Six days after Hurricane Harvey made landfall, the unprecedented storm is continuing to wreak havoc in Texas and parts of Louisiana. The death toll has risen to at least 38, but authorities expect it to grow as the historic floodwaters begin to recede.
Early this morning, a pair of explosions rocked a chemical plant northeast of Houston, sending thick black smoke into the air. Officials had already evacuated residents within a one-and-a-half-mile radius of the Arkema plant in the town of Crosby. The plant produces highly volatile chemicals known as organic peroxides. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office says one deputy was taken to the hospital after inhaling fumes, and nine others drove themselves to the hospital.
Now a tropical depression, Harvey has moved inland and is now dumping rain on Louisiana and Kentucky. But many parts of Texas remain underwater or under flood watch. On Thursday, the city of Port Arthur, Texas, which is a hundred miles east of Houston, was completely underwater. Flooding even forced the city to evacuate one of its own shelters set up for people who had fled their homes. Meanwhile, a mandatory evacuation was also ordered this morning for several subdivisions west of Houston near the Barker Reservoir area, which has already reached capacity.
AccuWeather is now projecting the economic impact of Harvey might top $190 billion—that exceeds the economic impact of Katrina and Sandy combined. Up to 40,000 homes may be destroyed, 500,000 cars totaled in the storm. According to the Red Cross, more than 32,000 people are in shelters in Texas.
Port Arthur, located among eight major petrochemical and hazardous waste facilities on the Texas Gulf Coast. The largely African-American west side community you work in has suffered long from the emissions spewing from these smokestacks. Now, speaking specifically now, looking at the Beaumont Enterprise, they write, “Motiva Enterprises, owned by Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, churns through more than 600,000 barrels of crude oil a day to produce gasoline and other petrochemicals. … Likewise, Paris-based Total said its large Port Arthur refinery was forced to cease operations from a loss of power late Tuesday evening. [And the] Valero Energy and Beaumont’s Exxon Mobil refineries also shut down their complexes.” The Saudi Arabian plant, the largest oil refinery in the United States, place us there, the kind of work you’ve been doing. So this is one storm on top of the daily toxic storm you’ve been organizing around.
Hilton Kelley talking:
I’ve been working at this for more than 20 years now. And we have been fighting to get these plants to reduce their emissions, from startup and shutdown, also from basically having power failures and what have you. But because of the storm, the plants have shut down. And what you smell in the air is a very, very heavy, pungent odor of chemicals, volatile organic compounds. It’s almost like a thick tar and kerosene odor, if I could—if I could describe it to you. And when you inhale this very pungent air, you have a scratchy feeling in your throat, and your sinuses inside your nostrils, it feels as if, you know, it’s burning. And you have to really squint your eyes when you walk outside, because the odors and the chemicals are so strong in the air.
There’s flaring at the Motiva oil refinery, which is the largest oil refinery in the Northern Hemisphere. These guys put out 625,000 barrels of oil per day. And they’re looking to expand their operations. As a matter of fact, they have been celebrating their permit that was put in for the expansion. These guys have a responsibility, I believe, to do everything they can to protect this community and to help assist this community. But Port Arthur is home to a large population of disadvantaged folks that have been marginalized on those fencelines. If you come to Port Arthur, you would not believe that the amount of money that’s flowing through this community is here, because many of the buildings are dilapidated. The streets are in desperate need of repairs. Our schools are lacking in many of the supplies and amenities that they need to teach our kids.
And also, we have a huge, disproportionate number of people that are suffering with respiratory problems, with cancers, liver and kidney disease. And as a matter of fact, a good friend of mine by the name of Eddie Brown, he was diagnosed with cancer in December, and right now he is a state IV cancer, and he is dealing with the daily issue of going through chemo. Initially, he didn’t want chemo, like so many people here, because it seems like it just prolongs your life for maybe six or seven months, and then you die. But he has no choice but to go to chemo, because the other method he was trying is not working. And this story rings true for many people here in the city of Port Arthur, not just the elderly, not just our young men and women, but we’re talking about children, children that have acute asthma, children that have to use nebulizers to breathe on a daily basis, children that have to take breathing treatments before they go to bed at night, severe skin disorders. Some people—most people here are susceptible to some form of pollution. But yet, many people are very susceptible to the daily bombardment of toxic fumes coming from places like Motiva and places like the Flint Hills chemical plant and others.
It’s a sad day here in the city of Port Arthur. And with the shutdown of these plants, there is a foul stench of chemicals in our air. And I am personally disturbed by this. My granddaughter, who has been with us for the last three days because their home has taken on some issues—our home has been flooded, and we are about 15 or 12 blocks away from the Motiva refinery, and it’s really impacting our lives and our health.
anybody who don’t believe that climate change is real must be living in another universe, because what we’re seeing here on the ground is land erosion. There is a beach that we used to frequent when I was a kid here, and the surf sat back maybe about a good 50 yards from where it is now. Right now, that surf sits within feet, five or six feet, of the road, and you can no longer take portions of that road into Galveston from the Sabine Pass area, because the land has completely been eroded. Our wetlands and canals are breaking apart because the water is coming in from the Gulf into the marshy areas, and it’s also having a heavy impact on the natural wildlife that is there, such as the gators and other animals that need the wetlands and not necessarily salt water.
What we are also seeing is a severe disturbance in the climate here. As a matter of fact, Hurricane Harvey, this was the first of its kind that we’ve ever seen, where a storm danced in one place for so long due to high and low pressures. It just sort of went offshore, came back. The trail which this hurricane left, it was very erratic and unnatural. What we’re seeing here are severe temperatures when it comes to the heat during the summertime. And basically, the winters, as we know it, when the grass would usually freeze, and it would crunch under your feet, are no more. Most of our winters are filled with wearing flip-flops and T-shirts. So, it’s definitely having an impact here in our area, when we talk about climate change.
Here on the Gulf Coast, we have thousands of multinational rig companies that come out here to drill for oil, and our federal government has leased those lands offshore, which we believe they should leave it in the ground. If we can’t use it, why bring it above ground? Leave it in the ground, because these petrochemical industries are having a huge impact, we believe, on our climate and in our communities. It’s time that we do more to try to protect our [inaudible] communities and our environment.
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Hilton Kelley
founder of Community In-Power and Development Association and recipient of the Goldman Prize.
— source democracynow.org 2017-09-07