Safe Chemicals and Facilities
Protecting fenceline communities and facility workers from toxic pollution and chemical disasters through the transition to safer chemicals
There are over 12,000 extremely hazardous chemical facilities across the nation.
Pam Nixon grew up in the area around Charleston, WV known as Chemical Valley, where the Elk and Kanawha Rivers are lined with plants owned by chemical industry giants Union Carbide, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, Bayer, and others. Many times during her 65 years of living there, she's had to shelter in place—tape up windows and huddle inside her home—when nearby plants experienced accidental explosions or chemical leaks.
In 2008, an explosion at a Bayer CropScience plant killed two people and injured eight more. In 2010, a series of incidents at a DuPont plant included the release of highly toxic phosgene (used during World War I as a chemical weapon). Then in January 2014, a chemical storage tank at Freedom Industries leaked 10,000 gallons of toxic MCHM into the Elk River, contaminating drinking water for 300,000 people in nine counties, and costing the local economy $19 million a day for each day drinking water was deemed unsafe.
Pam and her organization, People Concerned About Chemical Safety, are working locally to prevent chemical disasters and protect their drinking water from toxic spills. She also helps lead Coming Clean’s campaigns to move hazardous facilities across the country toward inherently safer chemicals and processes.
Our research and organizing have documented the extreme hazards faced by over 124 million people across the country who live within chemical disaster vulnerability zones, and the millions more who experience heightened risk of health problems because of daily air pollution or whose drinking water could be poisoned by a chemical spill at any time. We’ve shown how these hazards don’t threaten everyone equally: people of color and low-income people are much more likely to live near hazardous chemical facilities than the general population.
"No one deserves to live under these conditions. We aren’t a sacrifice zone, and we deserve the same protections that wealthier and more affluent communities in America get.”
Working collaboratively towards safer chemical facilities:
- We work closely with our strategic partner, the Environmental Justice Health Alliance (EJHA), to demand regulatory action to prevent chemical disasters, and implement protective policies which will benefit everyone in the U.S.—and especially the people most vulnerable to chemical disasters.
- We're calling for the EPA to strengthen its Risk Management Plan (RMP) Rule, which regulates over 12,000 high-risk chemical facilities nationwide and is intended to prevent chemical disasters. Learn more about our Chemical Disaster Prevention Program.
- We are an active member of the Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters, a group of organizations that tracks chemical incidents across the U.S. and advocates for improved chemical safety.
Related resources and reports from Coming Clean:
- Unprepared for Disaster: Chemical Hazards in the Wake of Hurricane Ida
- Life at the Fenceline: Understanding Cumulative Health Hazards in Environmental Justice Communities
- Environmental Justice for Delaware: Mitigating Toxic Pollution in New Castle County Communities
- Who's in Danger: Race, Poverty, and Chemical Disasters
- When the Wind Blows: Tracking Toxic Chemicals in Gas Fields and Local Communities
- Warning Signs: Toxic Air Pollution Identified at Oil and Gas Sites
Related News
May 10, 2022
Faith leaders call on EPA to strengthen chemical disaster rule
Over 100 faith leaders and organizations sent a letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan today, urging the agency to strengthen and expand its Risk Management Plan (RMP) rule, which is intended to prevent chemical disasters at high-risk facilities nationwide and is currently being updated. Chemical releases, fires, and explosions are shockingly common in the United States. In just ten years, there have been over 1,500 reported chemical releases or explosions at facilities regulated under the RMP rule, causing 17,000 reported injuries and 59 reported deaths. But deadly chemical incidents could be prevented if RMP facilities were required to transition to safer processes, faith leaders state in the letter. Their calls echo those of health professionals, security experts, and members of Congress who have also demanded meaningful reforms to the RMP rule in recent months. Read More
April 26, 2022
EPA faces pressure to tighten chemical disaster rules
Pressure is mounting on EPA to strengthen oversight of chemical facilities to better prepare them for disaster risks at the sites. Experts, former agency leaders and lawmakers are calling on EPA to tighten loopholes and beef up its risk management plan, or RMP, which instructs certain facilities to develop contingency plans in case of a crisis. Those sites, which handle high-risk chemicals, are vulnerable to climate impacts and other events that can imperil their surrounding communities and environment. EPA Administrator Michael Regan said last month that the agency plans to update the RMP and issue a new rule by this September. Now, EPA is seeing an uptick in calls for the regulations to address a range of concerns, stemming from environmental justice to national security. Read More
April 20, 2022
Health Experts and Healthcare Workers Call for Strong Chemical Safety Safeguards
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is updating the Risk Management Plan (RMP) Rule, a policy meant to protect community members who live and work near high-risk chemical facilities. In a new letter, hundreds of health professionals are calling on EPA to set the strongest possible standards, demanding reforms that bring chemical-safety rules in line with the demands of both science and justice. While more than 200 million people in the U.S. live, work, or attend school near an RMP-covered facility, the threat these facilities pose is more severe for low-income households and communities of color, who are more likely to live near the fence line of one or more hazardous facilities. Read More
