The chemical industry needs to switch away from its major building-block petrochemicals so it can transform into a sector that no longer harms people’s health or the environment, according to a July 13 report from activists. Lower-hazard substances that are not derived from fossil fuels should replace benzene, butadiene, ethylene, methanol, propylene, toluene, and xylene, says the report by the group Coming Clean. It is a US-based network of community activists, environmental justice organizations, and policy, science, and market experts. “The petrochemical sector’s reliance on fossil-fuel feedstocks and manufacturing processes that have evolved little in a hundred years is a massive barrier for change,” Beverley Thorpe, program manager at Clean Production Action and author of the report, says in a statement.
Read MoreSafe 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.
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.
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.”
Related resources and reports from Coming Clean:
- Transitioning to Safer Substitutes Our infographic shows how a water reclamation plant in Albuquerque, New Mexico was able to stop storing dangerous quantities of chlorine gas on site by switching to an ultraviolet light disinfection system, after residents took action.
- Unprepared for Disaster: Chemical Hazards in the Wake of Hurricane Ida In this 2021 report, we profile three facilities in Louisiana that put communities at risk by releasing toxic chemicals into the environment after being hit with high winds and flooding from Hurricane Ida. We recommend several ways the EPA could meaningfully update its Risk Management Program to prevent chemical disasters from happening in the first place.
- Life at the Fenceline: Understanding Cumulative Health Hazards in Environmental Justice Communities Our 2015 report shows that people on the fenceline live under the threat of chemical disasters, have limited access to healthy food, and experience higher rates of cancer and respiratory illness.
- Environmental Justice for Delaware: Mitigating Toxic Pollution in New Castle County Communities
Exposure to high levels of environmental pollution is one of the many risks faced disproportionately by people of color and people living in poverty. People of color and people living below or near poverty levels are significantly more likely to live near industrial facilities that use large quantities of toxic chemicals and pose risks of major chemical disasters. The county of New Castle in northern Delaware is a case in point, according to this 2017 joint report with the Center for Science and Democracy, EJHA, and Delaware Concerned Residents for Environmental Justice.
- Who's in Danger: Race, Poverty, and Chemical Disasters Our research shows that the people most at risk from chemical disasters are communities of color and low-income communities.
- When the Wind Blows: Tracking Toxic Chemicals in Gas Fields and Local Communities a 2014 report documenting Coming Clean’s collaborative, community-based research project to monitor toxic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in gas fields in rural Pavillion, Wyoming and to see what same VOCs are present in the bodies of people who work and live there.
- Warning Signs: Toxic Air Pollution Identified at Oil and Gas Sites In 2012, twelve community groups in 6 states (Arkansas, Colorado, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wyoming), with support from a team of national organizations and experts, decided to test the air near oil and gas development sites located in their communities. This report provides results from community air monitoring in those states near oil and gas development sites, including where hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” activities or waste disposal are taking place.
Related News
July 27, 2022
Environmental justice and health organizations urge House of Representatives to swiftly pass the Environmental Justice For All Act
Over 90 organizations joined Coming Clean and the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform in expressing strong support for the Environmental Justice for All Act (H.R. 2021), as it goes before the House Committee on Natural Resources for markup today, urging committee members to “advance this important legislation swiftly to a vote on the House floor.” Read More
July 19, 2022
Group urges chemical industry to move away from petrochemicals
Activists say the chemical industry needs to switch from petrochemical building blocks such as methanol to safer, biobased substances, Chemical & Engineering News reports. Substances that are not derived from fossil fuels should replace benzene, butadiene, ethylene, methanol, propylene, toluene, and xylene, according to a report by the group Coming Clean, a U.S.-based network of community activists, environmental justice organizations, and policy, science and market experts. Such a shift would be a major change for south Louisiana, where the petrochemical industry has grown over the past decade. In Baton Rouge, for example, ExxonMobil is in the middle of a $500 million production capacity upgrade at its polyolefins plant. Read More
July 13, 2022
A Radical Transformation of the Chemical Industry: Ten Fundamental Changes Needed
Today, Coming Clean released a paper outlining ten steps needed to transform the chemical sector by replacing hazardous petrochemicals with safer alternatives. Fundamental changes to the chemical sector are needed because, as scientists recently confirmed, chemical pollution has crossed a “planetary boundary,” threatening the stability of Earth’s life-supporting ecosystems. The chemical sector is also a major contributor of greenhouse gasses that fuel the climate crisis. Seven high-hazard and fossil fuel intensive “platform” chemicals - methanol, ethylene, propylene, butadiene, benzene, toluene, and xylene - which are the basis for 90% of the chemicals on the market today, must be replaced with lower hazard, non-fossil-fuel derived substitutes, the paper urges. Benzene and butadiene, for example, are commonly released from chemical production sites in the US with devastating impacts on environmental justice communities in Louisville, Houston and beyond. Read More
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
2013 Explosion and Chemical Disaster in West, Texas