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A former shrimper tries to revive Matagorda Bay and its fishing industry with $50 million pollution settlement

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Friday, January 3, 2025

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. This story is published in partnership with Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. PORT LAVACA — Few people still fish for a living on the Gulf Coast of Texas. The work is hard and pay is meager. In the hearts of rundown seaside towns, dilapidated harbors barely recall the communities that thrived here generations ago. But at the docks of Port Lavaca, one group of humble fishermen just got a staggering $20 million to bring back their timeless way of life. They’re buying out the buyer of their catch, starting the largest oyster farm in Texas and dreaming big for the first time in a long time. “We have a lot of hope,” said Jose Lozano, 46, who docks his oyster boats in Port Lavaca. “Things will get better.” It’s all thanks to one elder fisherwoman’s longshot crusade against the petrochemical behemoth across the bay, and her historic settlement in 2019. Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation shrimper from the tiny town of Seadrift, took on a $250 billion Taiwanese chemical company, Formosa Plastics Corp., and won a $50 million trust fund, the largest sum ever awarded in a civil suit under the Clean Water Act. Now, five years later, that money is beginning to flow into some major development projects on this mostly rural and generally overlooked stretch of Texas coastline. Through the largest of them, the Matagorda Bay Fishing Cooperative, formed in February, Wilson dreams of rebuilding this community’s relationship with the sea and reviving a lifestyle that flourished here before global markets cratered the seafood industry and local economies shifted to giant chemical plants. “I refuse to believe it’s a thing of the past,” said Wilson, 76, who lives in a converted barn, down a dirt road, amid a scraggle of mossy oak trees. “We’re going to put money for the fishermen. They’re not going to be destroyed.” Fishermen prepare to set out for work before sunrise from the harbor at Port Lavaca. Credit: Dylan Baddour/Inside Climate News The fishing cooperative has only just begun to spend its $20 million, Wilson said. It’s the largest of dozens of projects funded by her settlement agreement. Others include a marine science summer camp at the Port Lavaca YMCA, a global campaign to document plastic pollution from chemical plants, a $500,000 study of mercury pollution in Lavaca Bay and the $10 million development of a local freshwater lake for public access. The most important Texas news,sent weekday mornings. “They are doing some wonderful things,” said Gary Reese, a Calhoun County commissioner. He also received grants from the fund to build a pier and a playground pavilion at other county parks. The fund resulted from a lawsuit Wilson filed in 2017 under the Clean Water Act, which enables citizens to petition for enforcement of environmental law where state regulators have failed to act. By gathering evidence from her kayak over years, Wilson demonstrated that Formosa had routinely discharged large amounts of plastic pellets into local waterways for decades, violating language in its permits. These sorts of lawsuits typically result in settlements with companies that fund development projects, said Josh Kratka, managing attorney at the National Environmental Law Center in Boston. But seldom do they come anywhere close to the dollar amount involved in Wilson’s $50 million settlement with Formosa. “It’s a real outlier in that aspect,” Kratka said. For example, he said, environmental organizations in Texas sued a Shell oil refinery in Deer Park and won a $5.8 million settlement in 2008 that funded an upgrade of a local district’s school bus fleet and solar panels on local government buildings. In 2009 groups sued a Chevron Phillips chemical plant in Baytown and won a $2 million settlement in 2009 that funded an environmental health clinic for underserved communities. One reason for the scale of Wilson’s winning, Kratka said, was an unprecedented citizen effort to gather plastic pollution from the bays as evidence in court. While violations of permit limits are typically proven through company self-reporting, Wilson mobilized a small team of volunteers. “This was done by everyday people in this community, that’s what built the case,” said Erin Gaines, an attorney who previously worked on the case for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid. “This had never been done before, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen.” Formosa Plastics Corporation's Point Comfort petrochemical complex covers 2,500 acres on Lavaca Bay. Credit: Dylan Baddour/Inside Climate News Wilson’s settlement included much more than the initial $50 million payment. Formosa also agreed to clean up its own legacy plastic pollution and has so far spent $32 million doing so, according to case records. And the company committed to discharge no more plastic material from its Point Comfort complex — a standard which had never been applied to any plastics plants across the nation. Formosa consented to regular wastewater testing to verify compliance, and to penalties for violations. Now, three times a week, a specially engineered contraption analyzes the outflows at Formosa. Three times a week, it finds they are full of plastic. And three times a week, Formosa pays a $65,000 penalty into Wilson’s trust fund. It’s small change for a company that makes about $1 billion per year at its Point Comfort complex, or $2.7 million per day. To date, those penalty payments have totaled more than $24 million, in addition to the $50 million awarded in 2019. The money doesn’t belong to Wilson, who has never been rich, and she never touches it. It goes into a fund called the Matagorda Bay Mitigation Trust, which is independently managed. Wilson evaluates grant applications and decides how the money will be allocated to government entities, registered nonprofits and public universities. Many locals who know her story assume that Wilson is rich now, she said. But she never got a penny of the settlement. She was never doing this for the money. “They cannot believe I would do this for the bay and the fishermen,” she said. “It’s my home and I completely refuse to give it to that company to ruin.” Formosa also writes grants for community development programs, although none of them approach the size of the Matagorda Bay Mitigation Trust. In response to a query from Inside Climate News, the company provided a summary of its community spending over 30 years, including $2.4 million on local and regional environmental projects, $2 million for a new Memorial Medical clinic, $2 million to upgrade local water treatment systems, $2 million to an area food bank, $1.3 million for local religious organizations and $1.2 million on scholarships for high school seniors. The company has contributed $6.3 million for regional roadway improvements, donated 19 houses to the Calhoun County Independent School District and built a classroom in restored wetlands. Its annual employee golf tournament raises $500,000 for United Way charities, and its national headquarters in New Jersey gives $1 million each year to local charities. In Point Comfort it has programs to plant trees, protect bees and restore monarch butterfly habitat. “Formosa Plastics has always believed in giving back to the community and approximately 30 years ago established education, environmental, medical, religious and scholarship trusts,” the company said in a five-page statement. Since the 2019 settlement, Formosa has taken steps to address environmental challenges and reduce the environmental impact at its Point Comfort complex, the company said. Formosa has installed pollution control systems to reduce the release of plastic particles, has partnered with industry experts to develop better filtration methods and is monitoring emerging technologies for opportunities to improve environmental stewardship, it said. The Point Comfort complex has also improved stormwater drainage to reduce plastics in runoff, and is engaging with community advocates to identify sustainable solutions. “We understand the importance of protecting the environment and the communities where we operate, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to transparency, accountability, and continuous improvement,” the statement said. The fishing way of life  Wilson fondly recalls the bustling fishing community of her youth in Seadrift, more than 60 years ago. There were hundreds of boats at the docks, surrounded by a town full of mechanics, welders, netmakers and fish houses. They weren’t rich, Wilson said, but they were free. They answered to no one, except maybe game wardens. They had twilight every morning, the silence of the water, the adventure of the search, the thrill of the catch and a regular intimacy with spirits of the sea, sun, wind and sky. “You are out there on that bay, facing the elements, making decisions,” Wilson said. “That is as close to nature as you can get.” Diane Wilson at the Seadrift docks in 1991. Credit: Courtesy of Diane Wilson Over her life, she watched it all fall apart. There are no fish houses in Seadrift today. Almost all the old businesses were bulldozed or boarded up. Wilson’s own brothers took jobs at the giant petrochemical plants growing onshore. But every day off they spent back on the water. Most people called her crazy, 30 years ago, when she started complaining about water pollution from Formosa. Powerful interests denounced her and no one defended her. But Wilson never gave up speaking out against pollution in the bay. “That bay is alive. She is family and I will fight for her,” Wilson said. “I think everyone else would let her be destroyed.” Over years of persistent, rambunctious protests targeting Formosa, Wilson began to get calls from employees at the plant, asking to meet secretly in fields, pastures and beer joints to talk about what they’d seen. They told her about vast amounts of plastic dust and pellets washed down drains, and about the wastewater outfalls where it all ended up. When Wilson started visiting those places, often only accessible by kayak, she began to find the substance for her landmark lawsuit, millions and millions of plastic pellets that filled waterways and marshes. “Felt like Huck Finn out there, all that exploring,” she said. In 2017, Wislon filed her petition in federal court, then continued collecting evidence for years before trial. It was the first case over plastic pellet pollution brought under the Clean Water Act, according to Amy Johnson, then a contract attorney with the nonprofit RioGrande Legal Aid and lead attorney for Wilson’s case. Gathering nurdles  Down the coast in Port Aransas, a researcher at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute named Jace Tunnell had just launched a project in 2018 to study water