(Update) The Oil Industry in the Gulf of Mexico: A History of Environmental Injustices

September 2006

SOUTHWEST WORKERS UNION
Executive Board
President: Nick Charles Vice-President: Silvia Rosas Secretary: Robert Alvarado

Much has happened since Southwest Workers Union released The Oil

Industry in the Gulf of Mexico: a History of Environmental Injustices in
2003. The devastating hurricane season of 2005 altered the social, physical and political landscape of the Gulf Coast as communities struggle for survival and the basic human rights to return and rebuild. Politicians and private developers seek to remake New Orleans with the help of corporate welfare poorly disguised as government “aid” to the region. In the name of energy security and job creation, we’ve seen a push for more deep sea oil extraction in the Gulf, refinery expansions and new power plants in communities already suffering disproportionate impacts. Meanwhile major accidents in the industry have demonstrated once again exactly how dangerous it is to work or live near the petrochemical industry. This update to SWU’s 2003 report seeks to characterize the shifting context of the energy industry in the Gulf, the devastating impacts of climate change and racism, and provide a regional framework to support movement-building and the strategic analysis of Gulf Coast communities in resistance.

CoDirectors
Ché López Genaro L. Rendon

Program Developer
Ruben Solis

Research editor: Lara Cushing

This report was made possible by the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative

Southwest Workers' Union P.O. Box 830706 San Antonio, TX 78283-0706 Phone: 210-299-2666 Fax: 210-299-4009 www.swunion.org

Oil, Wind an d Water
A companion report to

The Oil Industry in the Gulf of Mexico: A History of Environmental Injustices

Table of Contents
A MAN-MADE DISASTER
1 3 4 5 6 New Orleans: No relief in sight Indigenous and Immigrant Communities after the Oil, Wind and Water Hurricane Impacts in Mexico Resistance and Reconstruction: the Grassroots Response to Katrina

Storms 3

ENERGY INDUSTRY EXPANSIONS
6 7 8 9 Oil drilling Refineries Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Coal-fired Power plants

ACCIDENTS AS USUAL
10 10 11 Spotlight on Texas Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana Mexico’s ageing pipelines

THE PUSH TO PRIVATIZE IN MEXICO PROFITS & POLITICS TOWARDS CLIMATE JUSTICE

A MAN-MADE DISASTER On August 29th 2005, hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. Gulf Coast with 140 mph winds. Massive flooding and wind in Louisiana and Mississippi leveled entire towns. Hundreds were killed in the aftermath of the storm, as the federal government abandoned people for days without aid. In the weeks to follow, hurricanes Rita, Stan and Wilma would decimate coastal Texas, South Florida, Southern Mexico, and other nations of the Caribbean and Central America. These were no natural disasters. Climate change, oil industry operations, and institutional and personal racism all interacted to create this tragedy for poor and people of color communities in the Gulf Coast. The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the most active on record, with 27 major storms including 14 hurricanes, five of those being Category 5 storms. As sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico continue to warm, we will see more such intense storm seasons1,2. That warming of sea temperatures is being accelerated by the burning of fossil fuels, which produces the heat-trapping gases that fuel global warming. Meanwhile, the intense extraction and shipping operations of the oil and gas industry have eroded the marshes, wetlands, and barrier islands that used to protect the Gulf Coast from storm surges. Louisiana’s marshes alone lose an average of 34 square miles per year, 90% of the annual wetland loss in the lower 48 states3. Pipelines and shipping channels are a big contributor to that loss: 14,800 miles of pipeline and 3,000 miles of navigation channels criss-cross Louisiana’s coastal wetlands.4 Slicing through the swamps, these cuts bring salt water inland that kills the grass and trees

14,800 miles of pipeline and 3,000 miles of navigation channels speed up the erosion of the wetlands that used to protect Louisiana from storm surges. These photos are of the Barataria Basin southwest of New Orleans in 1945 (left) and 1998 (right). (1)

needed to keep the wetlands from eroding. Levees prevent Mississippi River sediment from depositing and replenishing wetland soils while the pumping of fossil fuels causes the land to submerge, leading to flooding. This destruction of the coastline caused huge storm waves from hurricanes Katrina and Rita to crash directly into the Gulf Coast. In New Orleans, the storm surge first overtopped and then breached much of the levee system, flooding 80% of the city, which remained underwater for over a month.

New Orleans: No relief in sight
The history of environmental racism is what led to the concentration of the petrochemical industry in the Gulf Coast in the first place, where polluting facilities are most often cited in poor people of color communities. Similarly, African American neighborhoods were the worst hit by the flooding of New Orleans because they were located in lower-lying parts of the city. The response to hurricane Katrina also demonstrated with painful clarity the depth of racism in the U.S. Those without the means to evacuate were abandoned in the flooded city for days. Tens of thousands of evacuees (almost

exclusively black, in a city that was over a quarter white) were herded into the Superdome and New Orleans Convention Center without relief supplies, medical care, adequate sewage systems, or basic security. Many died waiting to be rescued from the stifling heat, squalor and disease caused by lack of sanitation. Desperate survivors who were searching for food were accused of looting. African Americans fleeing the storm were turned away from towns, their vehicles expropriated, survival camps destroyed, and even shot at by law enforcement5. Prisoners in the Orleans Parish Prison Tempelton III, again mostly people of color imprisoned for petty offenses, were abandoned in their locked cells for four days as flood waters reached chest level.6

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The subsequent “relief effort” has amounted to the massive appropriation of African American-owned property, plundering by private-sector developers and land-speculators, and the violent dismantling of the one African-American political stronghold in the South. No effort was made by government officials to track where displaced people ended up after their forced relocation – meaning that property can be more easily taken and residents evicted because the owners or renters supposedly cannot be located or contacted. Without affordable rental properties, loan refinancing or rebuilding assistance to deal with the lack of insurance coverage, most residents in the hardest hit, AfricanAmerican neighborhoods will permanently loose their homes. Funds for rebuilding are being dispersed based on the number of residents in a neighborhood and their ability to draw up their own redevelopment plans. Poor communities without the means to travel back to New Orleans, much less fix up their homes to a livable condition or hire an urban planner, are being denied aid and instead targeted for razing and massive selloffs to private developers.

