Residents ask lawmakers to stop Multi-Chem from operating in Vermilion Parish

Posted: Jul 24, 2012 6:27 PM by Tonya LaCoste
Updated: Jul 25, 2012 12:29 PM

Residents opposed to Multi-Chem locating in Vermilion Parish near Maurice have started a petition to prevent the company from operating. The petition, "Louisiana Legislators: Block multi-chem/Halliburton from relocating to Maurice community." Their concern stems from an explosion at the Multi-Chem location in New Iberia in 2011. So far, 35 people have signed the petition. Halliburton bought Multi-Chem and recently released a statement which said, "While it was a very unfortunate incident and we regret the inconvenience it caused the residents in a one mile radius of the plant, there were no injuries sustained. In addition, more than 875,000 initial and continuous air monitoring samples were taken."

The statement went on to say the facility will not be a chemical manufacturing plant but a blending plant. "The vast majority of operations will be for blending raw materials, otherwise known as ingredients." This means the chemical blending plant does not include flares and process stacks typically found at a chemical manufacturing plant." The petition can be found here.