The Center for Public Integrity

A hydrofluoric acid leak from an oil refinery in Ohio last week sent a worker to the hospital and required the use of a “water cannon” to disperse the poisonous gas, underscoring the potentially perilous nature of a chemical used at 50 refineries across the country.

The nation’s refineries are plagued by recurring equipment failures and sometimes-fatal fires, explosions and chemical releases that in many cases could have been prevented. An easily manipulated regulatory system and resistance from a politically influential industry place workers at risk and endanger nearby communities.

A Texas oil refinery featured in a joint Center for Public Integrity-ABC News investigation into the dangers of hydrofluoric acid has agreed to pay $303,000 to settle pollution violations stemming from a 2009 accident.

Some 16 million Americans live in the potential path of a toxic chemical used at 50 refineries, despite a safer alternative. An epidemic of breakdowns and fires has insiders fearing a calamity.

A new report on a 2008 explosion at a West Virginia pesticide factory offers a chilling account that raises questions about safeguards at the plant.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said today it will collect a $15 million fine from BP for Clean Air Act violations, the latest in a series of federal government fines and settlements linked to BP’s Texas City, Texas refinery.

UPDATED BP will pay a $50.6 million penalty and spend at least $500 million to upgrade its Texas City, Texas, refinery where a 2005 explosion killed 15 workers.

Citing a Center for Public Integrity investigation of BP refineries having the most egregious safety violations in the industry, Democratic Sens. Patty Murray and Al Franken want the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to demand stricter worker safety requirements in its negotiations with BP over $90 million in fines.

During a Senate subcommittee hearing last Thursday, Democratic Sen. Al Franken repeatedly cited the story’s key finding: that BP refineries in Texas and Ohio accounted for 97 percent of “egregious willful” or “willful” citations issued to all U.S. refineries by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration between June 2007 and February 2010. The Minnesota senator pressed the hearing’s only witness -- Steve Flynn, the oil company’s vice president of health, safety, security and environment -- to explain why BP had received 760 egregious willful citations. “That’s a pretty hard statistic to believe,” Franken said, according to a transcript of the hearing.