Diane Wilson had heard rumors months ago that Exxon might come to Point Comfort, Texas, which is located on the Gulf coast south of Galfston. He remembers whispers about the global giant of local electrical employment and negotiate access to railways. Two days before Christmas, the first confirmation was quietly: Request for tax subsidies To build a plastic manufacturing factory worth $ 8.6 billion.
Wilson found particularly disturbing news. She spent years fighting to clean pollution from another petrochemical factory and won a $ 50 million settlement against its owners, Formusa, in 2019. Exxon will build its proposed facility across this factory and empty waste in the same waterways that Wilson spent in the fight for protection.
“We have cleaned urination [Cox Creek]”This is the place where Exxon will try to place its factory for plastic materials,” said Wilson, who lives in Seadrift,. “You see this nightmare of another plant, trying to do the same.”
Exxon’s suggestion calls for saving steam, a facility that uses oil and natural gas to make ethylene and bobelin – chemical building blocks of plastic. Such factories produce and sell plastic cells, called Nurdles, for other manufacturers who turn them into mediator or final goods, such as bottles and packing. Besides ethylene and bobelin, steam crackers produce climate pollution and dangerous chemicals such as ammonia, gasoline, toloin and methanol.
Alexandra Shaikivic, director of research on the Environmental Integrity Project, which tracks the development of fossil fuels, said about the plan that Exxon called the coast coast project. But she said that since many requests have been revised and the company did not issue a public advertisement, there will be few details. “We will look at this closely.”
Besides the Formosa Factory, the Point Comfort is home to the nitrin plant, a plastic facility, and the superfund site. Many other industrial sites are spreading the coast around Galviestone. Many of them sit next to societies, and Previous analyzes It has shown that steam veils in particular are incomparable near marginalized groups. According to Environmental justice tool From the American Environmental Protection Agency, more than half of Point Comfort are people who are colored, and more than half of them have less than high school diploma, and more than half of the English families speak limited.
“They are talking about a sacrifice area – this is the real deal,” Wilson said.
Exxon was provided for tax subsidies from Calhoun County Independent School Districr Companies for the state. Legislators issued this law in 2023 to replace A former tax program. Critics said that critics have undermined the school’s financial affairs and reached the “well -being of companies.”
With the permission of Diane Wilson
Exxon wrote in its request that it plans to apply for more cuts from the province, the groundwater conservation area, and the port authority. On the other hand, he argued that the facility would create 300 jobs during the first five years at work. The construction will start next year, and as soon as it works at full capacity in 2032, Exxon says the process will raise the economic product of the state by $ 3.6 billion annually.
“These tax incentives have become one of the early battles in these facilities.” It is estimated that Exxon can get about $ 250 million in local tax exemptions over 10 years-approximately one million dollars per job.
“Why does this profitable work greatly get this money from taxpayers?” I asked. Exxon He brought 33.7 billion dollars last year, In high production, more money was distributed to shareholders more than ever.
Educational boycotting officials did not respond to the requests for comment, and in an email, the boycott judge (the address granted to boycotting officials in Texas) did not respond to specific questions, only repeated the language used in Exxon’s statement. Division of District, Joel BurnsHe expressed his support for Exxon and the economic development that it can bring, and compare the opportunity for his positive experiences with Formosa. He said: “If they want to choose this area to come, they are likely to be a good neighbor like Formuza.” “They helped the boycott out when the boycott needs help.”
Exxon did not respond to questions about the pollution that the new steam breakage might create. The company spokeswoman, Lauren Kate, said that the request for tax subsidies in Calhun Province does not mean that Exxon has committed to building there. The company indicated in the Jeti file that its focus was on the “American Gulf Coast”, but it is still thinking about other sites, including abroad. “The Gulf Coast offers enormous advantages,” Kate said, but “very early in the evaluation process.”
The proposal comes at a time of the prosperous growth of the plastic industry, and to pollution Inevitably Create. The world results in 57 million metric tons From plastic pollution every year, according to a study published in September in Nature. The world leaders spent two and a half years in negotiation The United Nations Treaty To “ending plastic pollution” and At least 69 countries Say they want to do this by limiting the amount that was created in the first place.
“Plants like One Exxon plan are” the absolute opposite direction that we must go. “She is concerned that this elbow, like others, will lead To decades.
Allocating the environmental argument, financial analysts say it is so Unlikely for investment In more plastic production. All three credit rating agencies issued warnings about expanding infrastructure for fossil and plastic fuel, including one of Standard & Poor in 2021, which were martyred by increasing the width of petrochemical, protests from the local population, and “increasing global pressures to reduce carbon emissions as well as chemicals and plastic Pollution all over the world.
With the permission of Diane Wilson
Although the Trump administration may be in a period of regulating powers for polluted industries, the petrochemical sector is in “structural decrease” – as shown in decline. The returns of the poor The chemicals section Shell and Formosa plastic I mentioned recently.
“I think it will be the same story that is being recurrent and repeatedly,” Sinha said, referring to the suggested steam suggested by Exxon. “This will not be a positive project for an added value for them; it will be harmful to carrying arrows in the long run.”
Kate did not address these concerns directly, but he said that Exxon “will continue to evaluate the market conditions before making a decision.”
For Wilson, Exxon’s suggestion appears to be Deja Fu. More than three decades ago, the Taiwanese petrochemical bloc proposed its factory, miles from the Gulf of Mexico, where the Wilson Jambariya family was for generations. Its fighting against the company She started hunger strikes to protest its permits In the end, she became a lawsuit over the accurate results she feared.
Wilson and local environmental groups collected tens of thousands of Nordels from Lavaca and nearby waterways such as COX Creek, and claimed that Formosa had illegally threw them with other pollutants. Ha $ 50 million settlement he The largest award in the citizen’s suit Against an industrial pollute in the history of the federal clean water law.
The settlement is financed by dozens of projects, including cleaning waterways 20 million dollars for cooperative cooperation for fishing It aims to help rebuild the industry that has been beaten. But Wilson is actually worried about another MB to the area that will undermine this work.
“When Exxon puts their bloody factory, a slap in front of one of the largest oysters in Texas,” said Wilson, who was not convinced that any plastic factory could work without pollution. She indicated that Formuza may Its settlement agreement has violated nearly 800 timesMore than $ 25 million in fines. “Exxon will be just like Formuza.”
Wilson considers the fact that Exxon can still decide not to build in Cal Hun district an opportunity to resist, and plans to combat the company in every step of the operation.
“Many people have asked me over the years what is my regret, and I always say:” I haven’t tried hard enough to stop Formosa. “This time, she said:” I will do my best, as long as I live, to prevent this factory from entering. “