® Refineries i Crude Oil Terminals ● Federal Platforms

Oil and natural gas infrastructure in the path of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. (3)

huge give-aways to corporations. Emergency Management Agency The majority of federal relief “aid” has awarded in contracts has gone has in fact gone to giant firms such to businesses headquartered in as KBR (a subsidiary of Halliburton) Louisiana, Mississippi, or Alabama, and the Shaw Group. Many of the and only 1.5% went to minoritylarge corporations that were owned businesses.7 awarded federal clean-up and security contracts have gotten away State officials have privatized the with massive fraud and profiteering public schools in New Orleans, and the teacher and sanitation workers while insulating themselves from unions have been dismantled. In worker abuse and poverty wages communities desperately in need of with layers of subcontractors. well-paying jobs, Bush waived the Meanwhile, the Small Business Administration denied loans to local “Davis-Bacon” provision that requires federal government businesses and homeowners facing contractors to pay the prevailing bankruptcy and foreclosures, while allowing large corporations $2 billion wage. This means that carpenters that were once paid $13.42/hr in in federal contracts and excluding local minority contractors. Less than Jefferson Parish, LA, for example, What was a disaster for the residents 17% of the money the Federal now only have to be paid federal of the Gulf Coast was a huge minimum wage of $5.15. business opportunity for the oil Contractors are free to TURNING TRASH INTO GOLD industry and large corporations. Ashbritt is one of many large companies that use exploit migrant laborers, Within weeks of the disaster, lawyers subcontracting to make big profit from federal who are forced to work relief money. (4) for the Murphy Oil refinery in St. under dire conditions for Bernard Parish were offering to buy very little pay because up homes in Meraux for a refinery they lack legal protection. expansion. In an area already This is an effort by hugely disproportionately impacted developers to pit African by industrial pollution, President American residents Bush suspended environmental against Latino immigrants regulations for new development. for scarce, low-paying, While people displaced by Katrina temporary jobs. are being denied the right of return or any direct financial assistance to What is at stake in the rebuild their homes, the federal and reconstruction of New state governments are dolling out Orleans? The forced
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and are prevented by language and cultural barriers from navigating the mountain of paperwork required to apply for FEMA aid. The Vietnamese community in the Gulf Coast region suffered heavily from the storms and its aftermath. Many rely on shrimping for a living. It’s been estimated that 4 out of 5 shrimp boats in Port Arthur, TX were destroyed during hurricane Rita, in an industry that has already been induced erosion of the barrier islands hard hit by a declining shrimp only made this worse; the Isle of Jean population. The neighborhood of New Orleans East, the largest Claude, for example, now floods at community of Vietnamese high tide. With land loss comes the loss of tradition and culture for these Americans in the U.S., resisted the dumping of toxic waste from the native communities. destroyed city into Chef Manteur The United Houma Nation was one of the most impacted by the storms. Over a thousand members of the United Houma communities were left homeless after Katrina in lower Palquemines, St. Bernard, and Jefferson Parishes. Hurricane Residents of the primarily Vietnamese Rita then pushed a huge storm community of New Orleans East stand up to surge into the Houma bayou the landfill in their neighborhood designated to accept toxic waste after Katrina. (7) communities in LaFourche and Terrebonne parishes. 10,000 landfill. This waste included toxic homes were flooded in Terrebonne Parish alone, and thousands in these materials such as asbestos, electrical components, paint, bleach, and already impoverished communities material contaminated with mold and petrochemicals. The landfill had none of the protective measures to contain toxic waste, and was approved in a back-room deal where the private waste disposal company Waste Management Inc. promised the city a 22% kickback Debris in front of a house on Isle de from its revenue. After a long Jean Charles, an indigenous opposition struggle against the community heavily impacted by landfill the community was able to hurricanes Katrina and Rita (6) get it closed.9 lost their livelihoods as well. The Gulf Coast’s undocumented The federal response has been one of communities, including the large denial and neglect. Many of the community of Hondurans (many of smaller tribes, including the United whom emigrated after being Houma Nation, are denied federal displaced 8 years ago by Hurricane aid because they are not federally Mitch), Mexicans, Brazilians, and recognized. Many traditional Salvadorians were denied any aid in community members speak French, the wake of the hurricanes. The
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relocation of thousands of people is destroying the one African American political stronghold in the South. Less than a year after Hurricane Katrina, the make-up of the city has reversed from more than 70% black to approximately 70% white. In New Orleans’ 2006 mayoral election, thousands of African American voters were disenfranchised because no polls were established outside of Louisiana, despite the fact that over 80% of blacks were estimated to still be scattered in exile across the country (Iraqi citizens, though, were able to vote in their country’s 2006 elections from polls in the U.S.). Without the effective right to return, the black voices of New Orleans will be drowned in the white majority of the electoral districts where they relocated.

Indigenous & Immigrant Communities after the Storms
Up to 11,000 Native Americans in the Louisiana coast lost their homes to hurricanes Katrina and Rita.8 The tribes hardest hit in Louisiana were the United Houma Nation, the Pointe-au-Chien Tribe, the Isle de Jean Charles Indian Band of BiloxiChitimasha, the Grand CaillouDulac Band and the BiloxiChitimasha Confederation of Muskogees. Many of these communities were already facing forced relocation as erosion and subsidence, due to the activities of the oil and gas industry, flooded their traditional lands. Hurricane-

