Port Arthur, Texas

The Making of a Toxics Activist:

Growing Up in Public Housing

Next Door to a Shell/Motiva Refinery

By Steve Lerner

Hilton Kelley grew up on the frontlines of toxic chemical exposure in the United States. Kelley, 45, a big man with a shaved head and a brown belt in Tae Kwan Do, was brought up in the Carver Terrace public housing complex just across the fenceline from the Shell Oil/Motiva Enterprises refinery in the West Side neighborhood of Port Arthur, Texas.

The Motiva facility was not the only petrochemical plant in the neighborhood fouling the air. Dominating the West Side were industrial giant works owned by Valero, Chevron/Phillips, VASS, Total Petrochemicals USA, Huntsman Chemicals, BASF and Atofina. But Motiva’s 3,800-acre refinery was the 800 pound gorilla on the block producing 285,000 barrels of oil a day. It currently has plans to expand its capacity 125 percent and produce 625,000 barrels a day making it’s the largest refinery in the nation.

Living in Carver Terrace, within sight of this petrochemical behemoth, Kelley and other local residents breathed air laced with elevated levels of benzene, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and 1-3 butadiene. The air smelled like rotten eggs from the sulfur coming from the refinery, Kelley recalls. “At nighttime we had a bright orange sky because the refineries were constantly flaring, burning off fumes and gas,” he continues.¹

Despite this breath-taking pollution and the minimalist comforts of public housing, Kelley describes his early days with some fondness. There was food on the table, an orderly life, and his mother kept him and his younger brother busy so they wouldn’t get in trouble in the streets. The two boys attended karate classes, YMCA, Boy Scout meetings, football games, marching band, and church. “I was always in some kind of uniform or other,” he recalls

But in 1979, at the age of 18, this highly-scheduled routine ended when Kelley’s mother was shot to death. A year later, at 19, he joined the Navy, trained to be an electrical engineer, and served on the USS Roanoke Relay, an oiler that shuttled jet fuel to aircraft carriers. Leaving the Navy in 1984, Kelley landed a series of acting jobs, first in Hollywood and then in northern California, including a part on the Nash Bridges cop show with Don Johnson.

With his Screen Actors Guild card in his pocket and a TV show to his credit, Kelley came home an accomplished graduate of West Side Port Arthur’s hard streets. It was on one of his visits home that he was struck by how bad the air quality had become. As a boy, Kelley took the pollution for granted along with a constant cough and a skin rash, common in the neighborhood, which left him with little black spots all over his arms, chest and back. Both problems disappeared once he left Port Arthur. “Everyone knew when the plant did a smelly, but no one did anything about it,” he recalls. His grandmother (Grandfather), who lived on 18^th street – four to five blocks from the fenceline – died of cancer. “Everyone had respiratory problems, sinus problems, skin problems, and allergies but I thought that was the way life was,” he says. But having joined the Navy and seen the world, Kelley now knew that air this polluted wasn’t normal.

All around him people developed ways of coping with the air that Kelley describes as periodically “so bad that it can take your breath away.” Annie Edwards, a long-term resident, recounts the feeling she gets when heavy gusts of pollution engulf her: “Like I panic and can’t catch enough air, and if I go outside it’s worse. I have to strap on my breathing machine [oxygen supply] at night so I don’t pass out,” she says.²

Smelling the bad air in his old neighborhood and seeing multiple families he knew with respiratory problems and other pollution-induced diseases affected Kelley deeply. “I couldn’t get it out of my mind that I needed to do something for my hometown,” he says. “Because of the increasing air pollution, the people of Port Arthur were too sick to help themselves. They were beat down. The town was dying, and I saw a need that I thought I could fill.”³

Following this instinct, in 2000, Kelley moved home and devoted his energies to fighting for environmental improvements that would help West Side residents breathe easier. He returned to “crusade to empower citizens to fight for their health,” he says. He viewed his neighborhood as a sacrifice zone: “Our neighborhood pays the price for the rest of the nation’s ‘cheap gas,’” he observes. The equation is simple: refineries minimize their investments in pollution control equipment and as a result they can raise profits and keep gas prices lower than they would be if they operated in a way that protected the health of their neighbors.

