Gulf Coast Ammonia wants to dump 2.2 trillion gallons of
industrial wastewater annually into Galveston Bay, one of the most polluted
bays in America. The TCEQ is considering their permit request while Texas City
officials are offering the plant, which will employ 25-50 full time employees,
a ten-year tax abatement. Anhydrous ammonia, extremely toxic to aquatic life is
used most often in the preparation of non-organic fertilizers. Shrimper Roy Lee
Cannon told the Houston Chronicle, “I don’t see how they can say nothing’s
going to be affected or there will be little effect on the environmental
situation for the oysters, fish, shrimp etc because they have no way of
knowing.” Buoyed by the Trump Administration’s pro fossil fuel stance, the
build out of the Texas Gulf Coast petro-chemical industry is seeing its biggest
expansion ever.
As
the Permian fracking boom gets closer to the Big Bend so too the night lights. We should
not feel alone. Today over 80% of all humans and more than 99% of people in the
US and Europe live under light polluted skies according to the Scientist
magazine. Kevin Gaston, a UK scientist told the magazine, “It’s become clear
that light pollution is a major anthropogenic pressure on the environment.” Its
effect on humans and other species is still being studied. Theresa Jones of the
University of Melbourne said, “We have nothing in our genetic make-up that has
been exposed to this type of challenge. It’s completely unprecedented in the
history of the Earth.” Most humans and animals evolved with night and day
perception, creating the circadian rhythms. Some fear this loss or modification
of perception may link us to catastrophe. Franz Holker, a German scientist who
was part of a study that reported a loss of nearly 75% of flying insects in
parts of Germany over 30 years, warned that such declines have set the Earth on
course for an “ecological Armageddon.” “When this study came out, they were
thinking about land-use change, climate change, and pesticides,” Hölker said.
“But these factors alone could not explain the population plunge. Light
pollution might be the missing piece of the puzzle.” Holker’s team recently
discovered that the regions of decimated insects also had high levels of night
time illumination.
The EPA has rated Texas as the No.1 polluter in the country,
siting the large scale petro-chemical industry along the Gulf Coast, fracking
and a lax regulatory environment as the spawning ground for the state’s
colossal anthropological footprint. But natural causes of pollutants, including
the greenhouse gas CO2 in high latitude areas may soon give man-made sources, a
run for their money. As temperatures increase, tundra in Alaska is off-gassing.
A recent study, led by Harvard University, found that long-term records at
Barrow, AK, suggest that CO2 emission rates from North Slope tundra have
increased during the October through December period by 73% ± 11% since 1975,
and are correlated with rising summer temperatures. Together, the report reads
“these results imply increasing early winter respiration and net annual
emission of CO2 in Alaska, in response to climate warming.”
Vicki Hollub, CEO of Houston-based Occidental Petroleum and
Darren Woods, of Dallas-based Exxon-Mobil, joined 11 other CEOs from major oil
companies worldwide at the first US meeting of a four-year-old group called Oil
and Gas Climate Initiative. One hundred fifty people including high-ranking
green group members, asked questions of the CEO panel in what Axios Magazine
described as a “rare and surprising candid discussion.” Axios went on to say
that “under pressure from investors and lawsuits, oil companies are starting to
acknowledge climate change and slowly shift their business models in response.”
The member companies including Saudi Aramco, Shell, Chevron represent a third
of the world’s oil&gas production, and pledged last week at the Manhattan
meeting, to cut their methane emissions by one fifth. Nigel Topping, CEO of a
nonprofit coalition called We Mean Business, noted that the companies were
still overwhelmingly investing in finding new oil and gas over cleaner energy
resources. But each of the members have
ponied up their share of money creating a substantial fund managed by the group
for alternative energy investments. Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental
Defense Fund, who attended, said, “The first thing they started tackling when
they were formed four years ago was methane, and they’ve taken that issue very
seriously. We think they are doing good things with the billion-dollar fund. We
will keep watching. We will keep encouraging.”
Chair-lady of the Texas Railroad Commission, Christi
Craddick, never met a flare she didn’t like or so it seems. In fact, the 3
member TRC board has approved 20,000 flaring permits in the past 5 years
according to the Wall Street Journal and not one has been denied. Including a
drill site known as Ringo 9. Christi Craddick has an interest in Ringo 9 and
174 other wells according to the Austin-Statesman. So does she have a conflict
of interest? Should she have recused herself from approving flaring at Ringo 9?
Oil, the gold, comes with associated gas including the greenhouse gas methane,
carcinogens toluene and benzene, and VOCs hydrogen sulfide, nitrous oxide and
others. If a gas pipeline is not available at the drill site the driller asks
the TRC for a permit to flare. The problem is the TRC doesn’t distinguish
between flaring and venting and flares don’t always work. In light of the
overwhelming evidence of climate change and the role these gasses play, perhaps
not issuing a flare permit is the responsible thing to do. Get the pipeline in
to take away the associated gas before producing oil. Craddick is up for
re-election this November.
Prisoners at Karnes County Residential Center, a
privately-operated prison for immigrants seeking asylum, are at risk for
cancer, brain damage and respiratory problems according to Deceleration News.
Twenty-three-hundred active oil&gas wells are spewing tons of toxins in
Karnes County and some wells are as close as 100 feet to the facility. Unlike
the 15,000 residents of the county, the asylum seekers have no place to escape
the fumes. Priscilla Villa, of Earthworks told Deceleration “The prisoners have
no choice but to inhale the toxic fumes coming from these sites. Fracking
emissions are harmful to human health and especially hazardous to vulnerable
populations, which includes all children, newborns and pregnant women at this
detention center.”
Sempra LNG also known as Port Arthur LNG is hoping to build
an LNG export terminal at a wildlife management area on the Sabine River. Texas
Parks & Wildlife are, behind closed doors, considering trading 120 acres of
the JD Murphree Wildlife Management Area to the corporation for an undisclosed
property elsewhere. Sempra plans to produce 13.5 million tons of liquified
methane at the facility. Three compression stations will be required and
horsepower sufficient to cool the methane to a negative 265 degrees below zero
for liquification of the gas. Texas Parks & Wildlife have yet to provide
information on how they plan to manage this piece of the people’s land.
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