The situation is escalating as Diane Wilson had locked herself by the neck to a fishing boat, blocking the entrance of the Army Corps. The police have just arrived and Diane Wilson is on her thirty sixth day of hunger strike. She hasn't eaten a thing. That's her in her white fishing boats. That is her coffin that she brought over here to the Army Corps of Engineers. She said, to kill the bay is to kill the fisherman, to kill a community.
I was arrested because we did a lockdown right in front of the US Court Engineers in Dallaston, Texas. And we had a boat, we had a motor, we had a coffin. We were blocking the entrance to try to get Captain Timothy Vale's attention, because he is the one in the US Corp of Engineers who can revoke that project, and he can, at the very least force supplemental environmental impact study.
So it was trying to get his attention.
This is Diane Wilson, the shrimpboat captain turned environmental activist you met in the first episode of this series. Dan still lives in her hometown Point Comfort, Texas, and after fighting for decades to save her local bay and the fishermen who depend on it, she won a big lawsuit against petrochemical giant for Mosa. It came with a fifty million dollar settlement. But just as she was working with the community to put that money to good use, a new problem appeared on the horizon.
Basically, it was a little known pipeline company. They called themselves Max Midstream, and they wanted to put an oil export cub in and they had the money to do the dread GAM because they needed the dreg GAM because they couldn't get their these big shifts in to haul all of its crude all out.
The lawsuit against Formosa was just settled in December twenty nineteen. It took a while for the details of the settlement to be hammered out, and by then the COVID nineteen pandemic had taken hold in the US. The local fishing community in Point Comfort had only just started to meet up in person and talk about their plans for this sustainable fishing co op when they had a new problem.
Max Midstream, a pipeline startup based in Houston, quietly purchased a ten year old export terminal at the port and Point Comfort. In late twenty twenty, the company had only just launched it itself and the export terminal was one of its big initial purchases. But despite the fact that it's only a year old, Max Midstream is making some
big moves. In twenty twenty one, it announced a bold plan, a one billion dollar expansion of the Seahawk Terminal in Point Comfort Max midstreamline Max Midstream Ship's first grood cargo from new termin forget about fish houses. They told local newspapers. They're going to turn this port into a quote major oil export center, connecting oil from Texas's primary fracking centers, the Eagle Ford Shale and the Permian Basin to the
European markets. But to do all that, they don't just have to build more docks and expand the storage facilities. They need to deepen and widen the port itself, and that means dredging the bay.
And it's one of the not the biggest, it's one one of the biggest mercury underwater superfund sites in the whole United States. Their own confidential documents admitted they lost a million, two hundred thousand seven hundred pounds at mercury. And they're sitting right here on this bay, or I'm sitting right here on the bay. There's three mercury contamination signs. Don't eat the fish, don't eat the crabs, and the level of mercury and the red fish are the same
level they were back in nineteen ninety seven. So it hasn't improved at all.
Not only is dredging likely to stir up mercury in the bay, Wilson says it will destroy a marine ecosystem that's barely hanging on as it is.
They are going to bury smother seven hundred acres of oyster reefs. They are going to smother these seagrasses. Than when they start deeping it and widen it, they will all of the salt water from the Gulf will come rushing into this based system that adds a very particular balance on its salinity for all of these the crabs, the fish, the shrimp, you name it. This is where they're barn in these upper bays. And it will devastate,
It will literally devastate the fisheries here. It will it will totally set this wayback like it's never been set back.
Before the port authority thinks it's a great idea. In a press release announcing the project, caloun Port Director Charles Housman said, this will transform our port into a major oil exporting center, and it will transform our area with new jobs and new growth. Max Midstream has promised to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the project and create hundreds of new jobs. Most of their initial permits were fast tracked, but then Diane Wilson caught wind of the plan.
Tell me a little bit about what prompted the hunger strikes that you're on right now. Oh okay, Well, you know, I just finished the lawsuit against Promosa, and we got fifty million dollars for environmental projects, and we put twenty million into a sustainable fishery co op that for the local fishermont. And here you have the Navigation District going into partnership with this little known high client guy and
they're going to dredge a ship channel. It will totally set this wayback like it's never been stepped back before. And the community of fishermen were that we're trying just to survive. I mean, this is their last chance at survive. It will wipe them out in the communities or these fishermen ls. You know, they'll be gone. They're almost gone now. And this was the twenty million that we put into this coop was a chance at reviving our communities. I mean, it's going to devastate it.
Wilson is seventy two now, and in April she went on a hunger strike in protest of the dredging project. More than a month later, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality announced that, due to significant interest, it would hold a public meeting to discuss the air permit Max Midstream needs for the project to move forward.
This fault meeting is for an application by Max Midstream Texas LLC.
The proposed permit number is one six to two.
If granted the permit, it would allow Max Midstream to increase greenhouse gas emissions by more than one hundred thousand tons per year.