reported in the aftermaths of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Guest workers demand the pay dumping an estimated 9 million Oil, Wind and Water they were promised by Decatur gallons12. In one of the largest spills Hotels, LLC, one of New Orlean’s ever in Louisiana, 3.78 million gallons largest hotel companies. (8) The oil industry also caused direct of oil were released into the Cox Bay damage during hurricanes Katrina Department of Homeland Security southwest of New Orleans from the and Rita. 600 toxic chemical threatened to arrest and deport any facilities are located within the path Bass Enterprise Production Company undocumented people seeking aid. of Katrina’s category 4 winds, and facility. After flooding dislodged an The same agency then turned above-round storage tank at the the heavily industrialized towns of around and said that it would not Murphy Oil refinery, over 25,000 Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas punish employers in the affected barrels of crude oil were released were amongst the hardest hit by region who hire workers without the Hurricane Rita. It is common into the town of Meraux, LA, legally required documents. practice for these polluting industries contaminating up to 10,000 homes. to intentionally dump chemicals The extent of leaks from off-shore oil during storms, when they will be platforms and pipelines and the diluted in the excess wastewater and can go unreported. During the effect on wildlife may never be flooding, those pollutants no doubt known. Over 2,000 platforms and ended up in people’s homes, yards, approximately 15,366 miles of seafloor pipeline lay within the path schools and playgrounds. At least of hurricane-force winds. The 595 accidental spills of oil, natural gas and other petrochemicals were Mineral Management Service has reported that 457 pipelines were
150-200 migrant workers employed by FEMA and the City of New Orleans City are charged rent to live in this makeshift encampment without running water or electricity. (9) (11) A toxic soup: Over 25% of soil samples taken in the five months after

backbreaking labor, and major U.S. corporations on contract with the federal government to rebuild New Orleans have been sued for cheating thousands of immigrants out of their already low wages.10 Those that had come on H-2B guest worker visas are not allowed to find a job with another employer, even when they are not provided with the amount of work or pay promised. Major U.S. companies reaped huge profits from these crimes, while hiding behind layers of contractors and sub-contractors.11

The Chevron oil refinery in Empire, LA sits underwater after Katrina. The third largest oil spill of 991,000 gallons occurred here in the aftermath of the storm. (10)

Latino, Native American, African American and other migrant workers were lured from all over by the promise of jobs to clean up and rebuild New Orleans in the wake of the storm. Forced to work long hours in dangerous conditions without safety equipment or health insurance, workers faced snakes, asbestos, and the toxic soup of contamination left by the flood waters. They were systematically underpaid or not paid at all for this

Katrina from across New Orleans met the Environmental Protection Agency’s definition of hazardous waste, and over 90% of samples contained toxic diesel fuel ingredients. Community soil sampling of residential areas and a school playground in Chalmette and Meraux, LA, showed these toxins exceeded federal and state standards: Heavy Metals Long-term Health Effects Arsenic bladder, skin, lung and other cancers Cadmium cancer, kidney and bone damage Chromium lung cancer Semi-Volatile Organic Compounds Benzo(a)anthracene probable cancer agent Benzo(b)fluoranthene possible cancer agent Indeno(1 ,2,3-c,d)pyrene possible cancer agent Benzo(a)pyrene probable cancer agent Dibenzo(a,h)anthracene possible cancer agent

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damaged, 113 platforms destroyed, and six large oil spills released at least 362,000 gallons into the Gulf in the wake of Katrina and Rita13. A full five months after Katrina ships were still colliding with wrecked and sunken oil platforms, one crash resulting in one of the Gulf’s largest oil spills of between 1 and 3 million gallons.14

Katrina-related oil spills in Louisiana (12) Bass Enterprises Production Company (Cox Bay) - 3.78 million gallons Shell (Pilot Town) - 1.05 million gallons Chevron (Empire) - 991,000 gallons Murphy Oil Corporation (Meraux) - 819,000 gallons Bass Enterprises (Point a la Hache) - 461,000 gallons Chevron (Port Fourchon) - 53,000 gallons Venice Energy Services Company (Venice): 25,000 gallons Shell Pipeline Oil (Nairn) - 13,440 gallons Sundown Energy (West Potash) - 13,000 gallons

faced famine after their crops were wiped out. Three weeks later, hurricane Wilma, the most intense storm ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico, destroyed Mayan communities on the Yucatan coast before heading for A tangle of underwater oil pipelines off the coast of Cuba and Louisiana (the green lines) lay directly in the path of Florida.15 Hurricane Katrina. The black areas are oil slicks captured Indigenous in a satellite image from September 2, 2005. (13) communities in the municipality of Tizimín were still underwater two Hurricane Impacts in Mexico weeks after Wilma while Mexican officials rushed to rebuild the tourist In early October 2005, hurricane industry in the resort town of Stan made landfall south of Cancún. Thousands of indigenous in Veracruz on the Gulf Coast of the highlands of Tapachula, Chiapas had yet to receive governmental aid Mexico, causing massive flooding, a month after Stan.15 landslides and destruction in southern Mexican, Guatemala, El 200,000 hectares of farmland were Salvador, Honduras, and Costa Rica. destroyed by the two storms and The region’s indigenous communities over half of the coffee, banana, were especially decimated by the papaya, and mango crops were lost storms. Landslides aggravated by in Southern Mexico.16 Facing famine, deforestation buried hundreds in the many farmers were forced to Guatemalan highlands, where whole migrate north in search of work. villages were declared mass graves Their undocumented status and and abandoned by government racism in the U.S. mean these rescue forces. Some Mayan workers face exploitation, communities in Guatemala refused harassment, and deplorable living military aid, haunted by memories conditions. of that same military massacring their people during the country’s 36Resistance and Reconstruction: year civil war. Over 200,000 acres of corn in Veracruz State alone were the Grassroots Response to Katrina destroyed, and many campesin@s
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Where the government failed, local community-based organizations and faith-based groups cared for the needs of hurricane-displaced people and are building a movement for just reconstruction. Despite the lack of electricity or sanitation services and with their offices and records destroyed, grassroots organizations shifted their efforts to provide direct relief to their members. Forty-five such organizations have come together in the wake of the storms to form the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Committee (PHRF) in order to build a grassroots, people-of-color led reconstruction movement. The failure of the U.S. government to care for the poor and people of color was broadcast internationally and with the most searing brutality during the response to hurricanes Katrina & Rita. This tragedy must be seized as a catalyst for multi-racial, bottom-up organizing of a “third Reconstruction” to lift up not only the Black community of New Orleans, but the indigenous, urban poor, homeless, undocumented, and incarcerated communities.17 Economic policies that pit working class African American communities against Latino immigrant laborers are a challenge to that vision, and demonstrate the need for BlackBrown alliance building against common systems of oppression. The mass immigrant mobilizations of the spring of 2006 have demonstrated the power of the movement for immigrant rights, and the potential

