Groups Sue EPA Over Toxic, Flesh-Dissolving Refinery Chemical That Threatens Fenceline Communities

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Groups Sue EPA Over Toxic, Flesh-Dissolving Refinery Chemical That Threatens Fenceline Communities

WASHINGTON (July 9, 2025) – Community and environmental groups filed suit today to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address the threat of an unnecessary and dangerous chemical used in dozens of American refineries despite its potential to form toxic acid clouds.

The groups are filing the suit after the EPA rejected the groups’ petition to address the needless risks from use of hydrogen fluoride (HF)—an extremely corrosive chemical that, if released to the air, can form a lethal, ground-hugging plume that can travel for miles, causing severe injury or death to anyone in its path. More than forty oil refineries across the country—currently owned by companies including ExxonMobil, Marathon, Valero, and Delta Airlines, among others—use HF.

Several refineries across the country have started to replace HF with safer commercial-scale alternatives. HF can dissolve skin, muscle, and bone, disrupt essential bodily functions, and kill or permanently disable people who inhale or touch it. The chemical is still being used in refineries around the country, including at the Torrance and Wilmington refineries in the Los Angeles area and the Trainer refinery south of Philadelphia, putting millions at risk of exposure. HF endangers not only people near the refineries, but also those along train and truck routes used to transport the corrosive chemical.

The groups’ petition to EPA highlighted the horrific risks associated with a potential release of HF. It also discussed numerous near-miss incidents, some of which narrowly avoided exposing tens of thousands of people to the chemical. The federal government and oil industry have known for decades that a dense, ground-hugging cloud tends to spread from an HF release into the air. This propensity to form clouds makes HF harder to contain, and more dangerous, than alternative chemicals used in other refineries around the United States. Exposure to as little as 1 percent of one’s skin (about the size of one’s hand) to liquid HF can cause fatal injury because of how easily the chemical penetrates the skin and disrupts vital functions. Inhaling HF vapor or aerosols (small airborne droplets)—the most likely way people would be exposed if there were a major release—can also be deadly, causing people to drown in their own bodily fluids.

The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by Clean Air Council (CAC), Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), and NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). The groups have developed materials to inform the public if they live near a refinery using HF, and have included other information about each facility, such as its parent company, safety measures in place (or missing), and the number of people it puts at risk. If the case prevails, the Court will order EPA to develop a regulation to eliminate unreasonable risks from HF use at refineries. 

Following are quotes from groups lodging the Complaint:

“Needlessly risking release of this extremely hazardous chemical in our densely packed region where so many people could be injured or killed is reckless. All the other refineries in Pennsylvania manage to use safer alternatives,” said Alex Bomstein, Clean Air Council Executive Director. “The Philly refinery explosion in 2019 was a breath away from being a mass casualty incident due to HF. EPA needs to confront this risk, and we’re going to court to make sure it does.”

“HF is so dangerous, industrial safety experts have asked why it is still in use. LA County found the local refineries using it put millions at risk, so we are going to court to end this unnecessary and unnerving risk to the public,” said Alicia Rivera, Wilmington community organizer with Communities for a Better Environment. “Why should this hazard continue in a densely packed earthquake zone, even though all the other refineries in the state use far safer alternatives? This recklessness has got to stop.”

“Poison acid clouds engulfing refinery communities and transit corridors sounds like a horror movie, but it’s a real possibility as long as EPA refuses to engage,” said Matthew Tejada, senior vice president of Environmental Health at NRDC. “This is an unnecessary threat to the communities around dozens of refineries. Since the Agency won’t fix the situation, we are going to court to address it before people are hurt or killed. At a time when oil companies are making tens of billions of dollars every year in profit, the least they can do is adopt safer alternatives that better protect the communities near their facilities.”

More information can be found on NRDC’s website at https://www.nrdc.org/court-battles/hydrogen-fluoride-refineries.

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Clean Air Council is a member-supported environmental organization serving Pennsylvania and the surrounding regions. The Council is dedicated to protecting everyone’s right to a healthy environment. The Council works through a broad array of sustainability and public health initiatives, including public education, community action, government oversight, and enforcement of environmental laws. For more information, please visit www.cleanair.org

Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) is one of the preeminent environmental justice organizations in the nation. The mission of CBE is to build people’s power in California’s low-income communities of color to achieve environmental health and justice by preventing and reducing pollution by building green, healthy, and sustainable communities and environments. http://www.cbecal.org/

NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Established in 1970, NRDC uses science, policy, law and people power to confront the climate crisis, protect public health and safeguard nature. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Beijing and Delhi (an office of NRDC India Pvt. Ltd).