pollution from plastics manufacturing plants. At that time, little was known about the scale of releases of plastic pellets, also called nurdles, into the oceans from those industrial facilities. The Nurdle Patrol, as Tunnell called it, was beginning on a shoestring budget to methodically collect and catalog the nurdles in hopes of getting a better picture of the problem. That’s when Tunnel, a fourth generation Gulf Coast native and a second generation marine scientist, heard about a fisherwoman who was also collecting nurdles up the coast. Two kinds of plastic pollution, from left: Diane Wilson displays PVC powder in a water sample, and Jace Tunnell holds plastic nurdles he collected on a beach. Credit: Dylan Baddour/Inside Climate News He contacted Wilson, who shared her data. But Tunnell didn’t believe it. Wilson claimed to have gathered 30,000 nurdles in 10 minutes. Tunnell would typically collect up to 200 in that time. He drove out to see for himself and found, to his shock, that it was true. “The nurdles were just pluming up back there,” Tunnell said. “It really was an eye opener for me of how bad Formosa was.” At that time, Wilson and her small team of volunteers were pulling up huge amounts of plastic from the bay system and logging it as evidence. In 2019, the case went to trial. At one point, she parked a pickup truck full of damp, stinky plastic outside the federal courthouse and brought the judge out to see. She also cited Nurdle Patrol’s scientific method for gathering pellets as a means to estimate overall discharges in the bay. “Diane was able to use Nurdle Patrol data in the lawsuit to seal the deal,” Tunnell said. Later that year, the judge ruled in Wilson’s favor, finding Formosa had violated its permit limits to discharge “trace amounts” of plastics thousands of times over decades. Formosa opted to negotiate a settlement with Wilson rather than seek a court-ordered penalty. In December 2019, the two parties signed a consent decree outlining their agreement and creating the $50 million Matagorda Bay Mitigation Trust. Funding community projects  Right away, Wilson signed over $1 million to the Nurdle Patrol, which Tunnell used over five years to build an international network with 23,000 volunteers and an online portal with the best data available on plastic nurdles in the oceans. They’ve also provided elementary and high schools with thousands of teaching kits about plastics production and water pollution. “There’s no accountability for the industries that release this,” Tunnell said as he picked plastic pellets from the sand near his home on North Padre Island in early December. “Of course, Diane kind of changed that.” Jace Tunnell, founder of the Nurdle Patrol, collects plastic pellets on Padre Island in December 2024. Credit: Dylan Baddour/Inside Climate News The trust’s largest grant programs are still yet to take effect. Wilson allocated $10 million to Calhoun County to develop a 6,400 acre park around Green Lake, the second largest natural lake in Texas, currently inaccessible to the public. The county will begin taking bids this month to build phase one of the project, which will include walking trails and birding stands, according to county commissioner Reese. Later they’ll build a parking lot and boat ramp. The county brought this property in 2012 with hopes of making a park, but never had the money. Initially, county officials planned to build an RV park with plenty of pavement. But funding from Wilson’s trust forbade RVs and required a lighter footprint to respect the significant Native American and Civil War campsites identified on the property. “It’ll be more of a back-to-nature thing,” Reese said. “It's been a long time coming, we hope to be able to provide a quality facility for the public thanks to Matagorda Mitigation Trust.” By far, the largest grant from the trust has gone to the fishermen. Wilson allocated $20 million to form a cooperative at the docks of Port Lavaca — an unlikely sum of money for seamen who struggle to feed their families well. Wilson dreamed that this money could help bring back the vanishing lifestyle that she loved. An oyster boat sets out for work before sunrise from the harbor at Port Lavaca. Credit: Dylan Baddour/Inside Climate News The fishermen  Today, most of the remaining commercial fishermen on this Gulf coast come from Mexico and have fished here for decades. It’s hard work without health insurance, retirement plans or guaranteed daily income. But it’s an ancient occupation that has always been available to enterprising people by the sea. “It’s what we’ve done our whole life,” said Homero Muñoz, 48, a board member of the fishermen’s cooperative, who has worked the Texas coast since he was 19. “This is what we like to do.” Lately it’s been more difficult than ever, he said. Declining vitality in the bays, widespread reef closures by Texas authorities and opposition from wealthy sportfishing organizations force the commercial fishermen to compete for shrinking oyster populations in small and distant areas. Then, the fishermen have little power to negotiate on low prices for their catch set by a few big regional buyers, who also own most of the dock space. The buyers distribute it at a markup to restaurants and markets across the county. “There isn’t anyone who helps us,” said Cecilio Ruiz, a 58-year-old father of three who has fished the Texas coast since 1982. To help the fishermen build a sustainable business, Wilson tapped the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, an organization based in Atlanta originally founded to help Black farmers and landowners form cooperatives in the newly de-segregated South. For FSC, it was an unprecedented offer. “This is an amazing project, very historic,” said Terence Courtney, director of cooperative development and strategic initiatives at FSC. Usually, money is the biggest obstacle for producers wanting to form a collectively owned business, Courtney said. He’d never seen a case where a donor put up millions of dollars to make it happen. “Opportunities like this don’t come around often. I can’t think of another example,” Courtney said. “We saw this as something that history was compelling us to do.” The Matagorda Bay Fishing Cooperative office building at the harbor in Port Lavaca. Credit: Dylan Baddour/Inside Climate News The Matagorda Bay Fishing Cooperative In 2020 Courtney started traveling regularly to Port Lavaca, meeting groups of fishermen, assessing their needs, discussing the concept of a cooperative and studying feasibility. The men, who speak primarily Spanish, had trouble understanding Courtney’s English at first. But they knew someone who could help: Veronica Briceño, the daughter of a late local fisherman known as Captain Ralph. As a child, she translated between English and Spanish around her father’s business and the local docks and harbors. Briceño, a 40-year-old worker at the county tax appraisal office, was excited to hear about the effort. She’d learned to fish on her grandfather’s boat. Her father left her four boats and she couldn’t bring herself to sell them. She joined FSC as a volunteer translator for the project. “These men, all they know how to do is really just work,” she said. “They were needing support from someone.” A year later, FSC hired Briceño as project coordinator. They leased an old bait shop with dock space at the harbor in Port Lavaca and renovated it as an office. Then in February 2024 they officially formed the Matagorda Bay Fishing Cooperative, composed of 37 boat owners with 77 boats that employ up to 230 people. Now Briceño has a desk at the office where she helps the fishermen with paperwork, permitting and legal questions while coordinating a growing list of contracts as the cooperative begins to spend big money. Negotiations are underway for the cooperative to purchase a major local seafood buyer, Miller’s Seafood, along with its boats, dock space, processing operations and supply contracts for about $2 million. “I hope they help carry it on,” said Curtis Miller, 63, the owner of Miller’s Seafood, which was founded by his uncle in the 1960s. “I would like to see them be able to succeed.” Many of the cooperative members have worked for Miller’s Seafood during the last 40 years, he said. The company handles almost entirely oysters now and provides them wholesale to restaurants on the East Coast, Florida and in Texas. The cooperative has also leased 60 acres of bay water from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to start the largest oyster farm in Texas, a relatively new practice here. FSC is now permitting the project with the Texas General Land Office and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “That might be the future of the industry,” said Miller. “It might be the next big thing.” ‘It can be revived’ At a recent meeting of the cooperative, the members discussed options for a $2.5 million purchase of more than 7,000 oyster cages to install on the new farm. They talked about plans to visit and study a working oyster farm. The cooperative is finalizing a marketing and distribution plan for the farmed oysters. The project would give two acres to each oysterman to farm, and would finally do away with the frantic race to harvest the few available oyster areas before other boats do. Now, they’ll have a place of their own. “To have our own farms, liberty to go to our own piece of water,” said Miguel Fierros, 44, a bearded, third-generation fisherman and father of three. “It’s a unique opportunity I don’t think we’ll ever get again.” Briceño, the project coordinator, hopes that the practice of oyster farming will bring a new generation into the seafood industry here. Neither of her kids plan to make a living on the water like her father or grandfather, who always encouraged the family to find jobs with health insurance and retirement. Now her 21-year-old son works at Formosa, like many of his peers, as a crane operator. Perhaps this cooperative, with its miraculous $20 million endowment, can realize the dream of a local fishing industry with dignified pay and benefits. If it goes well, Briceño said, maybe her grandkids will be fishermen someday. “We’re going to get a younger crowd actually interested,” she said. This project is just getting started. Most of their money still remains to be spent, and the fishermen have many ideas. They would like to buy a boat repair business to service their fleet, as well as a net workshop, and to open more oyster farms. For Wilson, now an internationally recognized environmental advocate, this all just proves how much can be accomplished by a stubborn country woman with volunteer helpers and nonprofit lawyers. Ultimately, she hopes these projects will help rebuild a fishing community and bring back the fishermen’s way of life. For now, the program is only getting started. “It can be revived,” Wilson said. “There is a lot of money left.” Disclosure: The Texas General Land Office and Texas Parks And Wildlife Department have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

