Chevron And Dupont Post-Katrina Expansions Show Corporate Opportunism At Worst
Right after Hurricane Katrina when gas prices were high, Chevron CEO David J. O'Reilly blamed the high prices on lack of refinery capacity in the U.S.
"Nobody seems to want a refinery in their backyard," O'Reilly said. (See
http://www.chevron.com/news/speeches/2004/2004-06-24_oreilly.asp).
However, Chevron thinks it is perfectly fine to put the equivalent of a new refinery in Pascagoula, which has an F rating for air quality from the American Lung Association and ranks in the top ten percent of most polluted counties in the U.S. The Pascagoula refinery is Chevron's largest, and the seventh largest refinery in the country. It would become the third largest refinery in the country with the proposed expansion.
On the day that Pres. George Bush made his tenth visit to Mississippi Gulf Coast, Chevron quietly announced intentions to double the size of their refinery. The same day, DuPont First Chemical announced plans to dump the controversial chemical PFOA into local waters. Both big industries shamelessly used the cover of a Presidential visit to downplay their intentions to take the devastation of Katrina as an opportunity to push through major industry expansions that would not be welcome anywhere else in the U.S.-or even most foreign countries!
Chevron Refinery has flooded twice with hurricanes in eight years, first with Hurricane Georges and then with Hurricane Katrina. DuPont First Chemical also flooded. But with the industry lapdog government regulatory agencies denying there are any pollution impacts from industries flooding from hurricanes, the way is paved for industries to continue to produce even more pollution in a county with one of the highest cancer rates in the country.
Chevron had a record $5 billion in profit in the third quarter of 2006 alone. Yet when it comes to expansions, Chevron acts like miser. It avoids putting in the best pollution controls by avoiding the New Source Review requirements of the Clean Air Act.
The refinery expansion comes on top of two other major threats to the safety and well-being of the people of Pascagoula. Chevron is proposing a huge Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal on shore in Pascagoula under a subsidiary, Bayou Casotte Energy LLC. Another company, Gulf Energy LNG, is proposing another LNG plant just south of Chevron.
LNG is natural gas super cooled to take up less space. That means one huge LNG tanker can hold the energy equivalent of 50 Hiroshima bombs. There are huge safety considerations from the threat or terrorism, collisions or human errors.
A terrorist attack on an LNG tanker "would have the force of a small nuclear explosion," says Lloyd's of London.
The Department of Energy (DOE) has determined that a catastrophic
release of LNG could result from a vessel collision. The Mobile Press Register has reported that, "Top officials with the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Coast Guard now acknowledge that ships designed to carry liquefied natural gas are, in fact, constructed using tons of highly flammable polystyrene insulation."
The Bahamas soundly rejected plans for LNG because of the danger. And there are so many legitimate safety concerns that Alabama Gov. Bob Reilly, a Republican, was instrumental in stopping plans for an LNG port in Mobile.
There is no hope for such help for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. In fact, Barbour's largest campaign contributor in 2005 was $15,000 from Jamal Daniel of Houston, Texas, an executive with Crest Investment Group which is proposing the Gulf Energy LNG plant in Pascagoula. Neil Bush, the president's brother, is co chairman of Crest Investment Group.
"Bush's role at Crest became public last year during his divorce proceedings," the LA Times has reported. "In a sworn deposition, he described himself as co-chairman of Crest, which he called a "financial investment entity." He said he was paid about $60,000 a year for providing "maybe three or four hours a week" in miscellaneous consulting services."
In Jackson County, one county supervisor is employed with Chevron, another supervisor is retired from Chevron, and another is retired from Northrop Grumman. The supervisors have supported the LNG plans and, in fact, have indicated they plan to give ten-year tax exemptions to the LNG plants that would cost about $600 million each. A majority on the board of supervisors supports ten-year tax exemptions for all industry (in order to get it for their industry, they have to be "consistent) instead of considering tax exemptions based on the number of jobs created.
Hence, developments that only produce 30 to 50 jobs per LNG port while raising the risk of a catastrophic accident are on track to get millions in tax breaks for developments that would not be welcome anywhere else in the U.S. In fact, the companies are even discussing requesting to pay a fee in lieu of taxes. With regular ten-year tax exemptions, industries still have to pay school taxes. With the fee in lieu of taxes, Chevron-which had $14 BILLION in profits in 2005--wouldn't even have to pay school taxes. Neither would Gulf Energy LNG.
Both of these companies are LLC (Limited Liability Companies). If there was an accident that caused widespread damage and death in Pascagoula, their liability would be very small. At the very least, if the Jackson County Board of Supervisors is going to give tens of millions in tax breaks for this industry, it should require both companies to accept full responsibility for any accidents that claim life or property in Jackson County. If this is as safe as the industries claim, there should be no problem accepting responsibility for any accidents results.
These major industry expansions come on the heels of Chevron's already doing a 23 percent increase in refinery capacity in 2005. Residents of Pascagoula report since the expansion that there is a "roar" from the refinery that can be heard from far away. Residents also report that air pollution is particularly bad at night when the refinery cranks up production.
Currently there are still about 4,000 families living in FEMA trailers in Pascagoula. When these people leave their FEMA trailers to walk across the yard to work on rebuilding their home, they should be able to breathe the air without getting nauseated and increasing their risk of cancer and respiratory disease. They also should have received assistance in having contaminated sludge materials that washed ashore from Katrina removed by hazardous materials specialists.
Instead, residents of Pascagoula and Moss Point are left to clean up the toxic pollution washed ashore after decades of operations at local chemical plants and refineries. Ninety five percent of Pascagoula went under water with Katrina, and 15 months later people are still struggling to rebuild homes, businesses and lives. These residents shouldn't have to also fight huge new safety risks and pollution from LNG plants, a doubling of the pollution from Chevron, and DuPont's PFOA problem.
Oh, and these same citizens who have been devastated by Hurricane Katrina are supposed to pay the lion's share of county taxes so that some of the biggest industries in the world can get amass even higher profits.
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