By Rahul Naik

I grew up 15 miles from the W.A. Parish coal-fired power plant and played sports since the age of four. However, my parents and I, as well as countless others, were oblivious to the fact that every time I went out to play baseball or hop on my bike to cruise around the neighborhood with friends, I was being exposed to the deadliest power plant in Texas.  Located only 40 miles southwest of Houston, the Parish coal-fired power plant continues to operate today – silent, deadly, and insufficiently regulated – as the largest point source polluter in the state.

Parish was constructed from 1977 – 1981 and has persisted with little to no environmental regulation since then, despite being the third-largest emitter of sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and the ninth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the United States. SO₂ and CO₂ released into the air are converted to particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) in the form of sulfates and other byproducts. These minute particles can enter the lungs and bloodstream, leading to serious health issues, such as stroke and heart attack. The WHO estimates that 3 – 4 million people worldwide die prematurely due to health issues caused by PM2.5.

Dr. Daniel Cohan’s research group in Rice University’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering has done extensive research on the environmental threats posed by Parish.  His 2018 study estimates that Parish is responsible for 177 premature deaths annually. For reference, the next most deadly coal-fired power plant in Texas is responsible for 81 deaths.  In fact, according to Cohan, Parish emits more CO₂ annually than the state of Delaware.

From 2008 – 2016, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), consistently proposed very weak environmental state plans, which obtained EPA approval. In 2016, however, the Obama administration took a unique approach to regulating large polluters, like Parish. It implemented the Regional Haze Rule, which approached environmental regulation from the natural visibility angle of air pollution. This required best available retrofit technologies (BART) at plants built before scrubbers, apparatus that clean the gases passing through the smokestacks of coal-burning power plants, were required at the later-built plants. BART theoretically applied to Parish, but with 2016 being the last year of the Obama administration, BART never lasted. In 2018, the Trump administration replaced BART with “cap-and-trade.” Cap-and-trade set a “cap” on emissions that could be released, but in an almost malevolent manner, the emissions the cap was set at a level of magnitude of about 33 percent greater than current emissions in most cases. Even more, Scott Pruitt, President Trump’s EPA Chief and native of Oklahoma, required BART at all coal-fired power plants in his home state, while imparting cap-and-trade on all other states, including Texas. In his webinar, “Parish Is Burning”, Cohan details both the ineptitude and negligence shown by the Trump administration and TCEQ over the previous four years.

In 2017, a Department of Energy (DOE) grant in the amount of $195 million was given to NRG for the construction of a partial carbon capture unit Parish. This unit, called Petra Nova, was responsible for capturing CO₂ released into the air and sending that captured CO₂ to a South Texas drilling field. So engrained in the soul of Texas and America is the oil and gas market that ironically, a seemingly friendly environmental practice was utilized to power a process harmful to the very same Earth NRG pretended to help. NRG held a 50 percent stake in the oil obtained from that drilling field.

Petra Nova has since been mothballed, largely because of the financial hit that NRG took after the COVID-19 pandemic hit.  Conveniently, the energy provider did not publicize the move to shut down Petra Nova – instead, discontinued the carbon capture experiment as soon as it hit a three-year lifespan, the minimum lifespan required by the grant.

For all it lacks, Parish does have a selective catalytic reduction system, so it controls for nitrogen oxides (NO_x), another poisonous, highly reactive gas that can compromise lung functions by causing breathing problems, among other public health and environmental issues. However, SO₂ and CO₂ emissions are not controlled to any extent. In fact, when Petra Nova was operational, the partial carbon capture system reduced some CO₂ emissions, but those amounts were all but made up when the captured CO₂ was turned around and used to pump oil out of the ground, according to Cohan.

Not lost in this discussion is the fact that W.A. Parish has four units that burn coal. Only Unit 8, formerly Petra Nova, had any sort of controls on emissions (NO_x control and partial carbon capture). The other three have had uncontrolled emissions for as long as the plant has been operational and will continue to be a source of premature deaths and chronic health issues until action is taken.

I love my parents to death, and they have given me and my sister all the opportunity they possibly could have after immigrating to America from Zambia as teenagers.  Many other Houston-area families share this history and sentiment.  However, with Fort Bend serving as home to the most diverse county in the nation, there is no reason why it should also serve as home to one of the deadliest coal-fired power plants in the world.  We demand justice.  We demand action.