Five years after Diane Wilson’s landmark settlement with Formosa Plastics, she’s directing the money toward reviving “the bay and the fishermen.”

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This story is published in partnership with Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here.

PORT LAVACA — Few people still fish for a living on the Gulf Coast of Texas. The work is hard and pay is meager. In the hearts of rundown seaside towns, dilapidated harbors barely recall the communities that thrived here generations ago.

But at the docks of Port Lavaca, one group of humble fishermen just got a staggering $20 million to bring back their timeless way of life. They’re buying out the buyer of their catch, starting the largest oyster farm in Texas and dreaming big for the first time in a long time.

“We have a lot of hope,” said Jose Lozano, 46, who docks his oyster boats in Port Lavaca. “Things will get better.”

It’s all thanks to one elder fisherwoman’s longshot crusade against the petrochemical behemoth across the bay, and her historic settlement in 2019. Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation shrimper from the tiny town of Seadrift, took on a $250 billion Taiwanese chemical company, Formosa Plastics Corp., and won a $50 million trust fund, the largest sum ever awarded in a civil suit under the Clean Water Act.

Now, five years later, that money is beginning to flow into some major development projects on this mostly rural and generally overlooked stretch of Texas coastline. Through the largest of them, the Matagorda Bay Fishing Cooperative, formed in February, Wilson dreams of rebuilding this community’s relationship with the sea and reviving a lifestyle that flourished here before global markets cratered the seafood industry and local economies shifted to giant chemical plants.

“I refuse to believe it’s a thing of the past,” said Wilson, 76, who lives in a converted barn, down a dirt road, amid a scraggle of mossy oak trees. “We’re going to put money for the fishermen. They’re not going to be destroyed.”

Fishermen prepare to set out for work before sunrise from the harbor at Port Lavaca. Credit: Dylan Baddour/Inside Climate News

The fishing cooperative has only just begun to spend its $20 million, Wilson said. It’s the largest of dozens of projects funded by her settlement agreement. Others include a marine science summer camp at the Port Lavaca YMCA, a global campaign to document plastic pollution from chemical plants, a $500,000 study of mercury pollution in Lavaca Bay and the $10 million development of a local freshwater lake for public access.

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“They are doing some wonderful things,” said Gary Reese, a Calhoun County commissioner. He also received grants from the fund to build a pier and a playground pavilion at other county parks.

The fund resulted from a lawsuit Wilson filed in 2017 under the Clean Water Act, which enables citizens to petition for enforcement of environmental law where state regulators have failed to act. By gathering evidence from her kayak over years, Wilson demonstrated that Formosa had routinely discharged large amounts of plastic pellets into local waterways for decades, violating language in its permits.

These sorts of lawsuits typically result in settlements with companies that fund development projects, said Josh Kratka, managing attorney at the National Environmental Law Center in Boston. But seldom do they come anywhere close to the dollar amount involved in Wilson’s $50 million settlement with Formosa.

“It’s a real outlier in that aspect,” Kratka said.

For example, he said, environmental organizations in Texas sued a Shell oil refinery in Deer Park and won a $5.8 million settlement in 2008 that funded an upgrade of a local district’s school bus fleet and solar panels on local government buildings. In 2009 groups sued a Chevron Phillips chemical plant in Baytown and won a $2 million settlement in 2009 that funded an environmental health clinic for underserved communities.

One reason for the scale of Wilson’s winning, Kratka said, was an unprecedented citizen effort to gather plastic pollution from the bays as evidence in court. While violations of permit limits are typically proven through company self-reporting, Wilson mobilized a small team of volunteers.

“This was done by everyday people in this community, that’s what built the case,” said Erin Gaines, an attorney who previously worked on the case for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid. “This had never been done before, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”

Formosa Plastics Corporation's Point Comfort petrochemical complex covers 2,500 acres on Lavaca Bay. Credit: Dylan Baddour/Inside Climate News

Wilson’s settlement included much more than the initial $50 million payment. Formosa also agreed to clean up its own legacy plastic pollution and has so far spent $32 million doing so, according to case records. And the company committed to discharge no more plastic material from its Point Comfort complex — a standard which had never been applied to any plastics plants across the nation.

Formosa consented to regular wastewater testing to verify compliance, and to penalties for violations. Now, three times a week, a specially engineered contraption analyzes the outflows at Formosa. Three times a week, it finds they are full of plastic. And three times a week, Formosa pays a $65,000 penalty into Wilson’s trust fund.

It’s small change for a company that makes about $1 billion per year at its Point Comfort complex, or $2.7 million per day. To date, those penalty payments have totaled more than $24 million, in addition to the $50 million awarded in 2019.

The money doesn’t belong to Wilson, who has never been rich, and she never touches it. It goes into a fund called the Matagorda Bay Mitigation Trust, which is independently managed.

Wilson evaluates grant applications and decides how the money will be allocated to government entities, registered nonprofits and public universities.

Many locals who know her story assume that Wilson is rich now, she said. But she never got a penny of the settlement. She was never doing this for the money.

“They cannot believe I would do this for the bay and the fishermen,” she said. “It’s my home and I completely refuse to give it to that company to ruin.”

Formosa also writes grants for community development programs, although none of them approach the size of the Matagorda Bay Mitigation Trust.

In response to a query from Inside Climate News, the company provided a summary of its community spending over 30 years, including $2.4 million on local and regional environmental projects, $2 million for a new Memorial Medical clinic, $2 million to upgrade local water treatment systems, $2 million to an area food bank, $1.3 million for local religious organizations and $1.2 million on scholarships for high school seniors.

The company has contributed $6.3 million for regional roadway improvements, donated 19 houses to the Calhoun County Independent School District and built a classroom in restored wetlands. Its annual employee golf tournament raises $500,000 for United Way charities, and its national headquarters in New Jersey gives $1 million each year to local charities. In Point Comfort it has programs to plant trees, protect bees and restore monarch butterfly habitat.

“Formosa Plastics has always believed in giving back to the community and approximately 30 years ago established education, environmental, medical, religious and scholarship trusts,” the company said in a five-page statement.

Since the 2019 settlement, Formosa has taken steps to address environmental challenges and reduce the environmental impact at its Point Comfort complex, the company said.

Formosa has installed pollution control systems to reduce the release of plastic particles, has partnered with industry experts to develop better filtration methods and is monitoring emerging technologies for opportunities to improve environmental stewardship, it said. The Point Comfort complex has also improved stormwater drainage to reduce plastics in runoff, and is engaging with community advocates to identify sustainable solutions.

