Texas clears the way for petrochemical expansion as experts warn of health risks
Public Health Watch chronicles a fossil-fuel infrastructure boom that could worsen air pollution in some areas and exacerbate climate change.
Let’s establish some baselines.
Texas is responsible for more greenhouse-gas emissions than Saudi Arabia or the global maritime industry. Its oil, gas and petrochemical operations discharge tens of millions of pounds of toxic pollutants into the air each year, comprising almost one-fifth of such releases in the United States. It is the nation’s top emitter of the carcinogens benzene, ethylene oxide and 1,3-butadiene.
It accounts for 75 percent of the petrochemicals made in the U.S. It is an engine of the world’s plastics industry, whose products clog oceans and landfills and, upon breaking down, infuse human bodies with potentially dangerous microplastics.
Despite all of this, the state’s commitment to fossil-fuel infrastructure is unwavering, driven by economics. Oil and gas extraction, transportation and processing contributed $249 billion to the state’s gross domestic product and supported 661,000 jobs in 2021, according to the most recent reports from the Texas Economic Development & Tourism Office. An industrial construction spurt is well into its second decade, with little sign of slowing.
Since 2013, 57 petrochemical facilities have been built or expanded in the state, according to the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project’s Oil & Gas Watch, which tracks these activities. Over half are in majority-minority neighborhoods, the group’s data show.
Over the next five years, 18 new plants and 23 expansions are planned or are already under construction. Twelve of these projects collectively will be allowed to release the same amount of greenhouse gases as 41 natural gas-fired power plants, according to the companies’ filings with the state. Emissions estimates for the other projects were not available.
All 41 petrochemical projects will also be permitted to release 38.6 million pounds of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s highest-priority pollutants, including carcinogens and respiratory irritants, according to company filings. Places like Jefferson County, in far southeastern Texas, and Harris County, which includes Houston, could see their air quality deteriorate, putting the public at increased risk of cancer, respiratory illness, reproductive effects and other life-altering conditions. Five projects are to be sited within a five-mile radius of Channelview, an unincorporated part of Harris County plagued by extremely high levels of cancer-causing benzene and a surge in barge traffic – an underappreciated cause of air pollution – on the San Jacinto River.
Companies have announced dozens more projects, including seven near Channelview, but haven’t begun the process of obtaining permits from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, or TCEQ, which will allow them to construct facilities that release pollutants into the air.
The odds are in their favor: In the past quarter-century, the TCEQ has denied less than 0.5 percent of new air permits and amendments, often required for plant expansions.
For six months, Public Health Watch has been reviewing TCEQ permits, analyzing air-quality and census data and talking to scientific experts, advocates, elected officials, industry representatives and residents of Harris and Jefferson counties to try to capture the scope and potential health consequences of the petrochemical buildout.
Here are three out of 13 scenes from that buildout. View the full interactive feature at publichealthwatch.org.
Andy Morris-Ruiz
Home of Spindletop booms again: Jefferson County
Jefferson County has a quarter-million residents and stretches from Beaumont in the northeast to McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge on the Gulf of Mexico. Its Spindletop field birthed Texas’s first full-scale oil boom in 1901; today it is once again an axis of industry zeal.
Just off Twin City Highway, where Nederland meets Beaumont, cranes are assembling a plant that will produce anhydrous ammonia and other chemicals used to make fertilizer and alternative fuels. According to state permits issued to owner Woodside Energy, the facility is authorized to annually add almost 80,000 pounds of nitrogen oxides, which can cause acute and chronic respiratory distress, to Nederland’s air. Nitrogen oxides also contribute to ground-level ozone pollution, the primary component in smog. Uncontained, ammonia can sear the lungs and kill in sufficient concentrations.
Four people formally objected to the facility’s expansion last summer but were unable to stop it. Officials in Jefferson County embraced the plant, granting Woodside a 10-year property-tax exemption, and a $209 million tax abatement from the Beaumont Independent School District.
About two miles to the southeast of Woodside, Energy Transfer wants to erect a large ethane cracker on the Neches River. The hulking plant will heat ethane, a component of natural gas, to extremely high temperatures, “cracking” the molecules to make ethylene, a building block for plastics. According to Energy Transfer’s permit application, the cracker would be allowed to release nearly 10 million of pounds of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, which contribute to ozone and can cause effects ranging from throat and eye irritation to cancer, along with nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide, another smog-forming chemical that interferes with the body’s oxygen supply.
The TCEQ told Public Health Watch in an email that the project “is protective of human health and the environment and no adverse effects are expected to occur.”