Texas toxicologist Marvin Legator, former professor of environmental toxicology at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, did a health study in Port Arthur that compared the number of residents there who suffered symptoms of 12 diseases with a control population of residents in Galveston. What he found confirmed what fenceline residents already suspected: their health was being compromised by exposure to high levels of pollutants. “Without question, the people in Beaumont and Port Arthur are suffering from many more health problems, especially neurological and respiratory diseases, than those in Galveston. The concentration of heavy industry there [in Port Arthur] is having an enormous impact on their lives, and this study proves that to be the case,” Legator told a reporter from the Texas Observer.⁴

In his study, Legator found that 80 percent of those residents he interviewed in west Port Arthur reported heart and respiratory problems compared with 30 percent in an economically and racially similar community in Galveston. Similarly, 80 percent of residents on the fenceline suffered from ear, nose, and throat problems compared with 20 percent in the control group; and 75 percent of West Side residents had headaches and muscle aches compared with 20 percent of those who lived in a less polluted area. Visits to emergency rooms by West Side Port Arthur residents also increase substantially following spills or unexpected releases, notes Wilma Subra, a chemist from Louisiana who helps residents of fenceline communities with technical questions. Subra found that residents were exposed to upsets on an average of five times a week and that 75 percent of these could have been avoided if refineries installed up-to-date pollution control equipment and new valves. ⁵ Another study found that school absences among the 21,800 children who went to school within two miles of a petrochemical plant in Jefferson County also increased following large accidental releases of toxic chemicals.

Carver Terrace

To begin his campaign for cleaner air, Kelley founded and now directs the Community In-Power Development Association (CIDA). “We are trying to push industry to clean up emissions and use up-to-date [pollution prevention] technology,” he explains.⁶ Much of Kelley’s organizing work involves going door-to-door in the West Side talking with residents about the local pollution problems and urging them to join in news conferences and protests designed to raise media awareness of the problem.

As part of this campaign, in June, 2006, Kelley toured through the Carver Terrace, like a mayor walking the streets of his constituency. Many residents knew him and some came to him with their problems. When a young woman approached him who was being evicted for failure to pay her utility bill, Kelley came up with $200 to keep her from being put out on the street in return for a promise to get her life in order and plan her finances more carefully. He also urged her to attend an up-coming meeting of CIDA. The young woman’s eviction was not the only sign of distress. Carver Terrace had recently been damaged by hurricane winds and was patched with huge blue tarpaulins tied over the roofs. At one corner of the complex, near a heavily-polluted area where fuel storage tanks had once stood, the belongings of another evicted tenant lay on wet ground exposed to the elements. With the huge Shell/Motiva works looming behind them, a couple of people poked through the apparently abandoned personal property to see if there was anything worth salvaging.

“There was some kind of green smoke that came out of the plant last week. Then the cloud turned to orange,” reports Laura Paul, pointing toward the Motiva refinery that stretches out across the street from her home. For the last four years, Paul has lived in an apartment in the two-story, orange-brick buildings at Carver Terrace, a HUD-subsidized housing complex of 384 apartments, which is laid out in 16 rows of 24 identical multi-housing units. Paul has a ten-month old baby with bronchitis and her mother was recently taken to the hospital for emergency treatment of a respiratory problem. “She couldn’t catch her breath,” Paul says. “We are closed in by refineries and pollution here and it is affecting the whole community,” she adds. Confirming this perspective, another young woman, Juaniki Conley, who describes herself as having been raised locally, says she suffers from bronchitis, elevated blood pressure, hypertension, and allergies. She also has three kids “who have to have breathing treatments.”

In the sweat-popping heat and humidity of a coastal Texan summer, Edward Brooks, II, 56, an unemployed, heavy-equipment operator, stands next to his Carver Terrace apartment door dressed in sleeveless t-shirt, checkered pajama bottoms, and slippers. Inside Brooks’ apartment it is cooler with the air conditioner and fan going but he says he has to turn off the AC when the fumes from the plant get bad otherwise the equipment sucks poisoned air into his home. “This area is not safe. We are 3-400 yards from the refinery here. I want to get my family away. We want to move so we can get a chance to live,” he says bluntly. But coming up with the money to move is a problem in a community where the official unemployment rate is 13.5 percent and the actual rate of unemployment is much higher.