“We understand the importance of protecting the environment and the communities where we operate, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to transparency, accountability, and continuous improvement,” the statement said.

The fishing way of life 

Wilson fondly recalls the bustling fishing community of her youth in Seadrift, more than 60 years ago. There were hundreds of boats at the docks, surrounded by a town full of mechanics, welders, netmakers and fish houses.

They weren’t rich, Wilson said, but they were free. They answered to no one, except maybe game wardens. They had twilight every morning, the silence of the water, the adventure of the search, the thrill of the catch and a regular intimacy with spirits of the sea, sun, wind and sky.

“You are out there on that bay, facing the elements, making decisions,” Wilson said. “That is as close to nature as you can get.”

Diane Wilson at the Seadrift docks in 1991. Credit: Courtesy of Diane Wilson

Over her life, she watched it all fall apart. There are no fish houses in Seadrift today. Almost all the old businesses were bulldozed or boarded up. Wilson’s own brothers took jobs at the giant petrochemical plants growing onshore. But every day off they spent back on the water.

Most people called her crazy, 30 years ago, when she started complaining about water pollution from Formosa. Powerful interests denounced her and no one defended her.

But Wilson never gave up speaking out against pollution in the bay.

“That bay is alive. She is family and I will fight for her,” Wilson said. “I think everyone else would let her be destroyed.”

Over years of persistent, rambunctious protests targeting Formosa, Wilson began to get calls from employees at the plant, asking to meet secretly in fields, pastures and beer joints to talk about what they’d seen. They told her about vast amounts of plastic dust and pellets washed down drains, and about the wastewater outfalls where it all ended up.

When Wilson started visiting those places, often only accessible by kayak, she began to find the substance for her landmark lawsuit, millions and millions of plastic pellets that filled waterways and marshes.

“Felt like Huck Finn out there, all that exploring,” she said.

In 2017, Wislon filed her petition in federal court, then continued collecting evidence for years before trial. It was the first case over plastic pellet pollution brought under the Clean Water Act, according to Amy Johnson, then a contract attorney with the nonprofit RioGrande Legal Aid and lead attorney for Wilson’s case.

Gathering nurdles 

Down the coast in Port Aransas, a researcher at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute named Jace Tunnell had just launched a project in 2018 to study water pollution from plastics manufacturing plants. At that time, little was known about the scale of releases of plastic pellets, also called nurdles, into the oceans from those industrial facilities.

The Nurdle Patrol, as Tunnell called it, was beginning on a shoestring budget to methodically collect and catalog the nurdles in hopes of getting a better picture of the problem. That’s when Tunnel, a fourth generation Gulf Coast native and a second generation marine scientist, heard about a fisherwoman who was also collecting nurdles up the coast.

Two kinds of plastic pollution, from left: Diane Wilson displays PVC powder in a water sample, and Jace Tunnell holds plastic nurdles he collected on a beach. Credit: Dylan Baddour/Inside Climate News

He contacted Wilson, who shared her data. But Tunnell didn’t believe it. Wilson claimed to have gathered 30,000 nurdles in 10 minutes. Tunnell would typically collect up to 200 in that time. He drove out to see for himself and found, to his shock, that it was true.

“The nurdles were just pluming up back there,” Tunnell said. “It really was an eye opener for me of how bad Formosa was.”

At that time, Wilson and her small team of volunteers were pulling up huge amounts of plastic from the bay system and logging it as evidence.

In 2019, the case went to trial. At one point, she parked a pickup truck full of damp, stinky plastic outside the federal courthouse and brought the judge out to see. She also cited Nurdle Patrol’s scientific method for gathering pellets as a means to estimate overall discharges in the bay.

“Diane was able to use Nurdle Patrol data in the lawsuit to seal the deal,” Tunnell said.

Later that year, the judge ruled in Wilson’s favor, finding Formosa had violated its permit limits to discharge “trace amounts” of plastics thousands of times over decades.

Formosa opted to negotiate a settlement with Wilson rather than seek a court-ordered penalty. In December 2019, the two parties signed a consent decree outlining their agreement and creating the $50 million Matagorda Bay Mitigation Trust.

Funding community projects 

Right away, Wilson signed over $1 million to the Nurdle Patrol, which Tunnell used over five years to build an international network with 23,000 volunteers and an online portal with the best data available on plastic nurdles in the oceans. They’ve also provided elementary and high schools with thousands of teaching kits about plastics production and water pollution.

“There’s no accountability for the industries that release this,” Tunnell said as he picked plastic pellets from the sand near his home on North Padre Island in early December. “Of course, Diane kind of changed that.”

Jace Tunnell, founder of the Nurdle Patrol, collects plastic pellets on Padre Island in December 2024. Credit: Dylan Baddour/Inside Climate News

The trust’s largest grant programs are still yet to take effect. Wilson allocated $10 million to Calhoun County to develop a 6,400 acre park around Green Lake, the second largest natural lake in Texas, currently inaccessible to the public.

The county will begin taking bids this month to build phase one of the project, which will include walking trails and birding stands, according to county commissioner Reese. Later they’ll build a parking lot and boat ramp.

The county brought this property in 2012 with hopes of making a park, but never had the money. Initially, county officials planned to build an RV park with plenty of pavement. But funding from Wilson’s trust forbade RVs and required a lighter footprint to respect the significant Native American and Civil War campsites identified on the property.

“It’ll be more of a back-to-nature thing,” Reese said. “It's been a long time coming, we hope to be able to provide a quality facility for the public thanks to Matagorda Mitigation Trust.”

By far, the largest grant from the trust has gone to the fishermen. Wilson allocated $20 million to form a cooperative at the docks of Port Lavaca — an unlikely sum of money for seamen who struggle to feed their families well. Wilson dreamed that this money could help bring back the vanishing lifestyle that she loved.

An oyster boat sets out for work before sunrise from the harbor at Port Lavaca. Credit: Dylan Baddour/Inside Climate News

The fishermen 

Today, most of the remaining commercial fishermen on this Gulf coast come from Mexico and have fished here for decades. It’s hard work without health insurance, retirement plans or guaranteed daily income. But it’s an ancient occupation that has always been available to enterprising people by the sea.

“It’s what we’ve done our whole life,” said Homero Muñoz, 48, a board member of the fishermen’s cooperative, who has worked the Texas coast since he was 19. “This is what we like to do.”

Lately it’s been more difficult than ever, he said. Declining vitality in the bays, widespread reef closures by Texas authorities and opposition from wealthy sportfishing organizations force the commercial fishermen to compete for shrinking oyster populations in small and distant areas. Then, the fishermen have little power to negotiate on low prices for their catch set by a few big regional buyers, who also own most of the dock space. The buyers distribute it at a markup to restaurants and markets across the county.

“There isn’t anyone who helps us,” said Cecilio Ruiz, a 58-year-old father of three who has fished the Texas coast since 1982.

To help the fishermen build a sustainable business, Wilson tapped the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, an organization based in Atlanta originally founded to help Black farmers and landowners form cooperatives in the newly de-segregated South. For FSC, it was an unprecedented offer.

“This is an amazing project, very historic,” said Terence Courtney, director of cooperative development and strategic initiatives at FSC.

Usually, money is the biggest obstacle for producers wanting to form a collectively owned business, Courtney said. He’d never seen a case where a donor put up millions of dollars to make it happen.

“Opportunities like this don’t come around often. I can’t think of another example,” Courtney said. “We saw this as something that history was compelling us to do.”

The Matagorda Bay Fishing Cooperative office building at the harbor in Port Lavaca. Credit: Dylan Baddour/Inside Climate News

The Matagorda Bay Fishing Cooperative

In 2020 Courtney started traveling regularly to Port Lavaca, meeting groups of fishermen, assessing their needs, discussing the concept of a cooperative and studying feasibility.

The men, who speak primarily Spanish, had trouble understanding Courtney’s English at first. But they knew someone who could help: Veronica Briceño, the daughter of a late local fisherman known as Captain Ralph. As a child, she translated between English and Spanish around her father’s business and the local docks and harbors.