Representative from over 30 organizations visit communities ravished by hurricanes Katrina & Rita to forge alliances to build solutions from the ground up. (14)

that lies in Black-Brown solidarity organizing. ENERGY INDUSTRY EXPANSIONS

violence in the Middle East, and disasters in the Gulf Coast are to Big Oil. With those kinds of profits at stake, oil companies are going to ever greater lengths to exploit the last existing reserves. For example, the giant oil rig “Petronius”, which is co-owned by Chevron and Marathon Oil, cost over $500 million to build. Taller than the Sears Tower, Petronius’ wells bore downward through almost 1,800 feet of seawater, a mile and a half of rock, and then veer off laterally under the seabed for distances of up to 5 miles.18 Over 100 similar gigantic rigs are operating in the Gulf of Mexico and 45 of the 94 exploration wells being drilled in the Gulf in April 2006 were in water

hurricane damage to the coastal wetlands and oil infrastructure. Meanwhile, the U.S. House and Senate have passed bills that would open up whole new sections of the Gulf to drilling. These bills would lift moratoriums that have been in place for over 25 years in order to

2005’s hurricane season clearly illustrated how instrumental the Gulf Coast is to the U.S.’s petroleum supply. 113 offshore oil platforms were destroyed during Katrina and Rita, while the country’s refining capacity fell 28%. And yet before existing infrastructure has even been fully assessed for damages, dozens of permits to expand energy operations in the region have been filed. The expansion effort by energy corporations is taking advantage of relaxed environmental and labor regulations, weakened community opposition as residents struggle to An oil rig beached on Dauphin Island after hurricane Katrina (15) meet basic needs in the wake of the storms, and the political push for sodepths of over 1,000 feet.19 Chevron’s called energy independence as recent announcement of the violence rages in the Middle East discovery of 3-15 billion barrels over and gas prices soar. five miles beneath the surface of the Gulf is expected to create a Oil drilling resurgence of oil drilling in the Gulf.20 This means even more oil moving The claim that the U.S. can ever drill through the low-income and people itself to energy independence dies in of color communities living near oil the face of a very basic truth: the industry operations in the Gulf Coast. U.S. uses a quarter of the crude pumped on the planet, yet it sits The federal Mineral Management atop just 3 percent of the world’s Service is supporting the expansion reserves. However, energy company in drilling by going ahead with leases profits over the last year have on over 42 million acres for demonstrated just how valuable exploration in the Western and those dwindling barrels of oil, Central Gulf, without considering
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Workers wade through oil at Valero’s Port Arthur refinery, which was shut for several weeks due to damage from hurricane Rita. (16)

protect coastal and fishing communities from the inevitable contamination that accompanies offshore oil operations. Mexico has also announced a “new era” of oil exploration with the penetration of a large deep sea oil field over 3 miles below sea level. Drilling of this well off the coast of Veracruz will lead to more oil spills, further impacting the fisheries, and bring more oil into the heavily impacted communities living in and around Coatzacoalcos.

Refineries
CITGO’s Lake Charles, Louisiana refinery, which expanded its capacity by 35% in 2005, is planning another $1.3 billion post-hurricane expansion project. Expansions of the Calcasieu Refinery in Lake Charles and the ConocoPhillips refinery in nearby Westlake are also planned.21 All three refineries are in one of the most industrialized areas in the country, where 53 industrial facilities pollute the water and air. Deaths from heart disease amongst residents in nearby Mossville, an impoverished African American community, are

In Port Arthur, TX, Motiva Enterprises has proposed to more than double its refining capacity, which would make it the largest refinery in the nation. Emissions including particulate matter, sulphur dioxide, sulphuric acid and carbon monoxide would increase In 2003 the Motiva refinery in Port by over 30%. At the same time Arthur and neighboring Huntsman Motiva is fighting to get out of chemical plant flared toxic paying property taxes to the state contaminants into the air of the and local Port Arthur Independent nearby El Vista community after the School District, insisting that its $3.8 refinery lost power. Having a back-up billion expansion project be valued power supply is common safety at less than 1% of its actual value procedure. Motiva wants to double for tax purposes. Total the plant’s capacity. (17) Petrochemicals has proposed a its Pascagoula, MS refinery, and is new $1 billion coker unit in Port Arthur as well, and three large LNG considering another expansion terminals projects are being built in project that would boost refining the same area.28 Valero is nearly capacity 60%. Chevron has also finished with a 30% increase in the announced it is considering refining capacity of its Port Arthur Pascagoula for a new refinery and plant, and in 2003 finished separate liquefied natural gas expanding its Texas City refinery.29 In Shreveport, LA, Calumet project, and asked the hurricaneIndustry is also pushing to expand ravaged state for $22 million to Lubricants & Waxes received a 26 the Sabine-Neches Waterway to expand access roads. This despite permit to re-start refining gasoline Beaumont, through which about 15% of the 1. Altamira, Tapulipas Existing and proposed LNG terminal projects 2. Port Pelican (Chevron Texaco) crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico (18) 3. Port Lavaca, TX (Calhoun LNG – Gulf Coast LNG supplied to Partners) refineries east 4. Beacon Port Clean Energy Terminal (ConocoPhillips) of the Rockies 5. Gulf Gateway Energy Bridge (Excelerate Energy) 6. Gulf Landing (Shell) is delivered.30 Marathon announced plans for a $2.2 billion expansion of its refinery in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley near Garyville, LA, just after hurricane Katrina in October 2005. The expansion will increase Marathon’s refining capacity by nearly 75%.23 Other toxic industries are following suit, with Dupont and Dow expanding existing operations, and Dow proposing a new vinyl plant for St. Charles Parish. Motiva has already received large tax incentives to expand its Norco refinery, and is considering expanding its Convent facility as well.24 Hungry for industry in the wake of the hurricanes, local officials are welcoming the expansions with open arms despite the huge disproportionate health impact for residents.25
7. Main Pass McMoRan Exp. 8. Corpus Christi, TX (Ingelside Energy – Occidental Energy Ventures) 9. Corpus Christi, TX (Vista del Sol – ExxonMobil) 10. Corpus Christi, TX (Cheniere LNG) 11. Sabine, TX (Golden Pass – ErxxonMobil) 12. Port Arthur, TX (Sempra) 13. Freeport, TX (Cheniere/Freeport LNG Dev.) 14. Freeport, TX (Cheniere/Freeport LNG Dev. expansion) 15. Sabine, LA (Sabine Pass Cheniere LNG expansion) 16. Sabine, LA (Sabine Pass Cheniere LNG) 17. Cameron, LA (Creole Trail LNG – Cheniere LNG) 18. Lake Charles, LA (Southern Union – Trunkline LNG) 19. Hackberry, LA (Cameron LNG – Sempra Energy) 20. Hackberry, LA (Cameron LNG – Sempra Energy expansion) 21. Pascagoula, MS (Gulf LNG Energy LLC) 22. Pascagoula, MS (Casotte Landing – ChevronTexaco) 23. Bienville Offshore Energy Terminal – TOPR

