Shell brings out former Steeler Ilkin to promote cracker plant

Beaver County residents had mixed reactions Tuesday night as Shell Chemical Appalachia representatives met for the fourth time with them to tout the ethanecracking plant the company is building along the Ohio River.

Company officials pulled out a big gun — they played a promotional video featuring former Steeler Tunch Ilkin wearing a white hard hat with the yellowand-red Shell logo.

More than 150 people gathered in an elementary school gymnasium in Beaver listened as Mr. Ilkin, talking over a background of music, said, “I’m so excited for our region’s future.”

Although Shell has just begun pouring concrete at the Potter Township site, by the next decade the plant’s seven furnaces will heat liquid ethane — from the Marcellus Shale — to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit to produce 1.6 million tons of polyethylene a year. The site will also include a power plant, cooling towers, a wastewater treatment facility and three flares.

During the presentation, Shell representatives talked about

their partnership with the Community College of Beaver County, the 300 trees they’ve planted along the Ohio River, and a playground they remodeled in Vanport.

Glass bowls on a table in the back of the gym held polyethylene pellets that attendees could touch and product examples of what the pellets will become — shampoo and detergent bottles, food packaging and more.

Company spokesman Michael Marr said these types of “community” meetings are important.

“We like coming out and talking with members [who live] near where we’re looking forward to operating,” Mr. Marr said.

Some residents, however, expressed disappointment with the meeting’s format.

Employees refused to answer an audience member who raised his hand, instead referring him to other company officials at a table in the back of the gymnasium.

“I don’t want to say what I’m really thinking,” said Terri Baumgartner, 69, of Aliquippa. “That would be insulting to dogs and ponies.”

Ms. Baumgartner, who penned an op-ed piece in the Post-Gazette in April opposing the cracker plant, said she’s concerned about air pollution coming from the plant as well as whether local people will benefit from Shell’s profits.

Pennsylvania has granted Shell a $1.6 billion tax break to build the plant.

“These are things that can’t get talked about because they send you to tables where people can’t hear each other’s comments,” Ms. Baumgartner said.

Jerry Rosenberger, 68, of Brighton Township, stood at one of the tables talking with the Shell representatives.

“They’re working with the community, just like the old companies that used to be here did,” said Mr. Rosenberger, a retired steamfitter, praising Westinghouse and Jones and Laughlin Steel. “[Shell] took a junkyard and fixed it up and [is] creating more jobs.”

The company estimates it will need 6,000 workers during a five-year construction phase and 600 workers once the plant is operational.