Briceño, a 40-year-old worker at the county tax appraisal office, was excited to hear about the effort. She’d learned to fish on her grandfather’s boat. Her father left her four boats and she couldn’t bring herself to sell them. She joined FSC as a volunteer translator for the project.

“These men, all they know how to do is really just work,” she said. “They were needing support from someone.”

A year later, FSC hired Briceño as project coordinator. They leased an old bait shop with dock space at the harbor in Port Lavaca and renovated it as an office. Then in February 2024 they officially formed the Matagorda Bay Fishing Cooperative, composed of 37 boat owners with 77 boats that employ up to 230 people.

Now Briceño has a desk at the office where she helps the fishermen with paperwork, permitting and legal questions while coordinating a growing list of contracts as the cooperative begins to spend big money.

Negotiations are underway for the cooperative to purchase a major local seafood buyer, Miller’s Seafood, along with its boats, dock space, processing operations and supply contracts for about $2 million.

“I hope they help carry it on,” said Curtis Miller, 63, the owner of Miller’s Seafood, which was founded by his uncle in the 1960s. “I would like to see them be able to succeed.”

Many of the cooperative members have worked for Miller’s Seafood during the last 40 years, he said. The company handles almost entirely oysters now and provides them wholesale to restaurants on the East Coast, Florida and in Texas.

The cooperative has also leased 60 acres of bay water from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to start the largest oyster farm in Texas, a relatively new practice here. FSC is now permitting the project with the Texas General Land Office and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“That might be the future of the industry,” said Miller. “It might be the next big thing.”

‘It can be revived’

At a recent meeting of the cooperative, the members discussed options for a $2.5 million purchase of more than 7,000 oyster cages to install on the new farm. They talked about plans to visit and study a working oyster farm. The cooperative is finalizing a marketing and distribution plan for the farmed oysters.

The project would give two acres to each oysterman to farm, and would finally do away with the frantic race to harvest the few available oyster areas before other boats do. Now, they’ll have a place of their own.

“To have our own farms, liberty to go to our own piece of water,” said Miguel Fierros, 44, a bearded, third-generation fisherman and father of three. “It’s a unique opportunity I don’t think we’ll ever get again.”

Briceño, the project coordinator, hopes that the practice of oyster farming will bring a new generation into the seafood industry here. Neither of her kids plan to make a living on the water like her father or grandfather, who always encouraged the family to find jobs with health insurance and retirement. Now her 21-year-old son works at Formosa, like many of his peers, as a crane operator.

Perhaps this cooperative, with its miraculous $20 million endowment, can realize the dream of a local fishing industry with dignified pay and benefits. If it goes well, Briceño said, maybe her grandkids will be fishermen someday.

“We’re going to get a younger crowd actually interested,” she said.

This project is just getting started. Most of their money still remains to be spent, and the fishermen have many ideas. They would like to buy a boat repair business to service their fleet, as well as a net workshop, and to open more oyster farms.

For Wilson, now an internationally recognized environmental advocate, this all just proves how much can be accomplished by a stubborn country woman with volunteer helpers and nonprofit lawyers. Ultimately, she hopes these projects will help rebuild a fishing community and bring back the fishermen’s way of life.

For now, the program is only getting started.

“It can be revived,” Wilson said. “There is a lot of money left.”

Disclosure: The Texas General Land Office and Texas Parks And Wildlife Department have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Record number of illegal sewage spills in Windermere last year

Campaigners identified 140 illegal spill days into the beauty spot in 2024

Record number of illegal sewage spills in Windermere last yearJonah FisherBBC environment correspondentReutersSewage spilled illegally into Britain's largest lake on a record number of days last year, an analysis of water company data by campaigners suggests.The analysis, which the BBC had exclusive access to, used United Utilities operational data to establish when the company was discharging sewage into Windermere when it should by law have been treating some of it.The campaigners from Windrush Against Sewage Pollution (WASP) and Save Windermere identified 140 illegal spill days in 2024, more than in any of the three previous years. United Utilities told BBC News that the campaigners' findings were "inaccurate" and some of the data "erroneous". The company declined to put in writing, despite repeated requests, any specific examples of mistakes or omissions. Regulators Ofwat and the Environment Agency are both currently investigating United Utilities operations. PAWindermere is one of Britain's most loved beauty spotsLast week the Environment Agency said United Utilities had spilled 77,817 times in 2024, the highest figure of all England's water companies. Many of the spills will have been legal. All water companies are legally allowed to discharge raw sewage to stop the network getting overwhelmed and this now happens regularly during periods of heavy rain.But almost all pumping stations and treatment plants operate under an environmental permit which specify that they must process or "pass forward" a certain amount of sewage and rainwater before spilling starts.The campaigners cross-referenced United Utilities datasets showing when an asset was spilling against how much sewage it was treating at the time. The campaigners' analysis – which has been shared with and scrutinised by the BBC - found days when illegal spills appear to have occurred at each of six sewage facilities around the lake, which combined to 140 days in 2024. That's more than in any of the previous three years, as the chart below shows.The longest illegal spill the analysis identified was for 10 days from Hawkshead pumping station, which flows into Windermere via Cunsey Beck."This is an indication that their works have not been maintained properly or they're not being watched over properly," says Prof Peter Hammond, a mathematican and retired academic from campaign group Windrush Against Sewage Pollution. Prof Hammond's analysis of water company data has been cited by regulators and he has been praised in Parliament by water company executives for bringing problems to light they were previously unaware of. The latest analysis covers four years of data from six sites that discharge sewage into the Lake Windermere catchment.Comparisons over a longer time period are impossible as United Utilities has only had made full data sets available since 2021.Prof Hammond's analysis of water company data has been praised in ParliamentThe regulators Ofwat and the Environment Agency have since 2021 been investigating whether the water companies have been treating enough sewage before they start to spill. The EA call it a "major criminal investigation" while Ofwat call it "the largest and most complex Ofwat has ever undertaken". Last week Yorkshire Water agreed to a £40m "enforcement action" after Ofwat uncovered "serious failures" in how it operated its treatment plant and network. Ofwat declined to comment on the campaigner's findings as their investigation into United Utilities is ongoing. In response to concerns about United Utilities the Environment Agency last year reviewed all of its environmental permits in the Windermere catchment and says this led directly to the water company tripling its investment plans for the area to £200m."We are currently carrying out investigations into suspected pollution incidents on the Windermere catchment and are unable to comment on these in detail until they have reached a conclusion," an EA spokesperson said when the campaigners' analysis was shared with them."Where we find breaches of environmental permits, we will take the appropriate enforcement action up to and including a criminal prosecution."Save WindermereSewage has been blamed for turning parts of the lake green – so called "algal blooming"United Utilities, which provides services to more than seven million people across north-west England, is more than £9bn in debt. Its chief executive Louise Beardmore confirmed to parliament in February that she was last year paid £1.4m including a bonus of £420,000."The methodology used by the campaigners is different to that used by the Environment Agency for its compliance assessments," the water company said in a statement."On top of that, erroneous data has been used, tags and naming conventions in data sets appear to have been misunderstood, and assumptions seem to have been made on whether different types of flow meters have been installed.""The methodology fails to use other corroborating information from the sites which would prove that spills did not occur. As a result, the numbers quoted are inaccurate."BBC News presented United Utilities with five examples of illegal spills the campaigners' analysis had identified using the company's data and asked for any evidence or explanation as to why they were not illegal. United Utilities repeatedly declined to do so in writing or on camera."What we're seeing is the failure of privatisation. We're seeing a prioritisation of dividend returns over the long-term environmental protection of places like Windermere" says Matt Staniek from Save Windermere."The bill payer has paid for a service that has never fully been provided, and the illegality demonstrates that for all to see."Over the next five years bills in the United Utilities area will go up by 32% above the rate of inflation. On average that will mean a rise of £86 for the year that starts in April. Louise Beardmore said the rises will fund the "largest investment in water and wastewater infrastructure in over 100 years". For Windermere that's set to mean nine wastewater treatment works, including two that were included in the campaigners' analysis being upgraded and a reduction in the number of overflows discharging into the lake.