2.5 times higher than the national average. Cancer death rates are 1.6 times higher than the rest of the nation, and residents also suffer from an incredibly high rate of nervous system, skin, and immune system disorders associated with toxic chemical exposure.22

and other petrochemical fuels in December 2005 despite public protest about the 235% increase in toxic air contaminants it will bring. Chevron is finishing an expansion of

the fact that industrial facilities here, including two Dow chemical plants adjacent to Chevron refinery, were flooded by over 14 foot storm waves during hurricane Katrina. Local residents reported oil scum in their yard and wells after the floods.27

Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)
In addition to being a center of the U.S. oil industry, the Gulf Coast is the major hub for U.S. natural gas production,
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Constructed Approved Proposed

storage and distribution. A major initiative is under way to build infrastructure for receiving, processing, and storing liquefied natural gas (LNG). LNG is natural gas that has been super cooled into a liquid, reducing its volume 600 times so that it can be transported long distances. LNG is imported from overseas in giant tankers at -260˚F. It then has to be reheated into a gas in order to be transported through pipelines to utility companies.

What are the impacts of LNG on communities? The natural gas industry likes to portray gas as the “clean” fuel because it has fewer emissions when burned than other fossil fuels. However, like any giant industrial facility, LNG terminals will Permits for 17 new coal-fired power plants are bring huge increases The three existing LNG terminals in being pushed through normal environmental in the traffic that the Gulf Region are the Trunkline regulations by Texas Governor Perry’s fastcauses smog and terminal in Lake Charles, LA, a tracking order. (19) respiratory disease. stem global warming or lessen the Often offshore facilities are U.S. reliance on fossil fuels. Just like regulated as islands and their oil, natural gas is a finite fossil fuel impact on air quality in coastal that releases greenhouse gases when communities does not have to be burned. In fact, LNG releases more considered by regulators when they greenhouses than domestic natural grant permits. LNG can undergo what is called rapid phase transition gas because it has a different chemical composition. when it comes into contact with water. A huge explosion of energy is An LNG tanker moving into the Coal-fired power plants released as the liquid is instantly Calcasieu Ship Channel heading for an converted to gas. With LNG LNG terminal south of Lake Charles, New regulations and increasing terminals necessarily come more LA. One modern tanker carries 20 times natural gas pipelines, and once the natural gas costs are creating a rash the amount of LNG that incinerated a of new coal-fired power plants across one mile radius area of Cleveland in an LNG is reheated, it is highly LNG accident in 1944. the country. Relaxed standards for flammable. Vapor clouds released mercury pollution made cheap coal in accidents can cause massive terminal in Peñuelas, Puerto Rico, more attractive for power vapor fires. and the Gulf Gateway Energy companies, and the Energy Policy Bridge offshore. Though the major Act of 2005 gave federal loan Offshore LNG terminals threaten markets for natural gas are the communities that depend on fishing guarantees and over $3 billion in Northeast and California, 13 new federal tax credits for dirty coal. because they harm sea life. Most of terminals have already been Under orders from Governor Rick the offshore terminals proposed approved for the Gulf and Texas, Perry to fast-track approval for new would use a system for re-heating Louisiana and Tamaulipas coasts, the gas called “open loop”. Billions of power plant construction, Texas is more by far than any other region in currently considering 17 new coalgallons of warm sea water are the U.S. Another eight have been pumped past tubes full of gas, killing burning power plants to be built in proposed. If all 21 are built, that the next 3-5 years. Texas already would mean an over 10-fold increase millions of plankton, fish eggs, and leads the nation in mercury emissions other sea life that is essential to in the number of terminals, and a from power plants as well as in healthy marine ecosystems. The cold (20) Health Impacts of Emissions from huge expansion in the amount of emissionsCoal-Fired dioxide that in water, also contaminated with a Current of carbon Power Plants LNG received, re-heated, and causes global warming31. Most of the bleach-like cleansing agent, is then Texas: transported through the Gulf. permitted or proposed plants are dumped back into the sea, with Several new storage facilities have Deaths of the Dallas-Fort Worth 1,160 / year upwind also gotten approval, including one potentially huge consequences for Heart Attacks ranks as the U.S.’s year 1,791 / 8th area, which to inject natural gas into salt caverns fisheries. Lung Cancer Deaths 144 / year smoggiest city. Nitrogen oxides and in Calcasieu Parish, LA and two by Asthma Attacks compounds create 33,987 / year volatile organic This giant, multi-billion dollar Exxon in Corpus Christi and Port Hospital Admissionsthat leads to the 1,105 / year the ozone (smog) investment in LNG will do nothing to Arthur, TX. Asthma 450,000 people 1,796 / year nearly ER Visits suffering
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Carbon dioxide emissions, in millions of metric tons. If Texas were a nation, it would rank 7th. Data shown is for 2001. (21)

