More than 700 complaints made to Sepa over flaring at Mossmorran

Flaring at Mossmorran chemical plant.Flaring at Mossmorran chemical plant.
Flaring at Mossmorran chemical plant.
Over 700 complaints have been made to Sepa after the ExxonMobil Chemical Ethylene Plant in Fife started elevated flaring at around 3.30am on Sunday.

The complaints came after the unscheduled flaring at Mossmorran lasted from Sunday night until Tuesday afternoon.

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Sepa officers remained in contact with the plant and collected data and evidence during the flaring.

Sepa’s four remote monitoring points around the site have shown there was no breach of air quality standards.

Chris Dailly, head of environmental performance at Sepa, said: “Whilst we are pleased that the site has now returned to normal operations and is no longer flaring, we remain

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frustrated by the frequency of flaring and the flow of information from the operator.

“We’ve also clearly heard the impact flaring continues to have on local communities through over 740 reports to us since Sunday.

“The evidence we are gathering will enable us to determine whether there has been a breach of the site’s permit conditions and what our next steps should be in line with our

published enforcement policy."

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Annabelle Ewing MSP, for Cowdenbeath, has welcomed confirmation from Sepa that the flaring has now stopped.

Ms Ewing said: “However, I remain extremely unhappy with this situation. I, again, made a call for Sepa to consider what emergency powers it can bring to bear, taking into account the frequency of these unplanned flaring events by Exxon.

“I have written to the chief executive of the Health & Safety Executive and others and I will continue to pursue this issue.”

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