Race flare-up in Sasol row with US community
● A long-running dispute between Sasol and about 50 families in the US living adjacent to its Lake Charles chemicals complex has erupted anew, with claims that the South African company gave white homeowners who were relocated a better deal than their black counterparts.
They now want the company to pay them more for homes they say have been made unlivable by toxic emissions.
The dispute between Sasol and the residents of Mossville has been raging since about 2012 when the petrochemical giant announced plans to expand its Lake Charles facility on the doorstep of the black community, established in the late 1790s by freed slaves.
About 450 Mossville families accepted buyout terms offered by Sasol at the time, but the holdouts complained that the amounts on offer were not enough to buy new homes elsewhere.
In a notice they placed last week in the Sowetan, Business Times’s sister publication, the 50 families said Mossville had gone from a thriving, self-sufficient community to a ghost town.
They claim that due to Sasol they have been subjected to excessively high levels of the carcinogenic chemical ethylene oxide (EtO) in the air. “Our water and soil are contaminated with toxins,” the residents said in the advert.
Maryum Jordan, a “climate justice attorney” at the US NGO EarthRights, who has taken up the families’ cause, told Business Times the Lake Charles complex was regarded as the second-worst “super polluter” in the US.
“This is based on Sasol’s toxic air, water and soil emissions. Mossville residents are subjected to thousands of pounds of EtO, which is a carcinogen. Research has found that no level of exposure to it is safe,” she said.
The residents want Sasol to do the right thing “and return to the table to discuss and conduct a just and equitable relocation package for Mossville’s remaining residents”.
After announcing the Lake Charles expansion plans nearly 14 years ago, Sasol launched a voluntary property purchase programme in Mossville and other nearby communities.
However, development of the new chemical complex was plagued by setbacks and cost overruns that cost the jobs of the company’s co-CEOs, Bongani Nqwababa and Stephen Cornwell, who were forced to resign in 2019.
A year later the company sold half of its stake in the Lake Charles operation to LyondellBasell.
Carolyn Peters, president of a community group called Concerned Citizens of Mossville, told Business Times the group took out the advert in the Sowetan because it wanted South Africans to know about the “atrocities and injustices” that Sasol was inflicting on the town, which she described as a “fenceline” community — one on the edge of a hazardous industrial facility.
“We hope that by publicly exposing Sasol about its unfair treatment of people of colour in fenceline communities, [we] will prompt them to return to the table with the remaining 50 families in Mossville, to discuss and execute a fair buyout, rather than just waiting for the remaining residents to die off,” she said.
Peters accused Sasol of having offered buyouts to people in nearby Brentwood, a predominately white community, that were almost three times more than what was on offer in Mossville.
Stafford Frank, a member of the Mossville citizens group, said: “Sasol has effectively erased an historically black community. All that is left are remnants of what Mossville was.”
Jordan said many Mossville residents saw the buyout as forced displacement.
“They were left with an impossible choice — leave their homes and community or continue to risk their lives and health by continuing to live near the Sasol facility.”
She said white homeowners overall received higher offers than black homeowners, citing a 2021 study by a US group, the University Network for Human Rights. The study said Sasol’s buyout offers to residents of Mossville were significantly lower — 45% on average — than its Sasol’s offers to resid
ents of Brentwood.
“Many [Mossville] residents ultimately accepted inadequate offers and were forced to relocate to homes of lesser quality. Others felt that they had no choice but to remain in their homes because of offensive offers from Sasol’s buyout, which left them subjected to Sasol’s toxic emissions and in an area that had subsequently become a ghost town.”
However, speaking at Sasol’s AGM last week, Brad Griffith, the company’s executive vice-president for chemicals, said the University Network for Human Rights study was flawed.
“The methodology used was in error. We are open to constructive criticism, but it is also our duty to set the record straight on allegations of racial bias and human rights violations,” Griffith said.
“Property buyout programmes are always complicated and while we believe that the end result of our voluntary property purchase programme was fair, considering the situations that many residents faced, we also understand that not everyone is satisfied.”
He said Sasol had not been given an opportunity to review the 2021 study and provide input. Essential information was missing from the study, he added.
In a written response to Business Times, Sasol said it has a long history of engaging with its Mossville neighbour.
“From the early stages of our ethane cracker and derivatives project, we’ve continually reached out to Mossville residents to keep them informed of our plans and solicit their input on what we can do to make a positive difference in their community. The result is an extensive, ongoing partnership between Sasol and Mossville to address their desires, give them the choices they asked for, and provide sustainable, longterm support to increase economic opportunities.”
Sasol has also been under pressure to address its impact on the environment in South Africa, where it is rates as the biggest polluter after Eskom. Last week 77.36% of Sasol shareholders voted in favour of the company’s plans to address climate change issues, down from the 94.05% the plans received at the 2022 AGM.