In January of this year, thick, oilladen fog from ExxonMobil’s refinery in Baytown, Texas (the largest U.S. refinery), covered the neighboring ACCIDENTS AS Archia Courts public housing TXU is in a rush to build 11 new power plants before the complex. Homes and cars were USUAL government starts regulating greenhouse gas pollution. coated in oil. ExxonMobil, the world’s Texas already leads the nation in mercury emissions from power plants. This plant at Martin Lake, owned by TXU, is largest and most profitable Releasing toxics the largest emitter of mercury in the country. (22) corporation, failed to notify city, into the air is state or federal officials until 36 standard from asthma in the Dallas-Fort hours after the leak started, and 32 operating procedure for the fossil Worth area. Power plants are a fuel industry. Even so-called “upsets” then claimed the spill was contained major source of smog-causing on their property. At the same time, pollution, and yet regulators are not or accidental releases are actually considering the cumulative impacts business as usual for most refineries Explosions at BP’s Texas City and power plants and never make of the 17 plants on smog. refinery in 2004 (23) the news. 7.6 million pounds of pollution were released in Houston Eleven of the Texas plants are area upsets in 2003, on top of the proposed by TXU in an attempt to outrun federal regulations on global hundreds of millions of pounds of pollution allowed to be released warming pollution. Most industry under state permits. 80% of that analysts expect the federal upset pollution came from just government to regulate carbon petrochemical plants, including the dioxide emissions in the future, and ExxonMobil, BP, Citgo, TXU’s 11 new plants would be ConocoPhillips and Valero “grandfathered” in if they are built 35 before regulations are passed. Even refineries. Several disasters were other utility companies are criticizing also big enough to make headlines over the last three years. TXU’s reckless plans that put the planet at further risk from climate Spotlight on Texas change.33

A new coal-fired plant has already received approval outside San Antonio. City Public Service is building a fourth plant at Calaveras Lake, despite evidence that conservation efforts can reduce the city’s energy consumption by enough to offset the output of the new plant. 23% of household households in San Antonio’s Southeast have one or more family members who suffer from asthma, and more students in the area’s four school districts have to receive asthma medication at school than any other sector of the city.34

On March 23, 2005 multiple explosions at British Petroleum’s Texas City refinery killed 15 workers and injured over 150 others. Many of those killed were working in temporary work trailers placed dangerously closed to the unit at the center of the blasts, which were so large that they destroyed trailers up to 1,000 feet away and shattered windows in neighboring homes. The Texas City plant had been on the Occupational Safety and Health Agency’s watch list for willfully ignoring employee safety standards at the time of the disaster. Since March 2004, four additional incidents, including an explosion, fire, and major oil and gas leaks, killed two workers and forced evacuations of the same facility.36

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A plague of accidents from Mexico’s ageing pipelines
June 2003 - February 2006

to start removing evidence of the oil from people’s homes and cars before regulators could show up. The Houston Ship Channel was closed twice in 2004 due to spills of thousands of gallons of petrochemicals, and 33,000 gallons spilled from another ship accident into the Neches River near Port Arthur later that year. Pipeline accidents in 2004 cause two men had to be hospitalized and 4,000 fish to die near the Flint Hills Refinery in Corpus Christi, and poisoned the San Marcos River outside Luling, Texas. Another 63,000 gallons of crude spilled into the Corpus Christi harbor from the Valero and Citgo refineries in June 2006.

Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana
Over 4 billion gallons of waste oil were leaked in a major incident in June 2006 at the CITGO Lake Charles refinery and manufacturing complex. The oil spilled from overfilled storage tanks that became flooded with rain and eventually flowed into the Calcasieu Ship Channel. The Channel had to be closed to ship traffic and marine life was severely threatened in the largest oil spill in the area in over 20 years. CITGO claimed air monitoring picked up no harmful contaminants in residential areas near the complex despite admitting that benzene, ethyl benzene, toluene, and xylenes were all present in the leaked oil and that the heat caused them to vaporize.37 At the same time, failures at the plant caused repeated flaring and sulfur dioxide emissions twice its permit level in nine hours. Two months later, parts of the spill are still being cleaned up. MEXICO’S AGEING PIPELINES The pace of accidents in Mexico’s Gulf Coast states has continued to
Compiled from multiple news sources the company dispatched contractors

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wholly operated by Pemex and the Federal Petroleum Workers Union (STPRM) since nationalizatio n of the industry in 1938. CSMs are now responsible for Fishermen try to clean up three weeks after the Dec 22, 2006 oil most oil spill in the Coatzacoalcos River. (24) industry activity in rise with Pemex’s ageing Campeche State, which has created infrastructure. Ruptures and explosions of natural gas and crude a “race to the bottom” in terms of wages and working conditions, with oil pipelines cause dozens of contract workers making a fraction “environmental emergencies” each of what unionized workers make.41 year in Veracruz State.38 Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz is a Pemex Democratic union movements have epicenter, where one refinery and arisen in response to the political four chemical plants process 13.5 million tones of petrochemicals every hegemony and corruption of STPRM and the covert privatization of year and released over 114 million pounds of pollution in 200439. More Pemex, and have faced violent repression. The Union of Professional than 1500 fishers rely on the Coatzacoalcos River, one of the most Workers in the Petroleum Industry contaminated rivers in the Americas, (UNTCIP) officially formed in 2004. Included in its demands are a halt to and have to fish through oil spills because they have no other sources the privatization of Mexico’s energy industry, the of livelihood.40 meaningful participation of THE PUSH TO PRIVATIZE IN workers and affected MEXICO community members Pemex’s plague of disasters is being in decision-making, and an energy policy used as further ammunition in the founded on a push to privatize the oil industry in transition to Mexico by the administration of renewable sources of Vicente Fox. Pemex claims it is 42 unable to dedicate funds to restoring energy. Despite the failings of Pemex, its infrastructure because of the privatization of federal government’s high rate of taxation (a third of Mexico’s federal Mexico’s oil industry will only mean even budget comes from Pemex), and less accountability to that foreign private investment is communities and therefore to only way to prevent further accidents. Already, the rise of workers. Contractos de Servicos Multiples, or PROFITS & Multiple Service Contracts (CSMs), POLITICS has introduced private contractors into an industry that had been