“Anyone with any knowledge knows they should move on. The government is not doing anything to protect us. They tell us about the emissions but they don’t do anything about it. They don’t care. Half the kids here need help breathing,” he claims. “A lot of them have breathing machines at home and at school. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that this is not normal,” he adds. “You hear these kids gasping for air and someone will say: ‘Why is that kid barking again,’” Brooks says shaking his head. “Some of these kids can’t run half a block their lungs are so bad,” he adds. Brooks’ wife also has bronchitis and asthma and needs a breathing machine which is located in their bedroom.

All these toxic facilities are in minority areas where blacks, Latinos, and poor whites live, Brooks continues. “If I had any power no one would be allowed to live here. This place should be crushed to the ground,” but most people can’t afford to move out, he points out. They have an apartment on the fenceline in public housing complexes like Carver Terrace, Lewis Manor, or Pine (Prince) Hall and they don’t dare give up their apartment for fear that they will be out on the street, he adds. Kelley sits listening to Brooks nodding his head thoughtfully. “Some of the folks who breathe this air too long die of cancer. As we speak kids are being born who are being brought back to these projects to breathe in toxic air. That just isn’t right. We need to clean up this place up for the new souls,” he says.

West Side Port Arthur

“In this neighborhood you have fireworks when it is not the fourth of July,” observes Hilton Kelley’s younger brother, Warren Kelley, referring to accidents and flares that light up the sky over the refinery. Warren Kelley runs the Black Tiger CIDA Karate School, located a short drive from the Carver Terrace apartments where he and his brother grew up. Frighteningly fit, he became a karate champion at 14, a black belt at 17, and won a title at 21.

“Many of the people I knew when I was growing up, if they didn’t get killed in a car or by a gun got killed by cancer,” he claims. Growing up with pollution from the refinery caused a wide variety of respiratory and skin problems that were not normal as well as sinus pain and an impaired immune system, he continues. “Eight out of ten kids here have asthma,” he estimates. While he was recently up on his roof doing repairs he was hit by a cloud of benzene from the plant that forced him inside to take shelter. He opened the karate school to give kids a place to go after school and now has 25 kids signed up. The kids come to the dojo, show Kelley their school grades, and then begin to practice. Linda Simpson, his partner, says that many of the children have chronic asthma, bronchitis, and sinus problems. “You eat right and still this happens to you,” she says. “It gives you the feeling that you are being violated,” she adds.

West Side Port Arthur, located across the railroad tracks from the more affluent part of the city, was never a high-rent district but it once was a lively port area that sailors visited when their ships docked. It was not uncommon to hear Russian, Spanish, Arabic, and a host of other languages spoken in the streets when sailors were on leave, Kelley recalls. There were nightclubs, pool halls, bars, and brothels in one part of the neighborhood; while elsewhere there were quieter, working-class residential areas with grocery and ice cream stores amid the shotgun-style homes.

As the refineries and chemical plants (including Motiva, Chevron, Valero and Huntsman Chemical) expanded and more and more oil was trucked through the neighborhood, small stores began to close and the pollution became so bad that no one wanted to open a new business. Seventh Street was widened to accommodate the turning radius of 18-wheel tanker trucks. By the mid 1980s the local economy took a big hit, jobs dried up, and residents began to move out. Only those who were too poor to move and a few of other holdouts were left behind. Sadly, the auditorium where jazz and blues legends such as Al Green and Ray Charles once played closed. “What has happened here is that industry wants to squeeze the residents out so they can have it all to themselves but they don’t want to pay to move anyone,” Kelley observes. “This neighborhood needs to get organized in order to revitalize the local economy but first we have to clean up the pollution to attract businesses and people back.”

Some of the Dirtiest Air in the Nation

Is there a causal link between the high rates of respiratory disease, cancer, and skin rashes in West Port Arthur and the large volumes of toxic chemicals that are released from petrochemical plants next door? The sheer volume of chemical releases coupled with the fact that many of the emissions are known to cause respiratory problems and cancer suggests that there is a causal link.

