Thread by @USofDisaster

Thread on #PortNeches "an estimated 38,000 others live w/in a 3-mile radius of the plant.Three schools, two churches & a library are within a mile. Had the first blast occurred at 1 p.m. instead of 1 a.m., many more folks would have been in harm’s way."
beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/C…

2. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has oversight of the permitting and regulation of petrochemical facilities in the state. As of now the agency believes the #PortNeches TPC "incident" is under control.

3. Follow the air quality yourself if you are so inclined. It's soothing to see "no odor" reported so frequently. This type of monitoring is debated in the area-dependent as is on wind direction and speed and the frequency of sampling. tceq.texas.gov/downloads/resp…

4. The evacuation in Port Neches, & parts of Nederland, and Port Arthur is scary for the people there, & demanding on emergency responders, volunteers, journalists, & everyone involved with the relief effort. Especially considering that the fire is ongoing. (Photo @BmtEnterprise

@BmtEnterprise 5. In the midst of a disaster event focus is on making sense of it, & working the emergency: which is about 10 things wrapped up together. It's crucial to also remember that this is not one event, it's part of a process.

@BmtEnterprise 6. Look back over this year alone, 4 major explosions in the region. beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/I…

@BmtEnterprise 7. Or how about this-a story that made local news for years-the German Pellets biofuels facility that endangered workers and residents, then caught on fire and burned for almost two months. texasobserver.org/pollution-wood…

@BmtEnterprise 8. Stretch out the timeline & we are talking about disease. John Beard of the Port Arthur Community Action Network emphasizes that everyone in the community has been sick or knows someone with cancer. And it's not a new story at all. texasmonthly.com/articles/the-c…

@BmtEnterprise 9. Where's the government? TPC has run afoul of TCEQ and EPA, many times, for air and water quality violations. They've been fined thousands of dollars here and there. They are estimated to earn about 2.7 billion annually. It's asymmetric industrial warfare.

@BmtEnterprise 10. The deeper history is important. This is a plant that was built in the middle of WWII to make synthetic rubber. This was patriotic industrialism, at a time when the race to win the war outweighed safety concerns, and EPA didn't exist. tshaonline.org/handbook/onlin…

@BmtEnterprise 11. The Texas coast has been producing oil, and refining oil and chemicals since Spindletop opened the industry in 1901-at a time before cars! But for a long time oil co-existed with timber and fishing along the coast as part of a mixed extractive economy.

@BmtEnterprise 12. The intensification of the petrochemical grip on the southeast Texas coast is evident after WWII-it's made a lot of money for a lot of people-most of whom don't live in Jefferson County, TX, and almost none of whom live in Port Neches or Port Arthur.

@BmtEnterprise 13. So we come back to today's disaster, but not before one little note: just LAST WEEK the Trump Administration's EPA rolled back chemical plant safety rules that had gone in place after the 2013 West, Texas disaster. Yes, last week. beaumontenterprise.com/opinions/edito…

@BmtEnterprise 14. The #PortNeches disaster will soon slip off the national front page (if it ever gets there)-but if you tally up the deaths, the cancers & chronic illnesses, the broken lives, lost property values, despair and PTSD then you see a #slowdisaster of massive proportions.

@BmtEnterprise 15. We didn't even talk about the fact that this whole region was hit by Hurricane Ike and then drowned by Hurricane Harvey. Residents there have been #livingindisaster for so long now it's hard to see what normal is. Spare them a thought.

@BmtEnterprise And please support local journalists and environmental activists @KaitlinBain @BmtEnterprise @EnvironmentTex
@Revkin @DanielPAldrich @GabrielleHecht @tmschtz @anthrocur @JD_Ludwig @buckystanton END

@BmtEnterprise @KaitlinBain @EnvironmentTex @Revkin @DanielPAldrich @GabrielleHecht @tmschtz @anthrocur @JD_Ludwig @buckystanton PS: Here's a nice up-is-down statement on the TPC website: "We will always serve the communities where we operate by creating value through environmental stewardship, social responsibility and economic prosperity."

Maybe we should all give their "Ethics Hotline" a call?