Water Quality

November 21, 2024

Plastics plants dump 1,4-dioxane and other pollutants with no EPA limits

In South Carolina, a plastics manufacturing plant called Alpek Polyester Columbia dumped about 30,000 pounds of a chemical, 1,4-dioxane, into the Congaree River last year, with no limits on the pollutant – a likely carcinogen – in the plant’s discharge permit. The Alpek plant was the largest discharger of 1,4-dioxane among plastics plants in the U.S. last year, releasing a pollutant that EPA last week concluded “poses an unreasonable risk of injury to human health” including in drinking water. But despite this risk, EPA has set no national standards for plastics manufacturing plants to control 1,4-dioxane or several other harmful pollutants, according to a new report by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) called “Plastic’s Toxic River.”

Brendan Gibbons

August 29, 2024

New research revealing high levels of mercury in Texas bay raises alarms about dredging for oil tankers

Lavaca Bay is contaminated by decades of mercury pollution by Alcoa, which owns a former aluminum refinery on the bay’s northeastern side. In response, EPA mandated cleanup work in the bay under the agency’s Superfund program in the 2000s, but even after the cleanup efforts, the heavy metal remains in the sediment. Local fishermen and environmental advocates are worried that a dredging project planned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and local port authority will stir up mercury and allow it to be released into the bay, threatening wildlife and humans who eat fish and shellfish from the bay. The dredging project would allow larger and more heavily laden oil tankers to access the Seahawk oil terminal, whose owner is planning a major expansion.

Ari Phillips

August 8, 2024

Oil refinery waste is a major source of air and water pollution

Two hours north of Oklahoma City outside a small town named Kremlin, billionaire William “Bill” Koch owns a plant that processes oil refinery waste. The 60-year-old Oxbow petroleum coke plant occupies enough land to cover 250 football fields. But it has an even larger environmental footprint. The plant’s sulfur dioxide emissions create haze and reduce visibility in several downwind states. A national report reveals that the “petcoke” industry releases large amounts of pollution at sites like this across the country, but that EPA has neglected to require it to install modern air and water pollution control systems, as are required for many other industries.

Brendan Gibbons

August 1, 2024

Environmental Integrity Project launches updated Oil & Gas Watch database and news site

The Oil & Gas Watch database and news site are being re-launched today (Aug. 1) with new features to make it easier for users to track oil and gas developments in local areas and gather national data on the growing industry. The database features a new “alerts” function to highlight new projects, updates, and public hearings. It also has new search tools; the projected greenhouse gas and related health impacts of projects; new maps; and sharable summary pages for industries. We also redesigned the Oil & Gas Watch News site and email newsletter. We are hosting a free virtual webinar at 1 p.m. Eastern time on Aug. 21 to explain how to use the new database.

Brendan Gibbons

June 27, 2024

Dominion LNG storage site sparks fierce opposition in rural North Carolina

Dominion Energy, a Virginia-based company that owns a natural gas utility in North Carolina, has been clearing away trees, leveling land, and blasting rock as it prepares to build a facility that will store liquified natural gas (LNG) in two massive tanks. The proposed Moriah Energy Center is one of several new natural gas storage projects planned across the U.S. Nationwide, the number of LNG storage facilities has increased about 42 percent since 2010, from 122 to 173, according to federal data. North Carolina regulators recently scheduled a public hearing on the facility's draft air permit for Aug. 1.

LNG

Tom Pelton

April 18, 2024

With 34 petrochemical ‘plastics recycling’ plants proposed across U.S., a small PA town fights back -- and wins

Plans to build what would have been the largest petrochemical plant in the U.S. dedicated to breaking down plastic waste into chemicals were cancelled today. The decision by the Encina company came after a town council in Pennsylvania voted unanimously to “strenuously and unequivocally” oppose the company's proposed plant on the banks of the Susquehanna River. The victory by the local community in Northumberland Borough is the latest example of rising opposition to a wave of 34 petrochemical plants proposed across the U.S. that wrap themselves in misleading language about “recycling” plastics.

Tom Pelton

March 21, 2024

Texas plastics factory shows how companies take public subsidies while breaking pollution laws

The Formosa Point Comfort plastics manufacturing plant on the Texas Gulf Coast, which makes plastics and other chemicals out of oil and gas, received nearly $69 million in school district tax breaks over a decade. But despite the public support, the plant has routinely violated water and air pollution control laws – without ever losing its subsidies, as a consequence. In a new report, the Environmental Integrity Project examined 50 plastics plants built or expanded in the U.S. since 2012 and found that 64 percent of them received taxpayer subsidies worth a total of almost $9 billion over a decade.

Brendan Gibbons

February 22, 2024

As Mountain Valley Pipeline races to completion, construction leaves muddy mess in Virginia waterways

As construction crews rush to complete the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia, advocates are calling on state and federal authorities to stop work on the project, citing evidence that the company has again caused erosion that polluted springs and waterways with sediment. One recent example includes a spring in Giles County, west of Roanoke, that began flowing with muddy water after the company's construction work nearby.

Ari Phillips

January 11, 2024

New Mexico wants to recycle fracking wastewater for clean energy. Who stands to gain?

Last month, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced a “first-of-its-kind strategic water supply” program that would invest $500 million in treating produced water, an extremely salty byproduct of oil and gas extraction that can include toxic fracking chemicals, oil droplets, sand, rock fragments, and other gunk picked up along the way. Water experts and environmentalists wonder if the enterprise will do much to address the state’s water woes, or if it will primarily provide more government support for fossil fuel production that is worsening global warming.