One way to get an idea about how dirty the air is on the West Side is to examine the everyday “permitted” releases of toxic chemicals from surrounding petrochemical facilities and then add to that the amount of toxics released into the neighborhood by “accidental” upsets, flares, and start-up and shut-down releases. A remarkable accounting of these toxic emissions that rain down on the West Side was published by Public Citizen in a report entitled “Industrial Upset Pollution: Who Pays the Price?” ⁷

West Side residents are bombarded by pollutants not just from the Motiva refinery but also from BASF Fina Petrochemicals, Total Petrochemicals USA Inc., and Huntsman Chemicals. Together, these plants generate enough pollutants to make Jefferson County, in which Port Arthur is located, one of the dirtiest counties in the country. It also ranks in the worst percentile for total environmental releases for increased cancer and other non-cancer health risks, for releases of recognized carcinogen, as well as for developmental and reproductive toxicants.⁸

The Motiva Port Arthur refinery, which began as Texaco’s first refinery in 1903, emitted 14.9 million pounds of criteria air pollutants during routine operations in 2003 and another 648,400 pounds during emission events and maintenance, start-up and shutdown activities. In all, Motiva released over 15.5 million pounds of criteria pollutants in one year, making it rank in the lowest (dirtiest) ten percent of plants in the U.S.⁹

Motiva reported 86 upset events in 2003 and 2004 in which toxic chemicals were dumped into the air in significant quantities. Some of these accidental releases can be substantial. For example, on April 14, 2003, Motiva emitted 274,438 pounds of air contaminants including 107,280 pounds of hexane (toxic to the nervous respiratory, and reproductive system); 24,607 pounds of butane, 29,424 pounds of heptane, 11,834 pounds of isobutene, 37,538 pounds of pentane (toxic to the central nervous system and causing fatigue, irritability and other behavioral changes); and 14,992 of propylene (toxic to the respiratory system). Many of these pollutants also can cause ozone pollution (smog) that causes breathing problems and aggravates asthma.¹⁰ A day later, on April 15 the plant emitted about nine tons of particulate matter while children were waiting at bus stops on their way to school. Some 15 residents called up regulators to complain of heavy black smoke, bad odors, soot falling on cars; and others complained of health problems such as headaches and kids with asthma problems.

When the burst of heavy of pollution came into his neighborhood, Hilton Kelley was ready and went door-to-door telling people to either get out of the area until the cloud of pollution had lifted; or to shut their doors and windows and shelter in place. “When a cloud stays over our community for hours you know it is a serious problem,” Kelley observes.¹¹ He also began to sample the air and captured readings 4.2 ppbv of benzene in the air which was substantially above the state long-term health screening level, the EPA regional screening level, and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) intermediate minimal risk level. He also found toluene, propane, and a host of other toxic chemicals in the sample he took. While Kelley was conducting this citizen air monitoring, officials from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) arrived to investigate resident complaints but none of them had equipment with them. “Are you here to watch,” Kelley asked? The irony of the situation was apparent: here was a local citizen monitoring the air while the officials sent to investigate were empty handed. Significantly, despite the size of the Motiva upset, which lofted 219 tons of pollutants into the air over Port Arthur, TCEQ did not issue a violation against the company.

Similar large-scale accidental releases of toxic chemicals into the air over Port Arthur came from other neighboring facilities as well. For example, the BASF petrochemical complex, the world’s largest naphtha steam cracker, emitted 1.9 million pounds of criteria pollutants into the air in 2003; and an additional 2.3 million pounds through emission events. This totals over 4.3 million pounds of pollutants in one year. The BASF facility is also one of the dirtiest plants in the nation and is in the worst percentile for cancer risk. In the first five months of 2005 the plant experienced 66 release events. In one of these, on July 30, 2004 the plant released 152,215 pounds of air pollution; and less than two months later it spewed 127,011 pounds of contaminants including 15,000 pounds of pollutants recognized by the federal government as hazardous including 1,3 butadiene, benzene, and styrene -- all recognized as carcinogens.¹²

Not surprisingly, the added cancer risk from hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) is higher in Jefferson County (670 per million) compared with the overall rate in the state of Texas (550 per million). The added cancer risk in Jefferson County is also 670 times higher than the goal of the Clean Air Act. The added cancer risk to Jefferson County residents from just exposure to benzene is 54 cases per million compared with the state burden of 35 additional cancers per million.¹³ Benzene is also a cause of leukemia and Jefferson county males had a higher rate than the state for eight of the ten years between 1990 and 2000. Death rates for respiratory cancers were also elevated.¹⁴

Summing up their findings, Public Citizen judged the regulation of the petrochemical industry in Jefferson County woefully lacking in rigor: “This study shows a stunning failure of our state environmental regulatory agency, which has an obligation to the citizens of Texas to protect them from harmful air contaminants.” TCEQ allows petrochemical companies to break the law, it does not impose penalties that deter violators, it allows companies to profit from harming public health, and it does not have an adequate monitoring system, the report states.¹⁵