By there, This is Diane Wilson and I want Max Smidstream to be forewarned that we will not give up even if TCQ ignores what we have to say and gives us permit. You can bet your baby on that we are not given up.
This kind of thing where you win one environmental fight only to run smack into another one is incredibly common. Sharon Levine is dealing with it over in Louisiana too. She had a big win on the proposed formosa plant there. It's on hold until at least twenty twenty two while the Army Corps rethinks its permits. But now she's fighting the expansion of a methanol plant in Saint James. Here she is at a permit hearing for the expansion.
In two thousand fourteen, southwag Is In A Methanone got approved to build its methanol plant. That area was existing residential slash future industrial. In two thousand eighteen, Clyde Cooper had this whole area to change into a residential growth. Southwareesi and A Methanone is trying to sneak this expansion into the two thousand and four to two plane. Our
Parents Council can can stop this. If this campens, it will expand in their residential area and if it is expanding beyond this lame use of approval and requires new parish approval. If this facility is built, it will destroyed welcome park. Our children will not have a park because they will not be able to breathe the air.
This game of whack a mole is one that activists are all too familiar with, and it's what we're going to look at this episode. It's the finale of part one in our Bridge to Nowhere season coming up after this quick break.
But I think there is enough of a market trend for the fossil fuel industry to recognize that they're going to just sell less product.
This is Judith Innk, a former EPA regional administrator and the president of Beyond Plastics. In a lot of ways, the current plastic buildout is the perfect example of the whack a.
Mole problem, and so they've teamed up with their partners in the chemical industry to make petrochemical production their plan B. And this is unfolding around the country, most noted in Louisiana, Texas. And then the first big ethyne cracker plant or the new generation of ethne crackers coming online in Pennsylvania the Shell Facility later this year. We also see proposals in
the Ohio River Valley. So without one vote by the public, without much transparency, billions of dollars in investment is proceeding relying on waste gas from hydrofracking sites being transported by new pipelines to new ethyne cracker facilities that will be working hard to transform waste fracked gas into the new main ingredient for single use plastic packaging.
So as activist journalists, scientists, and more have raised awareness about climate change and the role that fossil fuels play in exacerbating it, and as politicians have come around to the idea of regulating emissions, the industry has just found a new market for its product. It's not just the
whack a mole problem on steroids. It also reveals that the industry's story that it's just supplying a demand is a lie, and it brings together the two industries most notorious for fighting regulation, fossil fuels and chemicals, together on the same side.
The petrochemical industry fights tooth and nail on any legislative proposal that will reduce the demand for packaging, something as simple as a city proposing a plastic bag ban or a county wanting to ban single use polystyrene foam food packaging. The Chemistry Council and their state affiliates show up in force sharing, inaccurate information, working literally at the city council level to try to block anything that suppresses demand for single use plastic.
And they're effective. It might seem like America is a wash in bag bands and straw restrictions, but in fact not so much.
We do have about one thousand local laws on the books and state laws on the books to reduce the demand for plastic, but we have far more communities that have done nothing to reduce the demand for plastic. You know, it's a funny perception thing.
And just like the natural gas industry has been pushing preemptive laws to stop cities and counties from passing gas bands, yes, preemptive bans on bands, there's been a push in some state and local governments to preemptively base in plastic bag bands too. Another place's kind of preemptive law is showing up is in the state governments that are trying to pass bands on masking mandates.
The other thing I observe is that when you do get a good policy on the books, the industry lobbyists are very active in wanting to have loopholes or poison pills, for instance, something as simple as plastic bag bands. What they push for is thicker plastic bags rather than film plastic bags, and then they lie and they say it can be reused one hundred and twenty five times, and that never happens.
Ink encourages activists to pay close attention to the details and offers model bills on the Beyond Plastics site. But she's already anticipating the next mole to whack exports. Remember last episode, we heard from investigative journalist Lawrence Carter at Unearthed about what one of Exonmobile's lobbyists said about this.
Pathan Groy talks about how they want to take this kind of cheap feedstock and actually, rather than manufactured plastic in the US, to turn it into liquified natural gas, ship it over to petrochemical facilities that they have in Asia and in Australia so that they can crank up plastic sales in those places.
Ink is already seeing that strategy play out.
The other thing is, I think the petrochemical industry is really counting on a lot of exports. There are some facilities that are being designed just for export of pre production pellets or LNG exports, and so they are banking on large new markets in Asia and Africa to export the main and radiance of plastic. I think over time we will pass a number of very strong state bills
to reduce plastic. Not sure we've got the political power to do anything very significant just yet at the federal level, but we'll have some good state bills on the books and that'll reduce demand. And then you see this giant pivot to export. And from a climate change perspective, these are global emissions. So whether you have effne cracker facilities emitting gargantuan amounts of carbon in Pennsylvania or Europe, it's all going to affect our climate internationally.
