Harris County, Texas, in the US Gulf Coast’s petrochemicals belt is reeling from the second chemical accident within two weeks. On Apr. 2, fire ravaged a plant owned by toll manufacturer KMCO in the town of Crosby, killing one worker and seriously injuring at least five others.

Before the blaze was contained in late afternoon, authorities closed a road near the plant that produces coolant and brake fluid products and chemicals for the oilfield industry. All residents within a one-mile radius were ordered to stay indoors or shelter in place. Four nearby school districts serving some 30,000 students were locked down.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) monitored air quality in the aftermath but reportedly found no alarming concentrations of hazardous chemicals.

Local reports said the fire originated in a leaking isobutylene tank at the plant in the town about 25 miles northeast of Houston. Workers said they heard no alarm and were not aware of the fire until a gas plume began emerging from the tank that subsequently exploded. When they tried to escape to the evacuation area, they found a gate locked.

As in the Mar. 17 blaze at the Deer Park tank farm owned by Intercontinental Terminals Company (ITC), which closed the Houston Ship Channel for days, several lawsuits have been filed by authorities and local residents.

Two injured contract workers at the KMCO facility, who accuse the company of negligence, are seeking compensation of $1 million each. Their lawsuit alleges that management knew the tank was leaking from a malfunctioning valve connected to the butylene line.

The company, which bills itself as a toll supplier to “leading chemical companies,” reportedly has been embroiled in litigation with authorities at several regulatory levels – including the EPA – since shortly after it acquired the now 40-year-old plant in 2012. While apologizing for last week’s fire, its management insisted that most of the conditions that led to the disputes predate its ownership.

In 2016, a Houston news journal said, KMCO executives pleaded guilty to a federal criminal charge of violating the Clean Air Act, with one employee having made false entries in logs of air testing of tanks that were known to be leaking chemicals and another using the falsified logs to submit reports to environmental authorities.

According to documents obtained by the publication, KMCO’s previous violations included failure to comply with risk-management regulations, a case it settled for $2,700. In another instance, it was charged with violating the Clean Water Act

In connection with last week’s blaze, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a petition against the company alleging fresh violations of the Clean Air Act.

The latest incident in the heavily industrialized Texas county is said to have worsened existing tensions among state and local authorities as the state government increasingly tries to diminish the county’s role in regulatory affairs.

The Harris County Fire Marshal’s Office and the federal Chemical Safety Board (CSB), which is tasked with investigating accidents but not issuing fines, have been vying for right of jurisdiction in the KMCO incident.  Ignoring the county’s argument that it first needed to eliminate criminal activity, CSB said it would proceed with an investigation as timing was crucial in discovering the cause of the incident.

Acting on the premise that state laws regulating industrial production are inadequate, county officials have begun leveraging flood control and storm water rules enacted in 2017 in the wake of Hurricane Harvey to delay the reopening of both the ITC terminal and the KMCO plant.

The floodplain rules can force companies to meet new requirements when seeking to expand or change an existing facility. These were the lever used in the county’s lawsuit against management of Arkema’s organic peroxides plant in Crosby, where six storage tanks caught fire as the site was hit by flooding in Harvey’s wake.

News reports at the time said the Crosby site had a 40-year history of flooding, and its former insurer had warned the French company about the dangers. Arkema, however, did not obtain the proper permits for operating in a floodplain.

A post-hurricane analysis conducted by Texas A&M University found that there were 55 chemical facilities with high flooding potential in the greater Houston area, with 35% of them located inside a floodplain. Earlier, in 2016, the newspaper Houston Chronicle found that there was a major chemical incident every six weeks in the greater Houston area.

Later this week, US president Donald Trump is expected to speak at the International Union of Operating Engineers International Training and Education Center in Crosby about his plans to aid the booming US oil and gas production and reduce the share of from foreign imports.