Cadia goldmine operators fined $350,000 for breaches of NSW clean-air laws

Testing had previously revealed the mine was emitting more than 11 times the legal limit of dust containing heavy metalsElection 2025 live updates: Australia federal election campaignGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe operators of Cadia goldmine have been ordered to pay $350,000 in fines and convicted of three offences after a prosecution by the New South Wales Environmental Protection Authority.Cadia Holdings Limited, trading as Cadia Valley Operations, pleaded guilty to three offences under the environmental protection act relating to breaches of clean air regulations at the mine in central west NSW.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

The operators of Cadia goldmine have been ordered to pay $350,000 in fines and convicted of three offences after a prosecution by the New South Wales Environmental Protection Authority.Cadia Holdings Limited, trading as Cadia Valley Operations, pleaded guilty to three offences under the environmental protection act relating to breaches of clean air regulations at the mine in central west NSW.Justice Sarah Pritchard handed down her judgment in the land and environment court on Monday.The mine operator was fined $150,000 for offences in November 2021 and March 2022, and $200,000 for an offence in May 2023, but given a reduction in its penalty because of its guilty plea and other mitigating factors.It must also pay the EPA’s legal costs, and cover the cost of installing a new “dust tracking system” in Mudgee.Pritchard ordered that Newmont Australia, the owner of the mine, also had to publicise the ruling in a print advertisement in three newspapers, and on its Facebook and X accounts.Newmont acquired the previous owner, Newcrest, in November 2023.The EPA began investigating the central-west mine in 2023 after a community-driven water testing program that found elevated levels of heavy metals in the rainwater tanks of some nearby residences.It subsequently found that these levels were caused by dust emissions. The mine operator was exceeding the standard concentration for solid particles being emitted from mine surface exhaust fans at its main vent, known as Ventilation Rise 8 (VR8).In June 2023, the head of the NSW EPA criticised the operators of Australia’s largest goldmine for “completely unacceptable” levels of air pollution after testing revealed it was emitting more than 11 times the legal limit of dust containing heavy metals.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Breaking News AustraliaGet the most important news as it breaksPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionThe EPA ordered the operators to take immediate action to reduce air pollution after they had provided preliminary air pollution test results to the EPA.That report found that VR8, also known as the “crusher vent” because it extracts contaminated air from where the ore is crushed deep underground, was expelling between 200 and 570 milligrams per cubic metre of dust – more than 11 times the regulatory limit for air pollution.This was despite a new ventilation system that included installing a bag house, which catches 1 tonne of dust an hour.The EPA chief executive officer, Tony Chappel, said at the time that the level of pollution recorded in those test results was “completely unacceptable” and that the mine had fallen well short of its legal obligations to meet clean air standards.“The clean air regulation states that for any point source of pollution, which that vent is, the maximum allowable standard of dust is 50 milligrams per cubic metre,” he said. “That’s the standard we’re talking about when we say they have to immediately comply.”

Mysterious foam on South Australian beaches caused by bloom of tiny but toxic algae

Algae blooms can be a problem for marine life and people but it’s not yet clear if warmer oceans and nutrient runoff are causing more of themConfronting images of dead seadragons, fish and octopuses washed up on South Australian beaches – and disturbing reports of “more than 100” surfers and beachgoers experiencing flu-like symptoms after swimming or merely breathing in sea spray – attracted international concern last week.Speculation about the likely cause ranged from pollution and algae to unusual bacterial infections or viruses. We can reveal the culprit was a tiny – but harmful – type of planktonic algae called Karenia mikimotoi. Continue reading...

Confronting images of dead seadragons, fish and octopuses washed up on South Australian beaches – and disturbing reports of “more than 100” surfers and beachgoers experiencing flu-like symptoms after swimming or merely breathing in sea spray – attracted international concern last week.Speculation about the likely cause ranged from pollution and algae to unusual bacterial infections or viruses. We can reveal the culprit was a tiny – but harmful – type of planktonic algae called Karenia mikimotoi.The South Australian government sent us water samples from Waitpinga beach, Petrel Cove beach, Encounter Bay boat ramp and Parsons Headland on Tuesday. We studied the water under the microscope and extracted DNA for genetic analysis.Our results revealed high numbers of the tiny harmful algal species – each just 20 microns in diameter (where one micron is one thousandth of a millimetre). While relatively common in Australian coastal waters, blooms of K. mikimotoi occur only sporadically. But similar harmful algal blooms and fish kills due to K. mikimotoi have happened in the past, such as the 2014 bloom in Coffin Bay, South Australia. And this latest one won’t be the last.Harmful algal bloomsSingle-celled, microbial algae occur naturally in seawater all over the world.They are also called phytoplankton because they float in the water column and photosynthesise like plants. “Phyto” comes from the Greek word for plant and “plankton” comes from the Greek word for wanderer, which relates to their floating movement with ocean currents and tides.Like plants on land, the microalgae or phytoplankton in the ocean capture sunlight and produce up to half the oxygen in our atmosphere. There are more than 100,000 different species of microalgae. Every litre of seawater will normally contain a mixed group of these different microalgae species.But under certain conditions, just a single species of microalgae can accumulate in one area and dominate over the others. If we are unlucky, the dominant species may be one that produces a toxin or has a harmful effect.This so-called “harmful algal bloom” can cause problems for people and for marine life such as fish, invertebrates such as crabs, and even marine mammals such as whales and seals.K. mikimotoi causes harmful deadly algal blooms in Asia, Europe, South Africa and South America, as well as Australia and New Zealand. Photograph: Anthony RowlandThere are hundreds of different species of harmful algae. Each produces its own type of toxin with a particular toxic effect.Most of these toxic chemical compounds produced by harmful algae are quite well known, including neurotoxins that affect the brain. But others are more complicated, and the mechanisms of toxicity are poorly understood. This can make it more difficult to understand the factors leading to the deaths of fish and other marine life. Unfortunately, the toxins from K. mikimotoi fall into this latter category.Introducing Karenia mikimotoiThe species responsible for recent events in South Australia, K. mikimotoi, causes harmful algal blooms in Asia, Europe, South Africa and South America, as well as Australia and New Zealand. These blooms all caused fish deaths, and some also caused breathing difficulties for some beachgoers.The most drastic of these K. mikimotoi blooms have occurred in China over the past two decades. In 2012, more than 300 sq km of abalone farms were affected, causing about A$525m in lost production.Explaining the toxic effectsMicroalgae can damage the gills of fish and shellfish, preventing them from breathing. This is the main cause of death. But some studies have also found damage to the gastrointestinal tracts and livers of fish.Tests using fish gill cells clearly show the dramatic toxic effect of K. mikimotoi. When the fish gill cells were exposed to intact K. mikimotoi cells, after 3.5 hours more than 80% of the fish cells had died.Leafy seadragons were among the dead sea creatures that washed up on South Australian beaches. Photograph: Anthony RowlandFortunately, the toxin does not persist in the environment after the K. mikimotoi cells are dead. So once the bloom is over, the marine environment can recover relatively quickly.Its toxicity is partly due to the algae’s production of “reactive oxygen species”, reactive forms of oxygen molecules which can cause the deaths of cells in high doses. K. mikimotoi cells may also produce lipid (fat) molecules that cause some toxic effects.Finally, a very dense bloom of microalgae can sometimes reduce the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water column, which means there is less oxygen for other marine life.The human health effects are not very well known but probably relate to the reactive oxygen species being an irritant.K. mikimotoi cells can also produce “mucilage”, a type of thick, gluey substance made of complex sugars, which can accumulate bacteria inside it. This can cause “sea foam”, which was evident on beaches last week.Unanswered questions remainA question for many people is whether increasing water temperatures make blooms of K. mikimotoi more likely.Another concern is whether nutrient runoff from farms, cities and aquaculture could cause more harmful algal blooms.Unfortunately, for Australia at least, the answer to these questions is we don’t know yet. While we know some harmful algal blooms do increase when nutrient runoff is higher, others actually prefer fewer nutrients or colder temperatures.We do know warmer water species seem to be moving farther south along the Australian coastline, changing phytoplankton species abundance and distribution.While some microalgal blooms can cause bioluminescence that is beautiful to watch, others such as K. mikimotoi can cause skin and respiratory irritations.If you notice discoloured water, fish deaths or excessive sea foam along the coast or in an estuary, avoid fishing or swimming in the area and notify local primary industry or environmental authorities in your state.

