Black families face off with Big Oil
In Memphis, pipeline project prompts fight
For Kimberly Pearson and other families from southwest Memphis, Tennessee, the movement gaining momentum against the proposed Byhalia Connection is about much more than a pipeline — or any one of the major sources of air pollution encircling the area her family has long called home.
“It always seems like it’s assumed we don’t care and that is deplorable,” she said. “What we feel about our homes, about our people, about our generations ... it’s invaluable,” said Pearson, a high school English teacher who, along with her husband, was born and raised in Memphis’ Westwood community.
Over the years they’ve seen industry rise and community investment decline in the area. “It makes me so upset because it keeps happening,” she said.
Transportation accounts for a major share of all air pollution. Stationary sources, such as the oil refinery, airport and power plants encircling the nearly all-Black neighborhoods of southwest Memphis, are among the rest.
Of all emissions Shelby County facilities reported in 2017, sites in southwest Memphis accounted for 94% of 6.6 million tons of six “criteria” air pollutants in the most recent National Emissions Inventory, compiled by the Environmental Protection Agency every three years.
The Clean Air Act sets limits on carbon monoxide, lead, ground-level ozone, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide for a reason: Exposure is harmful to humans and can trigger respiratory issues and increase the risk of illnesses, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.
But when it comes to another set of air pollutants called air toxics, the consequences are such that emissions are measured not in tons but pounds. These 187 hazardous air pollutants are “suspected to cause cancer or other serious health effects, such as reproductive effects or birth defects,” the EPA says.
The Valero Memphis refinery was the top stationary source of air toxics in the 2017 inventory, sitting atop the same 38109 southwest Memphis ZIP code where families downwind of the refinery’s emissions are fighting the eminent domain claims of the Byhalia Connection pipeline. Valero, which describes itself as the largest and lowest cost independent oil refiner in the U.S., is a partner on the project with Houston-based Plains All American Pipeline.
More than 10,000 families make up the estimated population of nearly 45,000 people living in the 38109 ZIP code. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey, 97% of residents are Black and more than 20% are children. The majority of families live in homes they own.
Coursing crude oil through their communities and atop the Memphis drinking water supply, the proposed 49mile pipeline route runs from the Valero refinery to a terminal just over the Tennessee border, in Byhalia, Mississippi, where Valero leaked 800 gallons of crude oil in January 2020.
“For people to just act as if you’re disposable, it hurts,” said Pearson. “Because we have history, we have memories, we have life.”
Proximity linked to cancer risk
Among those memories are the allnighters her mother pulled while studying to become a nurse as a single mom, said Pearson. Her mother died of cancer at 68. Her husband is Pastor Jason Pearson, whose mother died of cancer at 63.
Among the couple’s new memories is the collective struggle, with their four sons and other families from southwest Memphis, to stop the Byhalia pipeline.
The EPA tracks the release of hazardous pollutants annually in the Toxic Release Inventory. The refinery’s release of carcinogens, substances associated with cancer, rose 23% from 2017 to 2018 and then remained at nearly the same level in 2019, the data show.
The federal oversight agency cautions against drawing immediate conclusions regarding facilities in its data, given the complexity of pollution sources in an environment.
But when it comes to oil refineries, University of Texas public health researchers recently published a straightforward connection. “Proximity to an oil refinery was associated with an increased risk of multiple cancer types,” the study of 6.3 million adults concluded after researchers compared diagnoses among those living within 10 miles of a refinery with those 20-30 miles away.
Whether the planned pipeline might lead to a local ramp up in refinery operations, Valero didn’t say in a succinct reply to multiple questions regarding the refinery’s toxic emissions and the company’s insurance coverage in the event of a potential cleanup.
“It is Valero’s policy to not comment on operations,” a spokesperson wrote.
The Memphis refinery’s risk score as of March 15 in the EPA’s Risk-Screening Environmental Indicator model was shy of 58,000 — more than seven times the median score in the petroleum refining industry and more than 1,600 times the median score of 36 in Shelby County.
Pipeline would double oil capacity
In a February investor filing, Valero states its insurance “may not be sufficient to cover all potential losses arising from operating hazards,” attributing the gap to unreasonable rates. Valero also warned investors the insurance it does have may not necessarily deliver.
“We can make no assurances that we will be able to obtain the full amount of our insurance coverage for insured events,” the document states.
