Judge finds Formosa liable in plastic spill
Gulf Coast plant could have to pay millions in penalties
A federal judge has found Formosa Plastics liable for spilling thousands of pounds of plastic pellets and powders into Texas Gulf Coast waters.
U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt sided with environmental activists Thursday, ruling that Formosa violated state and federal law when its Point Comfort plant spilled plastics into Lavaca Bay and Cox Creek, about halfway between Houston and Corpus Christi. The judge will next decide whether to penalize the Taiwanese company, which could face penalties of up to $162.2 million, according to the nonprofit Texas RioGrande Legal Aid.
TRLA sued Formosa in July 2017 on behalf of local resident and activist Diane Wilson and her group, the San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper. The suit alleged Formosa had polluted waterways near its Point Comfort plant for nearly three decades. Wilson is a Calhoun County native and former shrimper who has fought Formosa since the early 1990s.
“I have been doing this around 30 years now and this was the first
time I ever felt justice was delivered,” Wilson said in an interview.
Formosa declined to comment on the ruling. “We are carefully reviewing the Court’s order and will react to it in the context of the remedy phase of this proceeding,” the company said.
In his decision, Hoyt wrote that Formosa is a “serial offender” with some 1,149 days of violations recorded — from January 31, 2016, to at least March 24, 2019, according to court documents. Witnesses provided detailed testimony regarding plastics discharged by Formosa, including photographs, videos and 30 containers containing 2,428 samples of plastics in gallon zip lock bags and bottles of plastic pellets, according to court documents.
A report submitted to the court by Dr. Jeremy Conkle, an environmental scientist at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, estimated that between April 2017 and February 14, 2019, Formosa discharged between 15 and 151 tons of plastic pellets and powder into Lavaca Bay and between 156 to 1,556 tons of plastic and powder into Cox Creek, according to Texas RioGrande Legal Aid.
The plastic pellets, called resins, are about the size of lentils. They can be ingested by fish and turtles, posing a threat to wildlife and the fishing and tourism industries along the Gulf Coast.
Amy Johnson, private attorney and consultant for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, said the group will put forth evidence that Formosa has benefited by $43.9 million from not complying with state and federal laws. Economic benefit is one factor the judge will consider when determining penalties during the second phase of the trial, which will likely take place in the fall.
In January, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality fined Formosa more than $120,000 after a 2016 investigation alleged that Formosa spilled plastic pellets into the Cox Creek and Lavaca Bay near the company’s 2,500 acre Point Comfort complex. TCEQ did not have an estimate for how many pellets were released, but it required Formosa to collect and properly dispose of about 112,000 pounds of debris and plastic pellets from Lavaca Bay and about 327,000 pounds from Cox Creek.
The state also required the company to install pellet recovery system to minimize future spills.
Company officials previously said that they have installed multiple screening and control systems to control pollution. The company has said it has the plant has 16 full-time contract employees whose main job is to clean up debris and pellets outside the plant.
The Point Comfort site produces resins for plastics such as high density polyethylene, low density polyethylene, polypropylene and polyvinyl chloride. Its workforce includes about 1,910 employees and 795 contractors, according to the company’s website. The plant is poised to expand its polyethylene production by about 800,000 metric tons annually with new polyethylene units starting up in the third quarter this year. Formosa has a U.S. headquarters in New Jersey.