Children's Health Defense By
By Huanjia Zhang
Toxic pollution from the petrochemical industry along the Houston Ship Channel in Texas is causing “devastating harms” to local communities, according to a new report by international human rights advocacy group Amnesty International.
The report underscores the climate, environmental and human rights tolls linked to petrochemical production, adding to the ongoing controversy surrounding the practices of the U.S. fossil fuel industry.
Home to the largest petrochemical industrial complex in the U.S., the Houston Ship Channel — a 52-mile waterway that stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to Houston — is encompassed by hundreds of industrial plants that convert oil and gas into chemical building blocks that can be further processed into products such as plastics, fertilizer and pesticides.
Meanwhile, the so-called fenceline communities — which are often predominantly Black, brown and low-income — live in close proximity to the plants, becoming the frontline to absorb the harmful impacts caused by petrochemical production, the report noted.
According to Houston city data, for instance, 86% of residents in Houston’s Harrisburg/Manchester neighborhood, which is adjacent to the ship channel and a Valero refinery, were Hispanic in 2019, with 41% of the residents having a household income of less than $25,000. The primary language for 76% of the residents was Spanish.
To evaluate the petrochemical industry’s impact, Amnesty International interviewed more than a dozen experts and 29 residents who have lived, worked or attended school within a three-mile radius of a petrochemical facility along the Houston Ship Channel.
The organization also reviewed documents provided by interviewees, studies, corporate disclosure, case law, as well as enforcement and compliance data.
They found elevated pollution and illness near the industrial footprint, thousands of air and water pollution violations by some of the major companies along the Ship Channel over the past decades and a lack of environmental enforcement by state and federal agencies.
The report concluded that petrochemical companies’ “irresponsible operating practices” infringed several human rights of the local communities, including the right to health, the right to a clean environment, the right access to information and the right to participation in decision-making.
The report zeroed in on three large companies operating in the Ship Channel. Three would not comment on the report.
The fourth, LyondellBasell, told Environmental Health News (EHN) through a spokesperson that the company follows all local, state and federal regulations when it comes to air and water pollution.
“We opted to look at a community in the United States where the racialized distribution of the human rights violations associated with petrochemical production is very clear,” Marta Schaaf, director of the Climate, Economic and Social Justice, and Corporate Accountability Programme at Amnesty International, told Environmental Health News (EHN).
Schaaf continued:
“We felt like documenting exactly how things are playing out — and how they should ideally be addressed was also a human rights priority.” …
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