This federal agency is probing Pemex’s deadly Deer Park refinery leak. Trump hopes to dismantle it.
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Rebekah Ward
When the Chemical Safety Board revealed how Jose Wilfredo Perez Jr. died last year trying to flee a toxic plume of hydrogen sulfide wafting through Pemex’s Deer Park oil refinery, the federal agency offered Houstonians their first detailed look at the tragedy.
CSB investigators discovered that Perez, a 28-year-old contractor, and a colleague hadn’t carried respirators while completing less-toxic work in a unit about 250 feet downwind of the chemical release. The pair started running only once they heard alarms, which did not sound right after the release began.
Perez was later found on the ground, “fatally injured from hydrogen sulfide poisoning,” the federal oversight agency said in a March 2025 update.