Ari Phillips

November 14, 2023

Biologist encounters oil-spewing pipe while researching biodiversity in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s not an isolated incident.

A group of researchers was on a boat returning from a biodiversity monitoring outing in the Mississippi Delta’s Barataria Bay just south of New Orleans on Saturday, Oct. 21, when they noticed a unplugged well spewing oil into the bay. They reported the spill. Unfortunately, unplugged or abandoned wells like this are common in the Gulf of Mexico, where the number of abandoned or broken wells exceeds 14,000.

Brendan Gibbons

October 4, 2023

Startup of Texas plastics plant by ExxonMobil and Saudi Arabia followed by wave of air and water pollution violations

Nearly two years after one of the largest plastics plants ever built in the U.S. began operations north of Corpus Christi, Texas, some residents here say they have seen none of the promised benefits from the plant, which is jointly owned by ExxonMobil and the Saudi Arabian government. However, neighbors have seen the Gulf Coast Growth Ventures plant consume vast amounts of water in a drought-stricken region, suck up a half billion dollars in local tax breaks, and commit 63 air and water pollution violations, according to state records.

Brendan Gibbons

August 2, 2023

New EPA report: Plastics chemical found in drinking water poses elevated cancer risk

1,4-Dioxane is a colorless liquid with a faint sweet odor used as an industrial solvent, ingredient, and byproduct in the production of plastics and consumer products since the 1950s. The chemical is also found in hydraulic fracturing fluid and at plastic plants that produce polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, a common plastic used to make bottles, food packaging, and clothing. The EPA is accepting public comments on its findings on 1,4-Dioxane until Sept. 8, 2023.

Brendan Gibbons

June 14, 2023

Texas fishermen worry revived dredging project for bigger oil tankers will harm their catch

Federal and local officials are planning a dredging project along the Texas Gulf Coast that would make more room for larger oil tankers headed for an export terminal in Matagorda Bay. Fishermen and environmental advocates worry the dredging will disturb a decades-old Superfund site contaminated with mercury and destroy hundreds of acres of habitat for shrimp, oysters, and other seafood species. Since the U.S. lifted a ban on exporting crude oil in 2015, companies have built or proposed at least 11 new or expanded oil terminals along the Gulf Coast.

Brendan Gibbons

May 9, 2023

Shell chemical plant that burned near Houston had a record of nearly 2,000 violations

Shell Deer Park Chemical, which caught fire over the weekend, has a long track record of environmental violations, including 37 enforcement orders and $1.6 million in penalties. One of these violations was for the release of more than 30,000 pounds of a dangerous carcinogen (1,3-butadiene) from vents and a relief valve over nearly 24 hours in January 2013.

Brendan Gibbons

April 25, 2023

Ten years after West Texas explosion, booming fertilizer industry poses risks to environment and public safety

At a time when the nitrogen fertilizer industry is growing rapidly across the U.S., federal records show little has been done over the last decade to prevent disasters like the 2013 explosion at a fertilizer storage facility in West, Texas, that killed 15 people. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board and others have urged the EPA to add ammonium nitrate to the list of highly hazardous chemicals that would require better disaster planning, but EPA has refused. In the 10 years since the Texas explosion, ammonium nitrate has been involved in at least 106 spills or accidental releases across the U.S., seven fires, five evacuations, and two deaths.

Ari Phillips

March 8, 2023

Wave of new oil export terminals looms over Gulf Coast

The approval off the Sea Port Oil Terminal 35 miles off the coast of Texas marks the beginning of what could be a wave of five massive new deepwater oil export terminals along the Gulf Coast that service oil tankers over 1,000 feet in length. In the eight years since Congress lifted a long-time ban on crude oil exports, the U.S. has gone from barely exporting any fossil fuels to offloading millions of barrels of oil per day.

Tom Pelton

February 1, 2023

Report exposes vast amounts of unregulated water pollution from oil refineries

A new report by the Environmental Integrity Project reveals that, across the U.S., 81 refineries discharge a half billion gallons of wastewater a day directly into waterways. That's as much as 712 Olympic swimming pools every 24 hours. The federal Clean Water Act requires EPA to set limits for pollutants from industrial sources and update them at least every five years as treatment technologies improve. But EPA has never set any limits for refinery discharges of many pollutants.

Brendan Gibbons

August 23, 2022

On the Texas Gulf Coast, a race to build desalination plants to serve a thirsty oil & gas industry

At least six desalination plants are planned around Corpus Christi, Texas, to serve a rising demand for fresh water from a rapidly growing petrochemical industry and planned LNG export terminals. Local residents fighting the desalination plants say believe the projects will hike residents’ water bills to serve a massive industry expansion, while dumping highly concentrated saltwater with heavy metals into local bays and estuaries, threatening marine life. All told, the six desalination plants – if built – could discharge more than 362 million gallons of brine per day.

Brendan Gibbons

July 20, 2022

At least 20 major oil and gas plants proposed in flood zones

Despite the growing risk of flooding due to climate change and rising sea levels, a review of new energy projects shows that energy companies are proposing to build major facilities in flood-prone areas. At least 20 upcoming oil- and gas-related projects are planned in floodplains, many along the Gulf Coast.