There were seven formal objectors to the ethane cracker, among them Reanna Panelo, a lifelong Nederland resident who was 23 when she wrote to the TCEQ two years ago. “It is not fair nor is it morally right to build such a monstrous and horrendous plant designed to kill the surrounding area, residents and environment, for company gain,” wrote Panelo, who said generations of her family had been tormented by cancer. The TCEQ executive director is processing Energy Transfer’s permit application, despite comments submitted in October by the Environmental Integrity Project alleging the project could violate ambient air-quality standards for particulate matter — fine particles that can exacerbate asthma, cause heart disease and contribute to cognitive decline. The Nederland Independent School District authorized a $121 million tax break for Energy Transfer.
Nine miles south of Nederland, in Port Arthur, two ethane crackers are poised for expansion and three new petrochemical facilities are planned, according to Oil & Gas Watch.
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“It’s the worst possible situation you can imagine,” said John Beard, a Port Arthur native and founder of Port Arthur Community Action Network, an environmental advocacy group. “You’re living in a toxic atmosphere that with every breath is potentially killing you.”
Air quality in Jefferson County has improved over the years — mostly a product of stricter regulation — but is still far from pristine. The American Lung Association gave the county an “F” for ozone pollution in its 2025 State of the Air Report Card.
A pungent haze occasionally envelops the county, portions of which have some of the highest cancer risks from air toxics in the nation, according to the Environmental Defense Fund’s Petrochemical Air Pollution Map. Indorama Ventures in Port Neches is one of the main drivers of risk — it makes the potent carcinogen ethylene oxide and releases more of the gas into the air than any other facility in the U.S., federal data show. Peter DeCarlo, an atmospheric chemist and a professor at the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, and a team of fellow scientists recently drove an air-monitoring van through neighborhoods bordering Indorama. They measured levels of ethylene oxide “greatly exceeding what is acceptable for long-term exposure,” DeCarlo told Public Health Watch.
The county’s level of particulate matter already exceeds national air-quality standards. Jefferson County spent 18 years in violation of the standard for ground-level ozone, but improved after 2009. Now, the county’s ozone levels are creeping upward again. DeCarlo said that the new sources of pollution slated for the region could push the county over the limit again — subjecting it to tougher oversight — and worsen its fine-particle problem.
In a statement to Public Health Watch, Woodside said its ammonia plant is 97 percent complete and represents “a $2.35 billion investment in American energy, supporting approximately 2,000 construction jobs and hundreds of permanent ongoing jobs . . . Once operational [it] is expected to increase US ammonia production by more than 7 percent, strengthening domestic agriculture, food production and manufacturing, while potentially doubling US ammonia exports.”
The company said it met with four residents who filed comments with the TCEQ and appreciated “the strong community support for the project.”
Energy Transfer and Indorama Ventures did not respond to requests for comment.
Andy Morris-Ruiz
Historic Black neighborhood threatened with extinction: Beaumont, Jefferson County
The Charlton-Pollard neighborhood, on Beaumont’s south side, was established in 1869 by freed slave and school founder Charles Pole Charlton. In the mid-20th century it was a cultural hub — home to Beaumont’s “Black Main Street” and some of the oldest Black churches and schools in the city. It was part of the Chitlin’ Circuit, a group of performance venues during the Jim Crow era, which hosted James Brown, Ray Charles and other luminaries.
Segregation, disinvestment and expanding industrial operations — railways, an international seaport and a petrochemical complex — gradually eroded Charlton-Pollard’s rich culture and institutions. Stores, schools and a hospital have closed, and now the buffer between the north end of the neighborhood and advancing industrial development is thinning.
The Port of Beaumont has acquired 78 parcels in Charlton-Pollard’s sparsely populated northeastern corner since 2016, property records show. This year it paved a lot the size of 18 football fields in their place, where it plans to store cargo, including building materials for new and expanding petrochemical plants. The lot lies across the street from the 97-year-old Starlight Missionary Baptist Church and two blocks from Charlton-Pollard Elementary School.
“The port recognizes the deep history of Charlton-Pollard and remains committed to operating responsibly and respectfully within that framework,” said Chris Fisher, the port’s director and CEO. He said he and his team have been transparent with the Charlton-Pollard Neighborhood Association, only developing in a specially zoned “transitional area” in the northeastern corner. In the 1990s and early 2000s, some residents asked the port to buy their properties, Fisher said. Later, after plans for the paved lot were solidified, the port began offering property owners 50 percent to 100 percent above appraised value and, in some cases, $15,000 relocation allowances, he said.
“We kind of made sure that everybody that we dealt with was better off than before we did anything,” Fisher said. The port condemned properties when owners couldn’t be located or had unpaid taxes, he said.
The neighborhood association’s president, Chris Jones, a 45-year-old former Beaumont mayoral candidate, said the port’s acquisitions are “the continuation of a long pattern. One where Black neighborhoods were first under-documented, then under-invested, and ultimately treated as expendable in the path of industry.”
When residents sold their properties, they “were navigating declining property values, loss of services, and the clear signal that the area was being prioritized for industrial use,” Jones said. “In that context, selling is often less about choice and more about survival.”