Who suffers when hurricanes shut down oil production and cause massive spills at refineries, and war in the Middle East causes gas prices to soar? It’s not the oil companies. Big Oil made record-breaking profits in 2005. ExxonMobil, the most profitable company in the world, broke its own records with a $36.1 billion in profit in 2005. The profit of the U.S.’s largest refining company, Valero Energy, shot up 99% over its 2004 level.43 The average price of gas in the U.S. rose 23% in the same year. That increase is felt the hardest by low-income families: the poorest 1/5 of U.S. households spend 5 times more on gas proportionately than do the richest 1/5.44 Politicians at the state and federal level only worsen the situation because they take large contributions from oil companies. Bush’s Energy Policy Act of 2005 gave away $2.6 billion in tax breaks to the oil and gas industry. As school and health care systems face fiscal crises, the Bush Administration also let oil and gas companies keep more royalties from domestic drilling. That is $7 billion in additional money over the next five years for some of the

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Hurricane relief is based on the fundamental right of return for all residents.

for petrochemical and other hazardous facilities, storage and disposal sites.

Those who are most impacted by climate change and the fossil fuel industry are empowered to drive the Hurricane-ravished decision-making about energy and communities are rebuilt climate change solutions. This as model renewable includes indigenous, African energy communities, in American, poor, immigrant and ways that address the border communities, elderly and inequalities present youth. before the storms.

*

world’s most profitable companies.45 New regulations make it easier for oil companies to build and expand refineries by weakening environmental protections and the federal permitting process, opening federal lands to refinery construction, and giving out subsidies. Texas companies especially benefit from the new regulations, and the chief architects of the Energy Policy Act all come from Texas: House Majority Leader Tom Delay, House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton, and George W. Bush. Texas Governor Perry has received $148,000 during his administration from Erle Nye, who was the chair until June 2005 of the company wanting to build 11 new coal-fired power plants under Perry’s fast-tracking orders, TXU.46

Poor and people of color communities will be most impacted by a change to a renewable energy economy. A just transition means ensuring that….. ♦ No group of people shoulders a disproportionate burden during the transition to a renewable resource economy ♦ Workers in the fossil fuel industries are retrained ♦ Fossil fuel workers & communities receive compensation for the loss of jobs & tax revenue ♦ Low income households get assistance with rising energy costs

What is a just transition?

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The United States immediately begins cutting greenhouse gas emissions and starts transitioning to a renewable energy economy

ENDNOTES 1 Emanuel, Kerry. 2005. Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones of the past 30 years. Nature 436, pg. 686-688 2 Webster, P.J. et al. 2005. Changes in tropical cyclone number, duration and intensity in a warming environment. Science 309: 5742, pg. 1844-1846. 3 U.S. Geological Survey National Wetlands Research Center. May 21, 2003. Press Release: Without Restoration, Coastal Land Loss to Continue. Accessed in August 2006 at http://www.nwrc.usgs.gov/releases/pr03_004.ht m 4 Mann, Charles C. August 16, 2006. How the energy business is drowning Louisiana. Fortune Magazine. 5 Bradshaw, Larry and Lorrie Beth Slonsky. September 6, 2005. Katrina – Our experiences. EMS Network News. Accessed in August 2006 at http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090805A.s html 6 Human Rights Watch. September 22, 2005. Press Release: Prisoners Abandoned to Floodwaters. Accessed August 2006 at http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/09/22/usdom11 773.html 7 King, Rita J. August 2006. Big, Easy Money: Disaster profiteering on the American Gulf

Investments are made to transition the Gulf Coast, long the hub of the US and Mexican oil and TOWARDS CLIMATE JUSTICE gas industries, into a leader in What would climate justice look like renewable energy generation. for the Gulf Coast? We have the Exploration for fossil fuels in the resources to invest in clean, Gulf of Mexico is ended. renewable sources of energy that do not cook the planet and make for healthy communities. At the same Toxic refinery, LNG and power time, that investment needs to be plant expansions are halted. made in a way that will not perpetuate the environmental A just transition is ensured for injustices at the heart of the fossil the workers & communities on both fuel industries and the systems of sides of the border that will be most oppression that created the tragedy impacted by climate change. of Katrina. People of color and low-income Climate justice means: communities are no longer targeted

