Halliburton-owned business almost blows up town, gets $49k fine—and $1.8 million tax break

Multi-Chem is a Halliburton business. They mix fracking and oilfield chemicals. After their plant blew up in 2011, OSHA gave them a fine of $49,000 ($7,000 per worker onsite at the time) and the state of Louisiana gave them a $1.8 million tax break.

Remember their New Iberia plant?

There's a funny story about that Multi-Chem:

The company received an expedited environmental permit to build a new plant in Vermilion Parish without public notice or a public hearing and was granted $1.8 million in state property tax exemptions over a 10-year period to build the new plant.

How can that be?

“When an event like that happens we make a decision whether or not to issue a penalty, and in this case, they got right on the ball,” said LDEQ spokesman Tim Beckstrom. “There was no off-site impact, and we didn’t identify any areas of concern, so the company was not issued a penalty.”

As Odis Lounsberry told the Associated Press back in June 2011:

Lounsberry, who said he is an inventor by trade, said he got a bad taste in his mouth after feeling drops of a liquid hit him.

"It was like a bitter taste, just a foul taste," he said.

So, nothing to see here.

Mult-Chem now wants a permit to discharge water from one of its facilities into local waterways. People aren't happy. But remember, guys—there's nothing to see here.