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.”
Coming Clean programs working toward safer chemical facilities:
- Chemical Disaster Prevention Program
- Clean Energy and Climate Solutions
- The Environmental Justice Health Alliance
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
January 18, 2022
It’s Time to Stop Rolling the Dice on Chemical Disasters
Have you ever watched somebody shake a can of soda, and then get ready to crack open the top? You know it’s going to explode, but you don’t know when, or how bad it will be. That’s what it’s like living near a chemical plant. Except the consequences can be deadly. As a lifelong resident of Kanawha County, West Virginia — an area that has been home to dozens of industrial facilities making everything from pesticides to plastics — I know this uncertain feeling all too well. For the past several decades, I’ve listened to emergency sirens go off in my community, indicating that we need to shelter in place, while virtually no information is shared about what happened or how dangerous it might be. The Environmental Protection Agency can help protect millions of people who live near industrial facilities — but only if it works now to strengthen an important federal chemical policy. Read More
December 21, 2021
How Black Communities Become “Sacrifice Zones” for Industrial Air Pollution
Every time Pam Nixon drives along Interstate 64, she sees the Union Carbide plant. Wedged between a green hillside and the Kanawha River, the sprawling facility has helped define West Virginia’s “Chemical Valley” for the better part of a century, its smokestacks belching gray plumes and fishy odors into the town of Institute, population 1,400. To many West Virginians, the plant is a source of pride — it was a key maker of synthetic rubber in World War II — and a source of hundreds of jobs. But to Nixon and others in Institute’s largely Black community, it has meant something else: pollution. The plant reminds Nixon of leaks, fires, explosions — dangers she’s dedicated most of her adult life to trying to stop. Read More
December 20, 2021
42 labor environmental, community and scientific organizations support Dr. Jennifer Sass's nomination to the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
Dr. Sass’ educational and professional background make her exceptionally well qualified to serve as a board member on the CSB, which is charged with investigating chemical disasters and making recommendations to industry and government on best ways to prevent future incidents. Read More
December 14, 2021
Texas Border Town Demands Stronger Action to Tackle Cancer-Causing Chemical Pollution
In many ways, EtO is a poster child for the ways that industry and regulators have, for decades, failed to effectively protect people from chemical safety hazards and health threats like cancer. A report published last week highlighted the role that chemical plants play in driving climate change. The report, “The Chemical Industry: An Overlooked Driver of the Climate Crisis,” was published by Coming Clean, a national environmental health and justice network, and concluded that roughly 7 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the chemical sector — and that percentage is predicted to grow as the energy transition pushes other sectors away from fossil fuels and towards lower-cost and less polluting renewable energy sources. Read More
December 8, 2021
Plastics, fertilizer, and synthetic rubber: Report calls out chemical industry’s use of fossil fuels
Everyone knows that the fossil fuel industry drives global warming. A new report shows that the chemical industry contributes to the climate crisis, too. But the conversation about solutions to climate change has largely omitted the role that chemicals and petrochemicals play in exacerbating the crisis, and the report says policymakers should start thinking about ways to green the industry.
The chemical sector doesn’t just make products like inks, solvents, glues, and soaps. It also makes products out of oil and gas like plastics, fertilizer, and synthetic rubber. The chemical industry often relies on fossil fuels to power its factories and make its products. And some of these chemicals, like refrigerants, are potent greenhouse gases themselves. All of those emissions add up. Read More
December 7, 2021
EPA Must Strengthen Protections for Citizens
Before the Bhopal disaster and the Institute incident, communities across the US did not have a guaranteed right to know the risks or the names of hazardous and toxic chemicals being produced, stored, transported or discharged by local industries near their homes. In 1986, Congress passed the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act. In 1990 the EPA Risk Management Plan required facilities that use certain hazardous substances to develop plans for chemical accident prevention. Plans are required to identify the vulnerable zones and potential effects of a chemical accident, identify steps the facility takes to prevent an accident, and to spell out facility emergency response procedures when an incident occurs. Read More
December 7, 2021
The Chemical Industry: An Overlooked Driver of the Climate Crisis, Says New Report
A new report was released today about how the chemical industry is driving the climate crisis and what should be done about it. The new report - “The Chemical Industry: An Overlooked Driver of the Climate Crisis” - describes how chemicals and petrochemicals used to make plastic, rubber, fertilizers and more are made from fossil fuel feedstocks and manufactured using fossil-fuel based energy, accounting for roughly seven percent of global GHG emissions. Yet somehow the chemical industry is overlooked when it comes to climate solutions. Read More
December 3, 2021
Statement of Solidarity with Environmental Justice communities in Bhopal on the 37th Anniversary of the Agrochemical Gas Disaster
On this 37th anniversary of the world’s worst industrial disaster, we, the undersigned individuals and organizations from across the United States, express our solidarity with the people of Bhopal who, in 1984, were exposed when 27 tons of the highly toxic pesticide intermediary chemical, methyl isocyanate (MIC), leaked due to a preventable incident at the Union Carbide pesticide plant. We stand united to end the harm from toxic chemicals throughout their lifecycle, from feedstock extraction to disposal and persistent contamination in humans and the environment. Read More
2013 Explosion and Chemical Disaster in West, Texas