So now we have some insight into what this big giant l G export terminal endpoint comfort might be doing. Meanwhile, the industry has successfully painted plastic as an individual sumer problem, and often as a mom problem. Just buy your kids bamboo utensils an aluminum straw as mom's problem solved. The fossil fuel and chemical industries have also done a phenomenal job convincing the public that plastic is absolutely indispensable and that until there's some sort of alternative to it, we're
hooked on petrochemicals and particularly on plastic. Whether you like it or not.
The alternative is to simply use less plastic, and that may mean a shift toward reusables and refillables, which is terrific, that is job producing. It could be simply getting rid of some packaging altogether. You go to any supermarket and it's a plastic nightmare, and you have layers and layers of plastic, a great deal of which is not actually holding the product. And then you know, the third altern is really basic alternatives to plastic, like recycled cardboard, recycled class,
recycled aluminum and metal. You know, there's this odd dynamic where people are waiting for the next big breakthrough on alternatives to plastics. And you know, I'm a big fan of using my cilium, for instance mushrooms rather than petroleum based plastic. That's been slow going. But the alternative to plastic is in your kitchen pantry right now. You know, cereal box, it's the metal can of soup. What I'm
really shocked at. I have one kid and he's all grown up, but I'm not in the baby food aisle much. I just skip the aisle. Well, one of the most terrifying things is going down the baby food aisle in the supermarket, massive shift to plastic, including plastic pouches. Ironically, often to give your darling baby organic food in a plastic pouch. A lot of that could be cardboard, glass, metal. So it's not like the electricity sector where I would say,
instead of petroleum based plastics, use bio based plastics. It's really using less plastic, and we can do that. You know, we don't need a Manhattan project on this.
But INC is quick to point out that simply using less plastic is not something consumers are often given the choice to do, at least not easily or cheaply.
Voluntary solutions just aren't working. I mean, I do encourage people to try to use less plastic, but often it's impossible. I mean, I try to avoid plastic and I've got it all over my kitchen because there are not alternatives in the supermarket, or even when I have time to go to the food co op, there's often not alternatives.
But you know, it's fascinating to watch the messaging machine of the fossil fuel industry for years talk to us about reducing our own carbon footprint, shifting responsibility to individuals. I'm now seeing the phrase plastic footprint and a concerted effort to shift the narrative toward all of us need to play a role and reduce or use of plastic. Well, good luck with that. It's virtually impossible.
So rather than recommending a particular type of straw or reusable water bottle, she suggests a different type of individual action.
From an environmental perspective and a job's perspective, a really big push to refillables and reusables is needed, especially in restaurants and cafes. And there's a feisty little group called Upstream, and if you go to upstream solutions dot org, they are just really providing wonderful information on how businesses can shift to reusables and refillables and it often saves the money if they can make the initial investment in dishwashing equipment.
And if you want to push for policy changes, inc says, focus on state legislators or better yet, the EPA.
But a lot of people don't realize and I didn't fully appreciate it, to be honest, until I worked at the EPA during the Obama administration. Is the state agencies hold most of the cards. The way most of the federal anti pollution statutes like the Clean Air Act the Clean Water Act. The way they work is those programs are delegated to the states, so EPA kind of provides the floor, often not the ceiling, and provides not enough
money to the states. And Richard Nixon's theory when he established the EPA fifty two years ago was that the states are closer to the people in a better position to really assis impacts. I don't disagree with that, but over the years there's been this terrible culture at the EPA, including when I was there, to defer to the states.
And if the Biden Harris administration is going to defer to the state of Louisiana, the state of Texas, the state of Ohio, the state of Pennsylvania, we are in the soup when it comes to the petrochemical build out because the states are very supportive, mostly because of the political influence of these special interests. And then the public stated reason is because of job creation. But if you've got Louisiana, Texas, in Ohio in the driver's seat, we
are not in a good spot. And this is where the EPA needs to exercise their oversight authority, which they can easily do if they want to tackle climate change.
That's it for this TI time and for part one of season six. We'll be back soon with parts two and three about the natural gas industries, anti regulation tactics, and what happened when first fracking and in plastic came
to one rural county on the Ohio Pennsylvania border. But first, kids are going back to school, and we've partnered with our pals over at earther to bring you a series about the fossil fuel industry's role in shaping education, not just science education, but civics, social studies, political science, economics, all the things that really set the parameters on how a society functions and what sorts of solutions were even allowed to think about. Make sure you're subscribed so you
don't miss it. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time. Drilled is an original production of the Critical Frequency podcast Network. The show is report written and hosted by me Amy Westervelt. Our producer this season is Juliana Bradley. Our editor is Julia Ritchie. Our theme song this season is death Song by b Bemon. Additional music for the season composed by Elliott Peltzman. Our artwork for the season is done by Matthew Fleming. Our First Amendment attorney is
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