E.P.A. Investigations of Severe Pollution Look Increasingly at Risk

The agency will no longer shut down “any stage of energy production,” absent an imminent threat, a new memo says, and will curtail efforts to cut pollution in poorer areas.

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.E.P.A. Investigations of Severe Pollution Look Increasingly at RiskThe agency will no longer shut down “any stage of energy production,” absent an imminent threat, a new memo says, and will curtail efforts to cut pollution in poorer areas.The Shell chemical plant and oil refinery in Norco, La., subject to a federal pollution investigation.Credit...Bryan Tarnowski for The New York TimesMarch 22, 2025, 5:02 a.m. ETA refinery in New Mexico that the federal government has accused of some of the worst air pollution in the country.A chemical plant in Louisiana being investigated for leaking gas from storage tanks.Idaho ranchers accused of polluting wetlands.Under President Biden, the Environmental Protection Agency took a tough approach on environmental enforcement by investigating companies for pollution, hazardous waste and other violations. The Trump administration, on the other hand, has said it wants to shift the E.P.A.’s mission from protecting the air, water and land to one that seeks to “lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home and running a business.”As a result, the future of long-running investigations like these suddenly looks precarious. A new E.P.A. memo lays out the latest changes.E.P.A. enforcement actions will no longer “shut down any stage of energy production,” the March 12 memo says, unless there’s an imminent health threat. It also curtails a drive started by President Biden to address the disproportionately high levels of pollution facing poor communities nationwide. “No consideration,” the memo says, “may be given to whether those affected by potential violations constitute minority or low-income populations.”Those changes, said Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator, would “allow the agency to better focus on its core mission and powering the Great American Comeback.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

‘Herculean effort’: These port communities have waited decades for clean air. Why a new plan may fall short

The ports of LA and Long Beach are the biggest sources of air pollution in the LA basin. Air quality officials have drafted new rules to help electrify the ports. But community groups representing 400,000 residents say they don't go far enough or fast enough to clean up their dirty air.

