From plantations to plants

There used to be a row of homes across the street from the Dixons. Now there’s mostly grass, which the owner, Shell, keeps trim. And a few late-blooming pecan trees, whose fruit Ms. Dixon turns into candy and fudge.

Mr. Dixon pointed to a house a few doors down from his own and said it used to be on the other side of the street until Shell offered buyouts for people living within two blocks of its facilities.

The buyout program was a hard-fought battle between Shell and residents of the Diamond community, a black enclave on the western part of Norco where Shell built more chemical facilities in 1967, sandwiching the town between its two campuses.

Diamond is four square blocks and 150 years of history. As part of Shell’s Good Neighbor Initiative — a program that pledged to lower emissions and flaring events, but whose heart was the buyout program — the company bought 500 properties over the past 15 years. That included most of Diamond, once a vibrant and close-knit community.

The barbershop is gone. The meeting hall is gone. Iris Brown — who has become a vocal Shell agitator, blaming the company for what she believes are her mother's and sister's pollution-related deaths — has left. Ms. Brown now travels nationally and internationally to advocate against Shell. She visited Beaver County last year urging residents to oppose the company's cracker project here. A decade ago, she took the buyout and moved to nearby LaPlace.

But Aaron Brown, her brother, stayed.

He’s no longer sentimental about the land, he said, and would move at the right price. Shell’s offer — even if it was above market value — wouldn’t have been enough for him to buy a decent home in an area that doesn’t flood and where the schools are as good as in St. Charles Parish.

The Louisiana Education Department ranked St. Charles the second best in the state — an honor it split with Ascension Parish, which is home to another cluster of petrochemical plants, including a large Shell operation.

Mr. Brown wanted his daughters in those schools. Now that they’re grown, he’d be more likely to consider a move, he said.

His home, which he shares with his wife, daughter and grandson, is a beige trailer surrounded by fruit trees. He grows blood oranges, tropical grapefruits, lemons, figs and grapes. During some parts of the year, their leaves are stained with black smut, presumably from the nearby plant, he said. His sister finds that disgusting, but Mr. Brown isn’t that bothered. It comes off easily with soap and water, he said.

Does he feel safe in his home?

Mr. Brown hesitated. “I feel kind of safe,” he said. “Not too safe.”

“We just try to keep our ears open and when we hear the sirens, we watch the wind direction, try to stay out of the wind direction and try to keep fuel in our vehicles.”

As Iris Brown surveyed her old stomping grounds, wondering who would choose to live there now, framers were hammering away on a new house a few blocks away. It was beyond Diamond’s borders, but still in Norco, still sandwiched between the two Shell plants.

“You wouldn’t want that around your neighborhood,” Mr. Brown said about the plants. But, “If it’s in your parish, that’s good.”

Needing each other

At just past 10:30 on a Wednesday morning in February, a line of blue coveralls began to snake around the prepared foods counter at Greaud’s Fine Foods in Norco.

It was just weeks until Mardi Gras and the market was stocked with King Cakes — rings of pastry dripping with glaze and sprinkled with purple, green, and gold sugar.

Behind the counter, Greaud’s workers hustled to scoop ribs, macaroni and cheese, greens and grits into disposable trays as the lunch line stretched all the way to the door.

One man in line, hearing a mention of Shell, unbuttoned his coveralls to show off the company’s logo on his T-shirt. He smiled proudly, flashing a row of gold teeth.

Norco is the dictionary definition of a company town. And St. Charles Parish, which includes Norco, is an industry parish. The petrochemical industry makes up the majority of its property tax revenue and sales tax collections, swinging the latter by as much as 25 percent in either direction when times are good or bad.

Last year, the parish had to pull from an accumulated fund balance to cover expenses, but “several major projects have been announced by our local industries that are expected to result in considerable sales tax revenue increases in the budgets of 2017 and 2018,” the budget document said.

As the second-largest employer in the parish behind public schools, Shell is woven into the region in ways that extend beyond its chemical plant. Its engineers, in their work coveralls, read aloud to children at Norco Elementary School, which sits on the fenceline of the west site. They volunteer at the food bank. Last year, they raised more than $1 million for the United Way.

Shell helped create the Norco economic development fund and sponsors the local high school robotics team. Last year, it spent $339,000 on charitable donations in the community.

It has a float in the town’s Christmas parade.

“We need them as much as they need us now,” said Wendy Benedetto, a parish councilwoman from a community to the east of Norco, who said Shell donates a lot of money for pump stations “so we don’t flood.”

Ms. Benedetto is a real estate agent whose work is heating up these days after a prolonged period of waitand-see — first, as a result of the post-Katrina construction price surges and then from decreased industrial activity following the oil price crash of recent years.

Now that several chemical plants have announced expansions, she’s expecting people to start moving into the area. And she’s not anticipating much squeamishness about living next to industry.

“You do have some of that,” she said, “that people don't want to move next door.”

But for the most part, it hasn’t been in issue. In her entire career, Ms. Benedetto can recall one time when a lender wouldn’t give a loan to a house because it was next to a chemical plant. “It was years ago,” she said. “And it never happened again.”

When the Dixons made it to their new house a few days after the 1988 explosion — a house that once belonged to Ms. Dixon’s grandfather — a Shell representative knocked on the door to survey the damage.

“We were cleaning up,” Mr. Dixon said. “He spent about 15 minutes here and said, ‘If I write you a check for $28,000, will you sign a release?’”

In a heartbeat, Mr. Dixon thought.

The money was far more than what the couple spent on fixing up the house, Ms. Dixon said.

“I wouldn’t have sued,” she said. “But some people did. And they got some money. And when my kids were old enough to drive, all their little friends were buying new cars. We used to call them the Shell cars.”

Accidents happen, Ms. Dixon said. But they don’t keep her up at night.

“Do you fly on airplanes?” she asked rhetorically. “If it’s my time, it’s my time.”