Congressman Sean Duffy Tours Damaged Superior Oil Refinery

Republican U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy toured the damaged Husky Energy oil refinery in Superior on Friday morning. A series of explosions and fires there last week forced an evacuation in the city due to a tank containing hydrogen fluoride, a highly toxic chemical.

Duluth and Superior mayors called for the refinery to end the use of hydrogen fluoride this week. If there were a transition, Duffy said he wouldn’t support federal dollars to pay for it.

“This is a for-profit company. I don’t know that taxpayers across America should cover the cost of those transitions,” he said. “I think if it’s an appropriate move, they should make the decision and bear the cost of that transition.”

Refinery Manager Kollin Schade has said they’re willing to explore options moving forward, but the company’s top priority is the investigation and cleanup. Duffy added the refinery’s systems to protect the tank from being compromised worked well.

“Obviously, (it was) an incredibly dangerous situation, but the system worked,” he said. “It kept the tank secure. It wasn’t breached.”

Duffy said state and federal officials want to make sure that there’s no contamination from the refinery explosions and fires.

“If there is contamination, we have to know what that is. We want to keep people safe,” he said. “We now look to investigators to do an evaluation of this event and what impact it’s going to have in our community. We just don’t know yet, but I have ultimate faith in our state and federal government to come in and do these assessments.”

The Wisconsin congressman said emergency workers and employees deserve a pat on the back for their response to the incident. The explosions and fire injured at least 20 people, but no one was killed. Federal, state and company officials have said air quality monitoring around the refinery shows no risks to public health.