He worries that the removal of trees and the addition of pavement will intensify heat and worsen noise pollution for those left in the neighborhood. Rail traffic supporting local industry has already increased, he said, and his status as an Army veteran makes him “vexed at the sound of a horn.” Jones and some allies hope to win historical designations for several churches in Charlton-Pollard to stave off further industrial encroachment.
Environmental hazards are not new to Charlton-Pollard. A refinery now owned by Exxon Mobil was built less than a mile away in 1903. Almost a century later, residents filed a complaint with the EPA’s Office of Civil Rights, accusing the TCEQ of allowing the company to pollute above safe levels, increase emissions without public input and exceed permitted limits without penalty. The case was settled in 2017 after the TCEQ agreed to install an air monitor near the site and hold two public meetings. Charlton-Pollard still lies within the 99th percentile nationwide for cancer risk from air pollution, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.
In addition to the refinery, Exxon Mobil now operates a chemical plant, a polyethylene plant and a lubricant plant within the complex; last year the company said it plans to build a chemical-recycling facility there as well. Six more petrochemical projects are planned by other companies within five miles of Charlton-Pollard.
In short, anyone who hasn’t been bought out by the port may breathe increasingly dirty air. Jefferson County is already violating the EPA’s standard for particulate matter, and diesel-burning trains and maritime vessels accommodating the industry expansion are large emitters of fine particles, as well as smog-forming nitrogen oxides.
Most infuriating, Jones said, is the idea that industrial development in Jefferson County is being underwritten in part by tax breaks even as Beaumont’s basic infrastructure — roads, sewage treatment — crumbles. Not long ago, he said, he saw “fecal waste” collecting in the Irving Avenue underpass. “The shit just rolled onto the street.” (Voters approved a $264 million bond package in November to improve streets and drainage)
Andy Morris-Ruiz
Fine particles, ozone and the body
In addition to spewing carcinogens like benzene and 1,3-butadiene, petrochemical plants release large amounts of “criteria pollutants” — the six common airborne substances the EPA regulates most closely. Regions across the country struggle to meet federal air-quality standards for two of these in particular: ground-level ozone and particulate matter.
Dr. John Balmes, a professor emeritus at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health, is a physician advisor to both the EPA and the California Air Resources Board, which regulates air quality in a state that’s had serious ozone and particulate-matter problems for years. He’s researched the effects of both pollutants on the body and helped craft EPA standards for them. Balmes said plant emissions will represent only a portion of particulate and ozone pollution from the petrochemical expansion in Texas. Transportation — diesel trucks, trains and ships — will add to the burden, he said. (Railyards and ports are often located in low-income and minority neighborhoods, like Charlton-Pollard.)
Particulate matter and ozone can wreak havoc on the body, Balmes said.
Fine particles, known as PM2.5, are about 20 times smaller than a human hair. When they’re inhaled, they don’t break down, and the body’s immune cells remain in a heightened state of response. Their ability to fight off infection is weakened.
Fine particles often make their way into the bloodstream and trigger cardiovascular problems, such as heart attacks and congestive heart failure. They can also accumulate in the brain, contributing to cognitive decline and strokes.
A 2023 analysis conducted for Public Health Watch by two researchers estimated that 8,405 Texans died from fine-particle pollution in 2016. Exposure to the particles also led to thousands of new cases of Alzheimer’s, asthma and strokes, the researchers found.
Last year, an EPA advisory board, on which Balmes served, recommended tightening the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for PM2.5. The EPA said the new standard would prevent 4,500 premature deaths and yield $46 billion in net health benefits over more than a decade. According to federal data, 16 Texas counties, including Jefferson, violate the new standard, which the Trump administration has vowed to abandon.
Environmental groups and regulators have been fighting ozone pollution for more than 70 years.
Ozone gas is formed when two pollutants — VOCs and nitrogen oxides — are released from stacks and tailpipes and react in the presence of sunlight. When ozone enters the body, it chemically burns the respiratory system, leading to inflammation. It’s so caustic that it can break down synthetic rubber. Acute exposure can worsen asthma; chronic, high-level exposure can cause permanent lung damage.
The eight-county Houston-Galveston-Brazoria area, with roughly 7.2 million people, has been under continual threat from ozone for two decades. It spent over half of that time classified as being in “serious” or “severe” violation of the EPA’s eight-hour standards. Still, 35 petrochemical projects in the region have been announced or permitted by the TCEQ.
“Adding 35 petrochemical plants to a region that is already in serious ozone [violation] is the wrong way to go in terms of public health,” Balmes said.
Explore all 13 scenes from Texas’s petrochemical expansion at publichealthwatch.org.
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Texas clears the way for petrochemical expansion as experts warn of health risks on Jan 7, 2026.
