Texas Environmental News 2020 - Jan 13 (4 minute read)

Dow Chemical, the country’s largest producer of the carcinogen ethylene oxide, has been given the green light in Texas to continue standard manufacturing practices of the product. The odorless chemical used as a feed stock and to sterilize medical equipment is made at Dow’s chemical plant in Freeport. Prior to President Donald Trump’s presidency, the EPA found the chemical to be a carcinogen. According to the The Intercept, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality instated regulations in 2019 allowing exposure to the carcinogen to be 3500 times weaker than the EPA threshold. Leaks at the plant have been blamed for an extraordinary high rate of cancer in the area. In 2019 over 86 million dollars was donated by the chemical industry to political organizations, 1.4 billion in the past 12 years.

As waste water injection wells become harder to come by especially in the world’s biggest oil field – the Permian Basin, pro oil and gas legislators passed HB 2771 in the Texas legislature last May, essentially allowing the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to be a one-stop shop for oil&gas permitting. Surface discharge of oily slops including frack water that has been treated with pesticides, diesel, acids, detergents, lubricants, solvents, and anti-corrosives are on the table. The new permitting process likely will come into effect in 2021. Thirty-three state Democrats voted against the bill enabling oil&gas to pump this type of waste water into Texas rivers, lakes, creeks and arroyos, while no Republicans dissented.