The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) on April 28 rejected a request by U.S. Nitrogen Co. LLC to extend the April 29, 2017 deadline to conduct performance testing of its nitric acid plant in Mosheim, Tenn. TDEC said USN’s arguments for the extension did not meet TDEC’s force majeure test in that USN only argued that the plant could not operate for an extended time due to economic and storage issues with the latter posing possible safety issues due to lack of permanent storage. Neither TDEC nor USN immediately responded to inquiries as to the current status of the plant or near term production plans as a result of the decision.
Just prior to the April 28 letter being issued, TDEC confirmed that the nitric acid plant did return to production April 26, went down a few hours on April 27 and was restarted and resumed production. The facility caused a major stir a few weeks ago due to a release of nitric acid vapor, which was believed to have resulted from a problem with a gasket.
TDEC did note in its April 28 letter to USN that the facility must apply for a conditional major operating permit no later than June 19, 2017. It said for the application to be considered complete all testing requirements within the construction permit must be met and all required reports must be submitted.