Photo courtesy of Yudith Nieto
Tomorrow I’m supposed to testify in court about the impacts of the polluting Valero refinery on my family in Houston. I won’t be able to, because a hurricane worsened by climate change is set to tear through our city at the same time. But the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) doesn’t mind -- they’re going to hold the hearing anyway, with or without me and the other people impacted by this dangerous, dirty refinery that is destroying our climate and hurting my family’s health.
The stakes are big in this hearing. The TCEQ is deciding whether to issue a permit for Valero to emit hydrogen cyanide (HCN), a toxic air pollutant, at their Houston refinery. HCN is more commonly known as Zyklon B, a poison most famously employed as an agent of chemical warfare and genocide. It’s also a byproduct of the process of refining petroleum. Valero has been emitting this stuff into my community all along, but was caught at it only recently. Rather than act to end this dangerous pollution, the state of Texas’s response has been to conduct a process to give Valero a permit to continue emitting HCN.
Tomorrow is the next hearing in the court case to determine just how much poison gas Valero can emit into my community. My family members are plaintiffs in the case because we live nearby the refinery and are directly impacted by the pollution. Where we live, we regularly witness the aftermath of hurricanes and storms that affect our health periodically with no accountability from the industries that continue to assault our wellbeing.
This hearing is supposed to be our one chance to have our voices heard in this broken and inadequate process. I planned to demand that no permit be issued, to argue that no amount of poison gas is appropriate to emit in my community where our kids run and play. But in the midst of a deadly hurricane, when my family and neighbors and I are scrambling to make our evacuation plans, TCEQ is going forward with their hearing.
I don’t even expect to have power or internet access by the time the hearing happens, because there is a hurricane headed right for us. If I can, I might try to call into the hearing from a safe place where we may also have difficulty connecting as we take shelter during the storm.
Where do the members of this commission charged with protecting my health even live? Apparently somewhere they can escape the consequences of this climate-driven natural disaster overtaking Houston. In this new world of governing by Zoom calls, it seems like regular people like me are increasingly going to be left out of the conversation, while decision-makers hide out in their air-conditioned second homes, far from the climate chaos they have helped to create.
This hearing should be rescheduled for a time when impacted people can actually participate. If it’s not, I encourage readers of this blog to attend the Zoom hearing in my stead. I understand the comments will be open for feedback from concerned community members.