As an extension of the Diamond Pipeline, which Plains and Valero operate between Cushing, Oklahoma, and the Memphis refinery, the Byhalia Connection would increase capacity from 200,000 barrels to 420,000 barrels per day, according to a Plains document received by the Securities and Exchange commission March 1. It includes similar language as Valero’s filing regarding lacking insurance.
Plains did not respond to a request for comment on its insurance coverage. The company has previously attempted to address residents’ contamination concerns, citing 10,000 hours spent in studying the Byhalia route’s conditions, approximately 4 feet below ground.
The Memphis Sand aquifer is hundreds of feet beneath the surface, under a barrier of clay that protects the purified drinking water source, akin to a great lake. But, as scientists found before the proposed Byhalia pipeline entered the picture, the aquifer isn’t impervious to contamination with at least 16 breaches in the clay.
‘Choose our drinking water’
Advocates long protective of the city’s drinking water supply have joined forces with Black families from southwest Memphis, fighting to protect their health, homes, loved ones and land.
In squaring off against Big Oil, the movement has galvanized local and national support through the grassroots group Memphis Community Against the Pipeline.
U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen asked President Joe Biden to consider revoking Byhalia’s federal permit. Actors Jane Fonda, Danny Glover and Mark Ruffalo have shared their support on social media, and former Vice President Al Gore has described the pipeline as a “reckless, racist rip-off.”
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris also voiced his opposition to the pipeline and said his administration will analyze the placement of air monitors in the county, which occurred before he took office. None is currently in southwest Memphis, downwind of the refinery.
The Memphis City Council voted unanimously in favor of an ordinance that would empower its members to block pipeline projects and, most recently, county commissioners voted whether to sell land to Byhalia.
At the meeting in late March, Plains spokesperson Katie Martin cited her status as a cancer survivor, 8,000 letters of support for the project and the involvement of a community advisory council. Byhalia distributed $1 million in community grants ahead of the vote.
“We know that environmental racism is real,” Martin said. “We’ve had to go through south Memphis to connect to the refinery. It was not a choice to affect one group of people over another.”
Justin J. Pearson, a co-founder of Memphis Community Against the Pipeline and Kimberly Pearson’s son, spoke on behalf of the residents asking to deny the sale of land to Byhalia.
“We are being forced to carry all of the risk, as a county and as a city, with none of the benefit,” he said.
“God bless Katie Martin for being able to survive cancer. But see, I lost both of my grandmothers to it, in their 60s,” Justin J. Pearson said.
“Now there’s an opportunity for each of you to choose Memphis, choose our drinking water, choose our people,” he said to commissioners.
Byhalia lost the vote. But the fate of the pipeline is far from sealed, as local eminent domain cases and a federal lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers, which issued a permit to Byhalia, wind through court.
A Biden spokesperson did not confirm whether Cohen’s request that the federal Byhalia pipeline permit be revoked is under consideration.
At both the federal and local level, Valero has historically had support.
Through coronavirus economic stimulus efforts, Valero got a $238 million tax refund and, along with Plains, benefited from bond and debt purchases by the Federal Reserve Bank, according to the watchdog group BailoutWatch.
In Shelby County, benefits granted to Valero include a $25.8 million tax break on personal property and a payment-inlieu-of-taxes agreement that allows the company to pay $100 per parcel of land, per year in property taxes.
Community resilience
Scottie Fitzgerald grew up near the refinery, the only child of high school sweethearts whose blue collar paychecks funded multiple properties and a refrigerator for a neighbor in need.
“About a whole neighborhood of people ended up with breast cancer, including my mother,” said Fitzgerald, who left her job to care for the parent she describes as a best friend.
“She was still paying property taxes out of her little Social Security check, staying with me,” Fitzgerald said. Her mother passed down the land after she died and because Fitzgerald doesn’t find the prospect of a pipeline on it appealing, she didn’t grant Byhalia’s request for a permanent easement, allowing pipeline construction and maintenance on her property.
Byhalia has since filed eminent domain claims against Fitzgerald and other landowners on its route.
With help from the Southern Environmental Law Center and a local pro bono lawyer, Fitzgerald and another landowner aren’t backing down.
“If I decide you got something in your backyard I want and just get with a conglomerate of people and say, ‘We’re gonna go over here and we don’t care what you say,’ that’s called bullying,” she said.
Residents’ opposition has been seen in courtrooms and legislative chambers and rallies in the streets. The pipeline company never expected such pushback, said Justin J. Pearson.
Contrary to a Byhalia spokesperson’s description of southwest Memphis as the point of least resistance, he said, instead, “We are the path of resilience.”