As I write this, rain bands from Hurricane Harvey are beginning to lash the Houston area. The last time the nation saw a storm of this ferocity was in 2005 when hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Dennis struck the coastal plains of the Gulf states and Wilma in South Florida. Combined, these storms killed more than 4,000 people and caused nearly $160 billion dollars in damage.
The National Hurricane Center has warned that Harvey will linger over south and south eastern Texas for days, dumping record amounts of rain, measured in feet and not inches. Major flooding will hit the Houston area around Tuesday or Wednesday.
A New Republic piece by Emily Atkin, reports that Trump has left a key EPA position unfilled and his deregulation of polluting industries, as well as it’s potential deadly consequences from that injustice, is alarming public health officials.
Oil and chemical companies are concerned too. LyondellBassell, one of the largest chemical and refining companies, said in a statement that it is preparing for “potential flooding” of its many Houston-area sites. Anadarko Petroleum and ExxonMobil have started evacuating workers from the region’s offshore oil drilling platforms, which together spilled a total of 741,000 gallons of oil during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. One analyst told industry publication ICIS that five or six refineries could be directly hit by the storm.
Environmental advocates are also worried that Harvey will create long-term public health problems due to accidental toxic substance releases, and not just from refineries and power plants. In the 30 counties where a disaster has been declared, there are dozens of Superfund sites, many of which are essentially waste pits containing harmful chemicals. The San Jacinto River Waste Pits, for example, contain carcinogenic dioxins, which are linked to birth defects. Advocates also rightly point out that communities living closest to all these sites—both the Superfunds and the refineries—are disproportionately low-income and minority. “This is an environmental justice issue,” Enck said.
Fortunately, the acting administrator in EPA’s Region 6 office at the moment appears experienced in responding to natural disasters that result in environmental catastrophe. According to the agency’s website, Samuel Coleman, “guided EPA’s response to Hurricane Katrina as the agency’s senior federal official in New Orleans, leading EPA’s emergency response and recovery missions.” In 2009 Coleman was awarded a Meritorious Presidential Rank Award for his work on Katrina.
Kendra Pierre-Louis of Popular science writes:
In 2016, Pete Olson—a Republican congressman from the Houston suburb of Sugar Land—told ProPublica that, "If a storm hits the region in the right spot, 'it’s going to kill America’s economy.'" In addition to being incredibly difficult to clean up (one of many factors that stymied relief efforts in New Orleans post Hurricane Katrina) a well placed storm would shut down the region's refineries and shipping channels, sending the price of gas soaring.
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And if the refineries leak it will further complicate rescue efforts. Since the chemicals are toxic, even more so when comingled, workers can't be sent in unless they know the area is safe. As Steven Drielak who served as a Director with the EPA’s National Counter Terrorism Evidence Response Team during Katrina, told Popular Science earlier this year, "You need to picture hundreds of gasoline stations, and hundreds of chemical storage facilities all flooding out. The water enters, picks up all of these chemicals, mixes it into a huge toxic soup, and then flows through the city streets. Once the water recedes it all soaks into the ground. Now you've got this toxic material in the ground and you don’t know whether it's safe or not.”
Emily Atkin’s ends her piece blistering the buffoon that occupies the White House.
This is a stroke of luck for Trump, who has been so preoccupied with the superficial drama of his presidency that he’s barely mentioned the coming storm at all. Hopefully, the communities in the path of Harvey will all be just as lucky. But the future impact of Trump’s dismal policy agenda—which so far has increased the risk of environmental disaster without increasing disaster preparation—gives us something else to worry about. Even if the president can manage on Friday to curb his theatrics and focus on the storm of the decade, it’s unlikely that an environmental disaster will be anywhere near the front of his mind.
x xYouTube VideoPetrochemical plants in the direct line of the storm produce almost 20 percent of total U.S. capacity for plastic feedstock ethylene, according to the PetroChem Wire consulting firm. Any prolonged outages at those units could affect North American markets for polyethylene, PVC and related materials.
Dow Chemical Co. has begun shutting down its Seadrift operations, a company spokesman said Aug. 25. The firm employs more than 1,000 at the site, which produces PE resin and a range of specialty chemicals.
LyondellBasell Industries announced Aug. 25 that it is conducting a controlled shutdown of its Texas sites in Matagorda, Victoria, Chocolate Bayou and Corpus Christi. The company also has taken steps to address potential flooding at its Houston refinery and its La Porte, Bayport and Channelview complexes, and its Lake Charles polymers plant in Louisiana.
Formosa Plastics Corp. USA began taking its complex in Point Comfort, Texas, offline on Aug. 24, a company spokesman said in an email. Plastics products made at that site include PE, polypropylene and PVC resins.