Black smoke over Houston is a common part of the Texas deal
Farmers complain that consumers think their food comes from the back of the grocery store; refiners complain people think chemicals spontaneously flow up from the ground.
The enormous black plume dominating the Houston skyline these past few days is a stark reminder that the glue, gasoline, nail polish, pharmaceuticals, plastics and dozens of other products we rely upon are derived from dangerous chemical processes.
And those processes take place along the Houston Ship Channel.
Plant employees describe their job as working inside a bomb. These facilities take crude oil, natural gas and other flammable materials and apply heat to separate and distill them. They add other chemicals and catalyze the building blocks of modern life to create new substances, liquids and gases.
Every six weeks, something goes wrong, according to a Houston Chronicle investigation. Folks living in Greater Houston end up breathing a little bit of something that doctors say is harmful. This past weekend, there were two fires at facilities that make gasoline.
The first came at Exxon Mobil's Baytown refinery on Saturday and firefighters quickly extinguished it. As is typically the case, the fire injured no one and air quality remained within established parameters. Except for a few videos of a little black smoke posted to social media, most people would never have known a fire occurred at all.
Then came the fire at the Intercontinental Terminals Company in Deer Park on Sunday. Again, no one was injured, and officials say the pollution released does not exceed public health limits. But putting this fire out was more difficult, and days later the smoke is still hovering over Houston like
something from an alien invasion movie.
"Right now, what we're seeing is no elevated levels (of pollutants) because the plume is high enough that it's not affecting us here close to the ground," Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said Monday.
What goes up, though, must come down. These black particulates will disperse at high altitudes and then settle across areas west of Houston in tiny quantities. The smoke reached Austin on Tuesday afternoon.
Most gasoline and petrochemical consumers are shrugging their shoulders. They made a bargain with the oil and gas industry for affordable and plentiful liquid fuel for their two-ton motor vehicles. You agreed to accept the occasional petrochemical upset that damages the environment and endangers your neighbors.
Pretending that you are not as responsible as the plant’s management is delusional.
You believed the engineers who promised fool-proof systems while knowing the story of the Titanic. You believed the regulators who claim they are keeping watch over these facilities, even though the ITC plant has been out of compliance with the federal Clean Water Act for nine of the last 12 quarters, according to Environmental Protection Agency data.
And you might even believe ITC spokesperson Alice Richardson when she said: “We believe that our environment is what we're handing down to our children,” even though the company’s track record says otherwise.
The truth is that a majority of Texas voters elected state officials who make sure the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality is a lapdog to the industry. The American people elected a president who is repealing safety regulations and systematically gutting federal agencies entrusted to make sure plants and refineries are safe.
They do this because most consumers want cheap fuel prices so they can commute alone for an hour a day in an oversized, overpowered and environmentally destructive truck or SUV.
That is the essence of the social contract with the oil and gas industry. Give me a cheap product, even if it means a black cloud hangs over Houston on occasion.
Environmentalists and neighborhood activists will undoubtedly excoriate the executives and workers at Intercontinental Terminals Company for failing to prevent this fire. My colleagues will spend hundreds of hours investigating what happened and why. We will earnestly offer ways to reduce the risk of another fire.
None of it will matter, though, if voters and consumers do not care, and politicians do not demand better.
The next time you buy paint, thinner or any chemical at the big box store, remember the contents under the child-proof lid passed through a petrochemical plant. The next time you fill up the gas tank, think about the workers inside the bomb refining your fuel.
Lastly, ask yourself if you are satisfied with the current social contract.
Might you be willing to pay a few pennies more for fewer accidents? Do you want to negotiate a new deal? Perhaps a green one?