We moved from Houston to South Padre Island in January of 2017. It was great to get away from the frequent odors, haze, and explosions from the myriad chemical plants east of Houston. It appears that the petrochemical industry now wants to spoil yet another segment of coastline. We should be moving full throttle towards renewables, but the regressive, corrupt Trump will have none of it. There is a lot of opposition here. Will it be enough?
The "Houstonification" of our coast
by Jim Chapman
Special to the Press
Unlike Port Arthur,
Pasadena, Beaumont and
Corpus Christi, the oil and
gas industry has a light
presence on our Cameron
County coastline. We have
been spared the heavy petrochemical industrialization that has blighted much
of the Texas coast. But
thanks to the “vision” of
the Brownsville Navigation District (BND), that
may drastically change.
First there are the three
liquified natural gas terminals, which while not
permitted yet, they are
still hoping to build. If
built they will be far and
away the largest sources
of air pollution in the Rio
Grande Valley, and will
transform the wetlands,
salt prairie and brush between Port Isabel and the
Port of Brownsville into
an industrial landscape
instantly recognizable by
anyone familiar with the
upper Texas coast. Now,
knocking at the door is
Jupiter MLP, which if approved and built will include a “condensate” (light
crude oil) refinery that will produce 170,000 barrels a
day of gasoline, diesel and
other hydrocarbons. Also,
it will include 10 million
barrels of hydrocarbon
storage (27 tanks), three
large marine loading berths
for Panamex-sized tankers
and barges, an offshore
tanker terminal, a 650
mile 35 inch oil pipeline,
and two 120-car oil trains
passing through downtown
Harlingen, San Benito and
Olmito every day.
In terms of air pollutants, Jupiter intends to
emit 984 tons per year of
nitric oxides, 218 tons per year of sulfur dioxide, 527
tons per year of carbon
monoxide, and 91 tons per
year of small (2.5 microns)
particulate matter. Every
April and May the Valley
already has some of the
highest particulate matter levels in the state, and
this is the kind of air pollution that is particularly
bad for people with asthma
and other respiratory problems. When you add Jupiter’s proposed emissions
to those of the LNG terminals, the results are staggering, dwarfing 300-fold
the current largest stationary source of air pollution,
the Silas Ray power plant.
There will also be unmeasured and unregulated discharges of hydrogen sulfide and sulfuric acid mist.
With the prevailing SSE
wind, Los Fresnos will be
downwind.
Besides the air pollution,
safety concerns and environmental degradation,
there is an even more important reason these projects should never be built:
global warming. The scientists know that even to
meet the Paris Agreement goals by 2050, carbon
emissions from energy and
industry, which are still
rising, will have to fall by
half each decade. In the
words of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), “rapid and
profound near-term decarbonization” must begin
now. Over three-quarters
of all the carbon humanity
has put into the atmosphere
has accrued since the end of
WWII, a single human lifetime. For the BND to push
these fossil-fuel -intensive
projects forward, which
will have lifespans of 30
or more years, is to push
us into a higher-carbon future, when the overwhelming scientific consensus is
that we must do the opposite. The total greenhouse
gas emissions of the three
LNG projects plus Jupiter
would be 15,151,054 tons
per year.
The Texas Commission
on Environmental Quality
is holding a public meeting
on Jupiter’s air pollution
permit, Permit 147681,
and greenhouse gas permit GHGPSDTX172, on
Tuesday, May 28, 7 pm at
the Amigoland Event Center, 1010 Mexico Blvd,
Brownsville. This will be
the public’s only opportunity to speak on behalf of
the air we all breathe. Comments can be spoken or
written, or submitted electronically at http://www14.
tceq.texas.gov/epic/ecomment/.
No comments:
Post a Comment