americas media relations, said in a prepared statement. “And, of course, we will always notify the proper regulatory agencies immediately when any of these activities occur. We don’t wait for any prompting to do these things.”

Smith said Shell realizes that “flares are not something our community is used to seeing.”

“That is why we have been talking about the use of the flares for the past couple of years — during our virtual community meetings, community presentations, tours at the plant, Facebook posts, etc. — so that the community will know the flare is a part of a regulated, approved, controlled safety mechanism,” he added. “We will continually work to inform our friends and neighbors about the activities that go on within our gates.”

The company did not respond locally to calls to their hotline for the plant, which is 1-844-776-5581.

“Shell put out a lot of propaganda saying they’d be a good neighbor and they started right off not doing that,” BCMAC volunteer Anais Peterson said. “People are concerned … people are really on edge and people are distrustful that Shell is coming forward with information.”

The state Department of Environmental Protection issued a notice of violation to Shell Chemicals Appalachia LLC for exceeding its rolling 12-month total emission limitations for volatile organic compounds (VOCs)— even before it was fully running.

Shell had said the facility’s emissions shall not equal or exceed 516.2 tons of VOCs in a 12-month period, the DEP said. In September 2022, total VOC emissions for the preceding 12-month period reached 521.6 tons, and those same emissions reached 662.9 tons for the 12-month period ending in October 2022, Shell reported to regulators Nov. 7.

“It’s unacceptable,” Peterson said. “It’s great there’s a notice of violation, but people in Beaver County have already breathed that polluted air.”

Flaring — when the burning of hydrocarbons equates to flames pouring out of one of the facility’s seven cracking furnaces — occurred Jan. 6, causing an orange glow over the facility that lasted until roughly 7:30 a.m. the next day. Flaring also took place on Dec. 23-24, when flames burned overnight for some 14 hours, environmental watchdogs said.

Shell has not held a community meeting on the subject of its ethylene cracker plant since August, those same watchdogs said.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)