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Coast. Accessed August 2006 at www.corpwatch.org 8 October 10, 2005. Indian Tribes and Katrina: Overlooked by the federal government, relief organizations and the corporate media. Democracy Now! Accesed August 2006 at www.democracynow.org 9 Citizens for a Strong New Orleans East. August 15, 2006. Press Release: Federal court denies Waste Management an injunction to reopen the Chef Menteur landfill. Accessed August 2006 at www.saveneworleanseast.org 10 Southern Poverty Law Center. February 2, 2006. Center seeks justice for Katrina's migrant workers. www.splcenter.org 11 Southern Poverty Law Center Immigrant Justice Project. Broken Levees, Broken Promises: New Orleans’ migrant workers in their own words. Accessed August 2006 at www.splcenter.org/pdf/static/IJPorleans.pdf 12 Cappiello, D. November 13, 2005. Hurricane Aftermath. The Houston Chronicle, Section A, Pg. 1 13 Sayre, Alan. May 1, 2006. Agency: Katrina, Rita destroyed 113 petroleum platforms. Associated Press Newswire. 14 Raines, Ben. January 29, 2006. Broken oil rigs danger Gulf. The Press-Register. 15 Villalba, Rodolfo y Luis A. Boffil. November 10, 2005. Persiste el abandono en zonas rurales de Chiapas y Yucatán. La Jornada 16 Confederación Nacional Campesina Press Release. October 30, 2005. Plan de emergencia para el campo, demanda la CNC. www.cnc.org.mx 17 Mann, Eric. 2005. Letter in Support of Support of the Movement in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast: Notes on strategy and tactics. Frontline Press, Los Angeles, CA. www.frontlinepress.com 18 Salopek, Paul. July 29, 2006. A tank of oil, a world of trouble - Chapter 1: the pay zone. Chicago Tribune. 19 Mineral Management Services. Regional Director’s Message. Accessed July 2006 at www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/whoismms/regdir. html 20 Hensel, Bill. September 6, 2006. New oil field deep in the Gulf a potential giant. The Houston Chronicle 21 Wall, Karla. July 2006. Southwest Louisiana Report: post-hurricane growth spreads across region. South Central Construction 22 Mossville Environmental Action Now, et al. Breathing Poison: the toxic costs of industries in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana. Acccessed August 2006 at www.mapcruzin.com/mossville/reportondioxin.h tm 23 Quinn, Steve. June 15, 2006. Bill’s passage has Texas town eyeing new refinery. Associated Press. 24 March 2006. Taxing Problems. Oil and Gas News Vol. 23, No. 8 25 Bartels, Paul and Matt Scallan. July 16, 2006. industry expansion on upswing in River: big plants have big plans to grow. The TimesPicayune. 26 Pender, Geoff. March 31, 2006. Chevron surprise. The Sun Herald. 27 Duncan, Heather. Septemer 9, 2005. EPA: South Miss. Facoties escaped major environmental impacts. The Sun Herald. 28 Rappleye, Christine. August 22, 2006. Port Arthur poised for economic progress. The Beaumont Enterprise.

29 Environmental Integrity Project. October 2005. Factsheet: Refining Capacity and Gasoline Price: Separating Fact from Fiction. Accessed August 2006 at www.environmentalintegrity.org/pub344.cfm 30 Myers, Ryan. July 21, 2006. Sabine-Neches Waterway accounts for $4.7 billion in income, 84.000 jobs. The Beaumont Enterprise. 31 Environmental Integrity Project. July 2006. Dirty Kilowatts: America’s most polluting power plants. 32 American Lung Association. April 28, 2005. State of the Air 2005. 33 Smith, Rebecca. July 21, 2006. Burning debate: as emission restrictions loom, Texas utility bets big on coal. The Wall Street Journal. 34 Song, Lisa. August 7, 2003. The toll of coal. San Antonio Current 35 Cappiello, Dina. February 8, 2004. Study links ‘upset’ pollution to Houston smog. The Houston Chronicle 36 Lozana, Joan. August 11, 2005. Recent accidents at BP plants raise safety concerns. Associated Press State and Local Wire. 37 Schmidt, Theresa. August 11, 2006. Citgo VP updates spill. KPLC-TV. Accessed August 2006 at www.kplctv.com 38 Kraul, C. January 28, 2005. Oil giant Pemex’s spill makes a mess of livelihoods in Mexico. Los Angeles Times. 39 Cappiello, Dina. March 6, 2006. Testing their own air. The Houston Chronicle. 40 Reyes, Mariusa. February 10, 2006. A la sombra del petróleo. BBCMundo.com 41 Zalik, Anna. 2006. Re-Regulating the Mexican Gulf. Center for Latin American Studies Working & Policy Papers Series, the Regents of the University of California. 42 Unión Nacional de Trabajadores de Confianza de la Industria Petrolera, A.C. June 2006. Proyecto Alternativeo Integral para PEMEX. Nuevo Rumbo Petrolero Número 2. 43 Data from Hoover’s www.hoovers.com 44 Cooper, Mark. September 2005. The impact of rising prices on household gasoline expenditures. Consumer Federation of America 45 Andrews, Edmund L. March 27, 2006. Vague law and hard lobbying add up to billions for Big Oil. New York Times. 46 Robison, Clay and Janet Elliot. August 25, 2006. Donations to Perry raise eyebrows. The Houston Chronicle FIGURES & PHOTOGRAPHS 1. University of New Orleans & National Geographic 2. www.flickr.com/photos/ pavesina/ 3. American Petroleum Institute 4. King, Rita J. August 2006. Big, Easy Money: Disaster profiteering on the American Gulf Coast. www.corpwatch.org 5.Four Directions Solidarity Network www.eswn.org 6. United Houma Nation www.unitedhoumanation.org 7. Citizens for a Strong New Orleans East www.saveneworleanseast.org 8.Southern Poverty Law Center www.splcenter.org 9. New Orleans Indymedia http://nola.indymedia.org/ 10. Greenpeace International 11. National Resources Defense Council. February 23, 2006. Press Release: State, federal officials paper over toxic contamination in New Orleans. www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/060223a.asp; and Subra, Wilma. October 25, 2005. Results of sediment/sludge deposited by hurricane Katrina on the residential area of Chalmette/ Meraux. http://labucketbrigade.org/press/ pr_102605.shtml.

Photo from Louisiana Bucket Brigade. 12. Llanos, Miguel. September 19, 2005. 44 oil spills found in southeastern Louisiana. MSNBC http://www. msnbc.msn.com/id/9365607/ 13. © Skytruth 2005 14. Marni Rosen and Penny Fujiko Willgerodt 15.http://commun ity.theolympian.com/albums/album310/TOPIX_HU RRICANE_KATRINA_OIL.jpg 16. BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4273934.stm 17. Hilton Kelley, C.I.D.A. 18. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 19. www.stopthecoal plant.org 20. Clear the Air "Dirty Power, Dirty Air" . www.cleartheair.org/dirtypower/docs/ dirtyAir.pdf 21. Energy Information Administration and San Antonio Express News 22. Environmental Integrity Project. July 2006. Dirty Kilowatts: America’s most polluting power plants. 23. Chad Green, Galveston County Daily News. 24. MSNBC