April 8, 2022
The Promise of the Environmental Justice For All Act: NRDC Expert Blog
The Environmental Justice for All Act (EJ for All Act) is an essential federal legislative effort to begin remedying the long history of environmental racism and injustice in the United States, including the cumulative and disproportionate pollution burdens threatening communities of color, low-income communities, and Native/Indigenous nations and communities across the country. Importantly, this landmark bill has been developed in close partnership with leaders in the environmental justice movement. The extensive public input process that informed the EJ for All Act’s creation has produced legislation uniquely shaped by the same people and communities that will benefit directly from its policy improvements. Accordingly, the EJ for All Act recognizes that meaningfully improving the lives of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color requires transformative change led by those on the frontlines. As described by Michele Roberts, National Co-Coordinator of the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, “This is legislation that our affiliates see themselves in.” Read More
March 31, 2022
Environmentalists Clash With Industry Over EtO Risk In Chemical Rule
Environmentalists and state regulators are clashing with industry over the legality of EPA’s plan to reaffirm a stringent risk assessment for the solvent ethylene oxide (EtO) in a chemical sector air toxics rule, with environmental groups defending the assessment and warning industry’s preferred use of a weaker Texas alternative would be unlawful....The IRIS analysis found health risks from EtO far greater than previously thought... The Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform in its March 24 comments also supports use of the IRIS risk assessment, but further presses EPA to address issues it has placed outside of the scope of the current rulemaking.“It is time for EPA to fully follow the science and strengthen the MON emission standards to finally protect communities who live, work, worship, go to school, and breathe air near these chemical plants as the Clean Air Act requires,” the group says. EPA should tighten the rule “by reducing flaring, leaks, and other fugitive emissions to eliminate unacceptable cancer risk and provide an ample margin of safety to protect public health from the cumulative health risks and impacts caused by MON and collocated and nearby chemical and petrochemical sources,” it says. The group also urges EPA to update its “outdated cancer risk policy benchmark and the risk assessment approach to account for the real-world cumulative health harms experienced by communities.”
March 7, 2022
Congressional watchdog warns of climate threats to chemical plants
Chemical companies are required by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk Management Plan rule, or RMP rule, to develop programs that help reduce the risk of accidents. There are 10,420 facilities nationwide that are required to submit plans under the rule. A growing threat to these facilities is coming into focus: climate change. More than 3,200 of these sites are in areas where natural hazards like storm surges, wildfires, and flooding are being exacerbated by global warming, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, the U.S. Congress’ investigative arm. In January, more than 70 state and local officials sent a letter to the EPA administrator citing these facts and calling for stricter RMP rules. Read More
February 2, 2022
Disaster at Winston-Salem Fertilizer Plant Is Unacceptable, Unnecessary, and Entirely Preventable
A fire that erupted Monday night at a fertilizer plant in Winston-Salem, NC continues to burn endangering thousands of people in the area who have had to evacuate or shelter-in-place. The threat of a deadly explosion remains as the fire continues to burn out of control, threatening the health and safety of the nearby communities. This tragic chemical disaster poses unacceptable risk to those who live, work, or go to school near facilities like this, yet they regularly happen all over the United States, despite being entirely preventable. Communities at the fenceline of the chemical industry in other communities live daily with similar harm and threat due to major gaps in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) federal rules on hazardous chemical storage, use, and industrial facility safety. It’s time for the EPA to prevent these harmful chemical disasters once and for all. Read More
January 28, 2022
Strengthening this one rule could keep frontline communities safe from their toxic neighbors
We grew up in or near predominantly Black communities surrounded by heavy industry. As children in Louisville, Kentucky, and Claymont, Delaware, we knew something was amiss when so many friends and family members developed dense coughs, asthma, cancer, and other diseases. What we didn’t know at the time is that we were among many low-income communities of color across the country suffering from toxic chemical exposure. For decades our constituents have lived under the constant threat of explosions or toxic releases in our neighborhoods, never knowing what or when the next disaster will be. Parents must weigh the benefits of allowing their children to go outdoors with the risks of being exposed to harsh chemicals. We recently saw air pollution in our communities lead to disproportionate rates of severe illness and death during this pandemic, a trend that has been observed across the country. Read More
2013 Explosion and Chemical Disaster in West, Texas