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
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
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
November 24, 2021
The EPA Administrator Visited Cancer-Causing Air Pollution Hot Spots Highlighted by ProPublica and Promised Reforms
Veteran environmental activist Christine Bennett, who grew up in Mossville, lost eight of her family members to illnesses that she attributes to “living in a chemical cocktail.” She’s traveled across the United States to speak about pollution. During her meeting with Regan, she asked him for the same things she’d already asked of so many government officials: a health clinic, a memorial, restitution from industry for the lost value of Mossville’s homes and funding for relocation. Her husband, Delma Bennett, said that Regan told them he was “taking this to heart and hearing everything we are saying.” “But we’ve met with so many of them over the years,” Christine Bennett replied. “All we do is be heard.” Read More
November 19, 2021
Now hiring a National Chemical Campaign Organizer!
Coming Clean is seeking a motivated, self-starting individual with proven experience planning and organizing campaigns to join the amazing staff of a diverse, local to national environmental health network working to transform the chemical industry so that it is no longer a source of harm to people or the planet. Read More
November 17, 2021
Louisville Chemours plant plans to curb super pollutants
Earlier this year, Inside Climate News reported the Chemours Louisville Works plant emits more greenhouse gases than all of the cars and light-duty trucks registered in the city combined... New equipment will help the chemical plant reduce its greenhouse gas emissions... But the new equipment will create its own emissions, releasing more than 1,600 pounds of chloroform and other hazardous air pollutants into fence-line communities, records show. The communities that live near the industrial corridor known as Rubbertown already deal with a disproportionate amount of the city’s pollution. Nearly 2,400 people live within a mile of the plant, 62% are people of color and nearly half are low-income, according to an EPA database. “You can’t trade off one bad thing, greenhouse gases, for another bad thing, hazardous chemicals,” said Eboni Cochran, co-director of Rubbertown Emergency Action (REACT), Read More
October 13, 2021
EPA Failed to Correct Industry Misinformation About Deadly Air Pollution at Public Meetings
At several recent information sessions on the risks posed by the carcinogenic air pollutant ethylene oxide, the Environmental Protection Agency invited local polluters to participate and failed to correct the companies’ false assertions that the chemical poses no danger. “The rich community can shut theirs down because they got the mighty dollar,” Christine Bennett, a resident of Mossville, Louisiana, said at the community meeting, referring to the Illinois plant that was shut after emitting ethylene oxide. “But here in a low-income, poor community, we can’t do nothing about it.”
[The Intercept] Read More
September 29, 2021
Chemical Hazards in the Wake of Hurricane Ida, One Month Later
New Report Profiles Three Toxic Chemical Incidents Caused by Ida and the Need for Stronger Federal Protections to Prevent Further Public Health Risks Read More
2013 Explosion and Chemical Disaster in West, Texas