Obstacles to Organizing

Despite the volume of pollutants being released into the air and the documented increase in fenceline health impacts, organizing West Side residents to protest pollution is not easy. Most residents struggle to pay the rent and keep the lights and gas on and they don’t have time to go to protest, Kelley explains. Undaunted, he started his campaign for cleaner air by standing on a corner with a sign and passing out information he had uncovered showing that local refineries were flaring off toxic chemicals illegally and the regulatory agencies were doing nothing about it. Then he started walking the neighborhood knocking on doors and talking with people. In the process, Kelley found that one in five households had a child with asthma who required medication or breathing treatments; others had a distinctive type of skin rash associated with pollution.

As he went door-to-door, Kelley told people that it was not their fault that their child had asthma and that the regulatory agencies should be doing more to reduce pollution. He also argued that the refineries should pay for medication for the diseases such as asthma ($66 to $443 annually) that their emissions were either causing or aggravating. In Jefferson County, 7.14 residents per 1,000 suffer from asthma compared with 5.52 per 1,000 across the state. Similarly, Jefferson County residents on the fenceline with heavy industry had 393.6 hospital admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease compared with a state rate of 215.4 per 100,000. ¹⁶ This data suggests that West Side resident were literally chocking on air pollution being put out by local industries.

Kelley also informed residents that the petrochemical plants are fined less than one percent of the time when there are accidental releases and upsets. And that when fines are imposed the money goes into the Texas state coffers and are not returned to the impacted communities. As a result, residents afflicted by the pollution are not compensated for the harms they suffer, he adds.

Hush money is also spread widely by heavily-polluting industries to mute criticism of their practices, Kelley charges. Local churches, civic groups, and politicians depend on the largess of the big petrochemical companies, he continues. For example, the African Methodist Churches forbade Kelley to pass out CIDA flyers after church; and the local chapter of the NAACP remained silent on the pollution issue, Kelley adds. Kelley was counseled by some local community leaders not to go up against the refineries. One community leader, who had negotiated corporate money for local scholarships, told him that there was very little money in the community and that Kelley risked turning off the corporate funds for local causes if he made too much noise about the pollution.

Money is also used more directly to settle claims immediately for cash. Often, when there is a big release of chemicals, plant officials offer $50 in cash for residents who sign a document saying their complaint has been satisfied. Kelley was offered $4,000 and four computers for CIDA by refinery officials but when he made it clear that by accepting the gift he would in no way mute his protests about pollution from the plant suddenly the offer evaporated.

In the face of these obstacles, Kelley kept his day job doing electrical and plumbing repairs but worked long, unpaid hours on community organizing. The vehicle for this work was Kelley’s Community In-Power Development Association (CIDA), a grassroots, Port Arthur-based, non-profit that Kelley started. The first meeting he held there were a total of two people: himself and the person in charge of the room where he planned to hold the meeting. Over time, however more and more residents began to understand that they needed to speak up if their health complaints were to be heard and now CIDA has a membership of 120 members and a core group of 30 who can be relied upon to show up at protests and news conferences.

Dressed in a bright yellow t-shirt and cap emblazoned with CIDA’s motto: “A United Voice for and by the Community,” in early July, 2006, Kelley sat alone in his modest office (housed in one room of a single story, white-brick storefront next door to Cash Loans & Anything of Value Pawn Shop), slogging through a telephone health survey of West Side residents “Do you or anyone in your family have cancer,” he asks a local resident who answers his call? About 35 to 40 percent of households on the West Side have someone in their family who has died of cancer, Kelley reports. The incidence of women from 14 to 50 who have fibroid tumors in their uteruses is also elevated, he adds.

“We are not trying to shut down these petrochemical plants,” Kelley explains. The refineries provide thousands of jobs in Port Arthur and are an important part of the local economy. “We just want them to clean up their act,” he continues. Residents shouldn’t have to choose between working in a unhealthy environment or keeping a job and putting food on the table, he adds.

