The aftermath of national disasters like Hurricane Harvey affect more than just concerns about how high the price of our gasoline will go and how much more carbon we pour into our environment as debris is cleared, burned or buried.
We saw that this past week as dozens of refineries along the Gulf Coast shut down in flooding, each time releasing – with a get-out-of-jail-free card from the Texas governor – a toxic stew of chemicals into the flood waters and the air.
We saw it in Crosby, Texas, as nine trailers filled with 500,000 pounds of highly volatile organic peroxides overheated without power or refrigeration and began exploding with plumes of black smoke. Residents in a 1.5 mile radius remain evacuated.
What we usually don’t see – and should never see again – is any corporate official like that of the Crosby Arkema plant say he won’t tell the public what chemicals were spewed in that black smoke. He even declined to call it a chemical release.
Frankly, that’s criminal. And it’s criminal with the blessing of Texas state government officials and the Trump administration’s EPA.