Kelley knows that he is up against an over-sized adversary and that his organization, CIDA, is playing David to Motiva’s Goliath. There have been anonymous, threatening phone calls and some periods of tension: “We are talking about multi-billion dollar industries here. I am occasionally paranoid and, during tense periods, have had my wife, Marie, get out of the car when I turn on the ignition,” he says. “I understand the dangers but I can’t walk away from this problem. If they decide to kill me they have to do what they have to do. I am more afraid of not doing anything. Someone has to have the [courage] to stand up to these people. If they are going to kill me so be it.”

We’ve Been Waiting for Someone Like You

The public health campaign Kelley is conducting in West Side Port Arthur is nothing new. A decade earlier, Rev. Alfred Dominic, a retired water company employee, began to stand up in City Council meetings and talk bluntly about the health problems that residents were suffering as a result of pollution from the petrochemical plants. Dominic, 78, is a well-known figure in the community. He is the proud father of 13 children and his living room has photos of a number of his children who have served double tours in Iraq. A member of the Masons and Eastern Star Church, for years Dominic demanded that the City Council take action to protect public health but was ignored. The reason, he says, isn’t hard to figure out: 80 percent of the city’s tax base is paid by industry. “Industry is this city’s bread and butter. Industry has influence in the schools, the churches, and the hospitals so no one talks about the connection between high levels of pollution and the large numbers of kids with asthma. Most people here over 45 know someone in the petrochemical industry,” Dominic observes. “It’s a company town.”

When Kelley returned to Port Arthur in 2000 and showed an interest in the West Side’s air pollution problem Dominic was relieved and was ready to pass the campaign over to him: “We’ve been waiting for someone like you,” he said. At the time Kelley was scrambling to make a living and had started doing plumbing and electrical work for local residents but he had no car to get to work. To help him get on his feet, Dominic gave him rides to his jobs and fed him in his kitchen. “He has been like a father to me,” Kelley says fondly. Over meals they would also talk strategy about how best to help the community. Kelley wanted to open a new community center that could be a place where people learned about the pollution threat to their health. Dominic questioned this approach and suggested that the area was too polluted to become a safe place for people to live. Instead he recommended fighting for funds to relocate the residential population out of harms way. “He educated me about all these issues and introduced me to the City Council members,” Kelley notes.

Sitting on his couch in his West Side front office/living room/church, surrounded by stacks of newspaper clippings and videotapes of himself testifying before the City Council, Dominic retains his passion for protecting the health of local residents but his health is clearly failing. A bottle of oxygen is close at hand. Outside, a train carrying petrochemical products rumbles by shaking the small, wooden house and making conversation momentarily impossible. “We know that something is in the air and in the water that people used to drink,” says Dominic, who was born on 5^th Street and has lived in the neighborhood most of his life. “All this pollution affected my health. I have problems with breathing, problems with nausea, and now I have problems with forgetting,” he says. “Many of my friends have died of cancer and many of them are sick at the present because of the emissions,” he adds¹⁷

As Kelley’s finances gradually improved, he was able to devote more time to learning about the pollution that was raining down on his old neighborhood. He met Peter Altman, executive director of the Seed Coalition, based in Austin, who was conducting a campaign to reduce refinery pollution. At the time, Altman was orchestrating what he called a “toxic two-step” refinery pollution tour along the “cancer ally” Interstate 10 corridor that runs through Houston, Beaumont, Mossville, and New Orleans. “He took me to Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and showed me that I had the right to look up information about accidental releases from the neighboring refineries,” Kelley recalls.

He also met and continues to collaborate with Denny Larson, director of Global Environmental Monitor, an organization based in San Francisco that helps fenceline communities do their own air quality monitoring. In 2003, Larson showed Kelley how to build an air monitoring “bucket” made out of a cheap, readily available plastic bucket and a Radio Shack air pump. Larson also helped him raise $500 so he could send off the air samples to a laboratory for analysis; and he showed Kelley how to file a civil complaint and put on a press conference announcing the results which showed elevated levels of butadiene and sulfur dioxide in the air.

Long Struggle with Regulatory Agencies and Petrochemical Plants

The struggle to improve air quality in Port Arthur and neighboring Beaumont, Texas has been a long-term campaign. In 2001, the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, challenged the US EPA’s description of ground level ozone (smog) problems in the area as “moderate.” Arguing its case in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Sierra Club attorneys held that the smog problem should be reclassified as “serious.” On April 29, 2004, the Court agreed with the Sierra Club, required that the EPA elevate the air quality threat from moderate to serious, and moved up the date by which the air had to be cleaned up to meet the agency’s one-hour standard for ground-level ozone from November, 2007 to November, 2005.

“The quality of air in Beaumont and Port Arthur communities has been unhealthy for many years, and we felt a new approach was needed that would accomplish improved air quality quickly,” said Dr. Neil Carman, a former state inspector of refineries who turned whistle-blower and now is director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club’s Clean Air Program. As part of the settlement, five petrochemical companies agreed to voluntarily reduce their emissions; and the state of Texas agreed to expedite a plan to reduce air pollution in the area to meet one hour and eight-hour ozone standards. The new agreement also has a provision that paid for the purchase of two state of the art air quality monitors so that CIDA can monitor air quality locally. “Our community has lived under the shadows of these facilities for decades, wondering whether a release is harmless or deadly [With this equipment] we will now have the means to know, instantaneously, what is in the air and tell the community the appropriate response,” Kelley said.¹⁸

With this new equipment, two Cerex ultra-violet, air-quality monitoring devices, Kelley began to sample air in West Side Port Arthur and found elevated levels of toxic chemicals. In one sample he captured readings of 79 ppb of benzene in the air and 200 ppb of sulfur dioxide. Armed with hard data on toxic releases in his neighborhood, Kelley repeatedly informed state and federal regulatory agencies of his findings and urged them to take action against the nearby plants that were violating their air permits. Often he was ignored but over time his campaign for cleaner air began to attract media attention. This, in turn, put pressure on regulatory agencies to act. Among the early victories Kelley and his colleagues won was an agreement with Valero that the company would reduce its emissions of sulfur dioxide at its Port Arthur plant from 225 tons to 125 tons annually. Flaring is down 20-25 percent and the regulatory agencies are issuing more citations for violations of its flaring rules. BASF and Valero have invested in some chemical recovery/ pollution control devices. And Kelley also convinced the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to impose a violation notice against the Motiva refinery for failure to report a number of “upsets” in which toxic chemicals were released.¹⁹

Community Enhancement Agreement Negotiated with Shell/Motiva Refinery

When Motiva Enterprises/ Shell Oil decided to expand their Port Arthur refinery by 125 percent, making it the largest in the nation, they were required to apply for a new air permit for these expanded operations. This gave Kelley and a coalition of activists who wanted to reduce pollution from the plant some leverage.

“Port Arthur residents on the West Side are tired of being dumped on and left out of the benefits of these billion dollar projects. If Motiva wants to build the biggest refinery in the nation on top of us then they need to be ready to sign a Good Neighbor Agreement that builds our community and protects our health,” Kelley asserted.²⁰ The expansion of the Motiva refinery in Port Arthur is projected to cause major increases in the amount of pollutants coming out of the plant and drifting into adjacent neighborhoods. If the expansion takes place, emissions from the Motiva refinery would increase 31 percent above 2003 levels of 7,340 tons to 9,632 tons. This would include major increases in sulfur dioxide and particulate pollutants both of which can cause respiratory harm, Kelley notes. Hydrogen sulfide emissions could also be expected to increase by 1.75 times, Kelley continues. What this means for West Side Port Arthur residents is “that they will have to breathe more dirty air,” he adds.

A Good Neighbor Agreement should include a buy-out option so that residents can sell their homes for a fair price; a decrease in emissions, upsets, and flare offs; an integrated monitoring network; a community environmental education and health center; an evacuation plan; and an independent program to monitor compliance, Kelley argues.

With help from the Sierra Club; Neil Carman at Greenbuilder.com; Denny Larson at Global Environmental (Community) Monitor; and a coalition of environmental justice activists, Kelley was able to hire Alex J. Saggerty, a specialist in air permit negotiations Jim Blackburn, an environmental lawyer worked pro bono. Together, they effectively blocked the Motiva expansion process for over a year. This regulatory intervention, in addition to a vigorous media campaign, brought Motiva officials to the negotiating table on November 6, 2006, to sign a Community Enhancement Agreement.

In addition to agreeing to put in place a more sophisticated system of pollution control and monitoring equipment, Motiva officials also committed to putting money into a community development fund on which Kelley will have a seat on the board of directors. Initially, Motiva will contribute $2 million to the fund, and, if certain criteria are met, there will be an additional $1.5 million matching grant. The fund will pay for improvements in the quality of housing, as well as fostering new commercial development, social and economic opportunities and community programs.

The second part of the agreement calls for installing pollution controls for cancer-causing benzene and the installation of air pollution controls sooner than initially proposed. Development fund money will also be used to purchase two new hand-help pollution monitors for CIDA, as well as new stationary air monitors to measure pollutants such as hydrogen sulfide, not currently monitored in Port Arthur. An advanced hydrogen sulfide odor detection device would also be purchased and installed. Funding will also be made available for an improved disaster warning system to protect residents in the event of potentially harmful releases of toxic chemicals; as well as funding for better access to health facilities for local residents. Finally, the agreement commits Motiva officials to provide for better exchanges of information about the operation of their plant with local residents, including an annual environmental report to the community.²¹

“This agreement has the potential of transforming West Port Arthur. It represents the social side of sustainable development, and holds out the hope of environmental and social equity for those living adjacent to the new refinery,” Kelley said after the signing.

He described the agreement as “unique in the United States.” 

Jim Blackburn, the environmental attorney who represented CIDA, was similarly enthusiastic: “This agreement starts to address a pattern of community neglect and injustice that has existed for decades in West Port Arthur. Our hope is that it will be the first of many steps toward equity for the community.” Blackburn lauded the settlement agreement as “the best example of a sustainable development agreement in the United States…The inclusion of a social component makes this settlement agreement both precedent-setting and exciting.”

While the Community Enhancement Agreement with Motiva is an important victory for Kelley, CIDA, and the coalition of environmental justice activists who supported the clean air campaign for Port Arthur’s West Side residents, it remains to be seen how the agreement will be implemented and who is chosen for the five jointly selected members of the fund’s board of directors.

Furthermore, there are many outstanding issues that are not resolved by the agreement. For example, there is nothing in the agreement that commits Motiva to pay for a buy-out option for those residents who want to move out of the community to avoid the additional pollution that the expanded facility will emit. Nor does the agreement make clear what will be the fate of the many elderly residents who already use oxygen tanks in order to survive the polluted air in their West Side apartments; and the large number of young people who need medication and treatments for pollution induced and aggravated asthma. Whether these vulnerable populations will be relocated or given substantial help remains to be seen.

¹ Paul Ryder, “Good Neighbor Campaign Handbook: How to Win,” iUniverse: Lincoln, NE, 2006.

² Hilton Kelley, Testimony to Senate EPW and Judiciary Committees, July 16, 2002.

³ Donavan Webster and Michael Scherer, “No Clear Skies,” Mother Jones, , September October, 2003

⁴ Michael May, “Port Arthur Blues: A Native Son Returns to Revitalize His Pollution-Plagued Neighborhood,” The Texas Observer, March 1, 2002. Cited in Public Citizen, op. cit.

⁵ Sanford Lewis, “The Safe Hometowns Guide,” The Safe Home Towns Initiative. ,safehometowns.org. Cited in Public Citizen, op. cit.

⁶ CLEAN, ibid.

⁷ Beth O’Brien, “Industrial Upset Pollution: Who Pays the Price? An Analysis of the Health and Financial Impacts of Unpermitted Industrial Emissions,” Public Citizen, August 2005.

⁸ O’Brien/ Public Citizen, Ibid., p. 32.

⁹ O’Brien/ Public Citizen, op. cit., p.35.

¹⁰ O’Brien/ Public Citizen, op. cit., p. 36.

¹¹ CLEAN, Houston Heroes, “Hilton Kelley: Standing Up for the West Side.”

¹² O’Brien/Public Citizen, op. cit., pp. 41,42.

¹³ O’Brien/Public Citizen, op. cit., p. 50.

¹⁴ O’Brien/Public Citizen, op. cit., p. 57.

¹⁵ O’Brien/Public Citizen, op. cit., p. 72.

¹⁶ O’Brien/Public Citizen, op. cit., p.68.

¹⁷ Hilton Kelley, Testimony, op. cit.

¹⁸ “Clean Air Elusive in Beaumont/ Port Arthur, Texas,” Environmental News Service, April 2, 2004.

¹⁹ CLEAN, op. cit.

²⁰ Global Community Monitor, CIDA, Refinery Reform Campaign “Agreement Reached with Shell on Port Arthur Refinery Expansion,” July 26, 2006.

²¹ Global Environmental Monitor, et al, “Agreement Reached…,” Ibid.