In summary The ports of LA and Long Beach are the biggest sources of air pollution in the LA basin. Air quality officials have drafted new rules to help electrify the ports. But community groups representing 400,000 residents say they don’t go far enough or fast enough to clean up their dirty air. When Maria Reyes migrated from Mexico and settled in West Long Beach in the late 1980s, she thought it would be the perfect neighborhood to raise her growing family.  As her three children grew up and started being more active in school, they started developing strange symptoms — nose bleeds, difficulty breathing and headaches, one after the other.  Reyes didn’t realize it when she moved there, but her neighborhood has some of the worst air pollution in Southern California. She lives just a few miles from two of the world’s largest ports, where diesel trucks, trains, ships and cargo equipment spew large quantities of soot and other pollutants linked to respiratory illnesses.  For decades, officials have been struggling with how to clean up the emissions wafting from the massive ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Now the region’s air quality regulators are mounting an effort to clean up the ports’ most polluting sources. The South Coast Air Quality Management District has published its first draft of a long-awaited proposed rule that would require the two ports to develop a plan by August 2027 to build charging and fueling stations to switch thousands of pieces of diesel equipment, trucks and vessels to electricity and hydrogen. The rule would aim to ensure that the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports can achieve the clean-air goals they set for themselves back in 2017: converting 100% of their diesel cargo-handling equipment — such as tractors and giant, 60-foot cranes that move containers — to zero emissions by 2030. They also aim for all drayage trucks, which haul the ports’ containers of cargo to warehouses, to run on electricity or hydrogen by 2035. Complicating the cleanup of the two ports is that their tenants, not the harbors’ management, will have to buy and use the new cargo equipment. The ports will install the charging networks and redesign terminals. The total cost is unknown, but the Port of Long Beach alone estimated that the changes would cost the port and its tenants upwards of $1 billion.  Environmental advocates say the air district’s rule needs to be broader, with enforceable targets to clean up other sources of port pollution, such as harbor craft, and that the deadlines for zero-emission trucks and cargo equipment must be accelerated. “We’ve been urging the South Coast air district for years, many years, to adopt a strong, indirect source review rule for the sea ports,” said Bill McGavern, a policy director for the environmental group Coalition for Clean Air. “The response from the district has been disappointing (and) we see that the ports drag their feet and delay action.”  The air quality agency is seeking public input and the board will likely vote on the rule this summer.  The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which are the nation’s busiest seaports, are massive operations that are critical to the U.S. economy. They handle millions of tons of cargo a year worth hundreds of billions of dollars — 40% of the nation’s imports and exports of goods, from produce to electronics to pharmaceuticals.  The neighboring ports also are the region’s largest single sources of air pollution: Every day, their equipment, trucks, rail yards and ships emit 23 tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides, half a ton of fine particles and nearly a ton of sulfur into the air, according to 2023 data from the South Coast district. That amounts to 8,472 tons of nitrogen and 183 tons of fine particles a year. Fine particles are known to trigger asthma and heart attacks, while nitrogen oxides bake in the sun with other pollutants to form a gas in smog that also causes respiratory problems.  The two ports are responsible for about a fifth of the Los Angeles region’s nitrogen oxides, so massive reductions are needed — not just voluntary efforts — if the region’s residents are ever to breathe air deemed healthy to breathe, according to South Coast air quality district officials. Cleaning up the ports is especially important as cargo volumes are projected to double by 2040, which would release even more tons of fine particles and other dangerous pollutants into the air. And now that California officials, facing opposition from the Trump administration, had to abandon two rules that mandated zero-emission trucks and locomotives statewide, cleaning cup the ports will be even more challenging.  The Los Angeles basin has the nation’s worst air quality, so regulators are struggling to find new ways to meet state and federal health standards for smog and fine particles. A line of diesel semi-trucks to and from the Port of Los Angeles backs up along Drumm Avenue in Wilmington, creating a congestion point in the neighborhood. Photo by Alisha Jucevic for CalMatters First: Diesel trucks carrying port cargo exit Yusen Terminals at the Port of Los Angeles. Last: A hydrogen-powered gantry crane loads a shipping container onto a truck at the port. Photos by Joel Angel Juarez for CalMatters Nitrogen oxides, which are  emitted by vehicles and industrial plants, must be cut 80% by 2037 in the four-county Los Angeles basin, according to Sarah Rees, the district’s deputy executive officer of planning and rule development. Even if the ports achieve their goals of 100% zero-emission cargo equipment and drayage trucks, that would only reduce 14% of their smog-forming emissions, air quality officials said.  “Getting to this (clean fuel) infrastructure problem is something that’s absolutely essential, because it is so critical to having widespread deployment of zero emission technology across the board,” Rees said.  Cleaning up the LA basin’s air “requires that we take all feasible measures,” she said. “Significantly more emission reductions will need to be achieved from the largest source of emissions in our region,” added Nahal Mogharabi, the district’s spokesperson. “We want to be able to maintain the strong economy and the strong workforce that we have here in Southern California…To do that, we have to make sure that we’re not disproportionately burdening the communities closest to us.” Renee Moilanen, the Port of Long Beach.  The two ports already have taken substantial steps to reduce air pollution. Since 2005, diesel particulates from the port have dropped by about 91% and smog-forming gases by about 72% — even as cargo volume increased more than 15%, port officials said. In Long Beach, port officials say phasing out diesel fuels and reducing emissions as quickly as possible remains their biggest priority.   “We want to be able to maintain the strong economy and the strong workforce that we have here in Southern California, which is very much tied to the goods movement industry. To do that, we have to make sure that we’re not disproportionately burdening the communities closest to us,” said Renee Moilanen, director of environmental planning for the Port of Long Beach, which handles cargo valued at $300 billion a year, mostly from East Asia. ‘Why is this happening in my community?’ Beatriz Reyes, Maria Reyes’ oldest daughter, remembers attending William Logan Stephens Junior High in West Long Beach and running laps in a field next to a rail yard. The churning and grinding sounds of trains echoed in the field as the children breathed in the fumes.   Many of her classmates had asthma symptoms, like her. She thought it was just a part of growing up. It wasn’t until her 20s, after she got sick with bronchitis, that she got her first inhaler. The mother and daughter started learning about the pollution in their air.   “You think it’s normal, that it happens in all the communities, but once you leave your community to a nicer area, you just automatically feel better breathing that air,” Beatriz Reyes said. “And I’m like, OK, this is environmental racism. Why is this happening in my community?” Reyes is one of nearly 400,000 people who live in the portside communities of San Pedro, Wilmington, Carson and West Long Beach.    A neighborhood in San Pedro is in the shadow of the Port of Los Angeles. The massive, 7,500-acre seaport is the largest and busiest container port in the United States. Photo by Alisha Jucevic for CalMatters Life expectancy in West Long Beach is eight years shorter than wealthier neighborhoods farther away from the ports, according to data from the city’s Department of Health and Human Services. There could be many explanations, such as socioeconomic factors, but community advocates fear that pollution is contributing to the shorter lifespans.  On her way home to San Pedro after visiting family in Wilmington, Maria Montes often sits in heavy traffic, sandwiched between big diesel trucks spewing smelly diesel exhaust that seeps into her car.  “All day they’re coming in and out,” she said. “I see long lines of them one after the other from San Pedro to the other side of Wilmington.”  Maria Montes visits San Pedro Plaza Park in Wilmington, near the Port of Los Angeles. Montes, who has asthma, has lived for 30 years in San Pedro, which the air is polluted from the port and the diesel trucks hauling its cargo. Photo by Alisha Jucevic for CalMatters Montes has been struggling with asthma for 15 years. Her son, now an adult, also had asthma as a child. A family member in Wilmington has cancer that she fears might have been linked to pollution. The garden in her yard won’t grow because the dirt is contaminated, she said.  Taking a deep breath, especially in Wilmington, can feel different than it feels in other parts of Los Angeles, she said. “You can’t breathe the same. You feel a heaviness. You feel a little bit like you’re drowning.” Pollution from the port extends far beyond portside neighborhoods. On their way to their final destinations, trucks and trains carrying port cargo emit diesel exhaust in South Los Angeles and inland communities of San Bernardino and Riverside counties. “You think it’s normal, that it happens in all the communities, but once you leave your community to a nicer area, you just automatically feel better breathing that air. And I’m like, okay, this is environmental racism.”Beatriz Reyes, resident of west long beach Because the state air board withdrew its zero-emission truck and train rules, “we now expect significantly more emissions from trucks and locomotives in years to come,” Mogharabi said . Trucks and locomotives will emit 15 to 20 tons more smog forming nitrogen oxides per day by 2030 than if the state rules were enforced.  “It’s all the more reason why we really need our local air regulators… to take more seriously what we need to do locally to address the public health crisis that port pollution causes,” said Fernando Gaytan, an attorney with the environmental group Earthjustice.   Typically the air quality district regulates “stationary” sources of pollution, such as power plants and refineries. But it also has some authority to regulate vehicles and other mobile sources if they support high-polluting industries, such as ports and warehouses, through “indirect source” rules. It’s a way to hold industries accountable for playing a role in generating that pollution.  The air district has so far implemented one such indirect source rule for freight hubs. Large warehouses, for instance, must reduce pollutants related to their operations, such as choosing to do business with companies that have zero-emission trucks.   Advocates fear the air district’s new port proposal won’t reduce emissions until hydrogen and electric charging stations are built and used, which could take many years, and isn’t guaranteed.  “It really is unfortunate the direction that the port (rule) has gone,” said Chris Chavez, deputy policy director for the Coalition for Clean air. “Despite this massive, massive compromise by South Coast AQMD to basically give up on trying to get emission reductions, you still have the ports goods movement industry standing in the way and pushing away any kind of action.” Port officials say too much of the onus to make the transition is on them. Instead, they are seeking an “enforceable agreement” that will allow them more flexibility to collaborate with terminal operators and utility companies. A vehicle hauls a Wan Hai shipping container at Yusen Terminals at the Port of Los Angeles near San Pedro. Photo by Joel Angel Juarez for CalMatters Port companies view the rule as problematic because it gives the air district too much control over their businesses, said Thomas Jelenić, vice president of the Pacific Maritime Shipping Association. “The entire port complex could be eliminated tomorrow and we would not be much closer to achieving our (air pollution) attainment goals,”he said. “So this is not an issue that rests on the port. This is an issue that rests upon the entire region.” The ports have two years to present their plan to the air quality agency, and, if they can demonstrate that circumstances out of their control affect the timeline for electric and hydrogen equipment and trucks, they can request changes.  Rees said the air quality agency views the port rule as “incremental” and air regulators will continue to look for ways to reduce port emissions.  “We know it’s going to take some time, and we know that’s an unsatisfying answer to a lot of the communities, but we know also how hard it is. Without this, we’re never going to get to zero-emission technology,” Rees said.  Obstacles to electrifying the ports The two ports are growing rapidly as imports and exports increase. Last year was the busiest year ever at the Long Beach port, which moved 9.6 million container units. The port of Los Angeles had its second busiest year in its 117-year history, moving 10.3 million container units, which is almost a 20% increase in cargo volume compared to 2023. Over the last 20 years, the longshore workforce has increased 74%. Most of the nearly 4,000 pieces of cargo-handling equipment at the ports is run by diesel. That includes equipment like top handler vehicles that stack containers coming off ships, large gantry cranes that place containers onto trucks for delivery to customers, and yard tractors, which move containers within the terminal.   Yusen Terminals is testing the nation’s first-ever hydrogen fuel cell rubber tire gantry crane, the massive device that moves ship containers around the port, said Matthew Hamilton, the terminal operator’s director of sustainability. The company also owns seven electric-powered top handler vehicles. First: Yusen Terminals has seven zero-emission top handler vehicles and is testing the nation’s first-ever hydrogen fuel cell rubber tire gantry crane, shown here at the Port of Los Angeles. The crane moves containers of cargo around the port. Last: Electric top handlers are parked at a charging station. Photos by Joel Angel Juarez for CalMatters Yusen Terminals’ hydrogen-powered crane moves shipping containers at Yusen Terminals at the Port of Los Angeles, near San Pedro. Photo by Joel Angel Juarez for CalMatters The ports act largely as a landlord, with no authority to mandate truck fleet owners, terminal operators and rail yard companies to clean up their equipment. However, they can offer incentives for certain activities. The ports’ Clean Truck Program collects a $10 fee for each container unit that ships carry into the port.  The Long Beach port has disbursed $60 million in incentives to truck owners who buy zero-emission trucks.  A major challenge for the ports in transitioning to electric equipment is having sufficient power to fuel it.  Yusen Terminals, for instance, only has enough power to charge 25% to 50% of its fleet of top handlers and other vehicles. It could take up to eight years for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to supply the port terminals with enough power to charge all of its cargo-handling equipment, Hamilton said.   Long Beach port officials estimate they’ll need six to 12 times more power to fully electrify 1,500 pieces of equipment with a charger for each one. “It’s going to take a pretty Herculean effort to achieve (the LA port’s zero-emission goals), but we’re working very aggressively to achieve that. We still believe we can.”Matthew Hamilton, Yusen Terminals at the port of la Electrifying equipment will also essentially require the ports to redesign terminals and change how they operate. Zero-emission cargo-handling equipment currently available can’t last an eight-hour shift without recharging, Moilanen said.  “It’s going to take a pretty Herculean effort to achieve (the port’s zero-emission goals), but we’re working very aggressively to achieve that. We still believe we can,” said Hamilton of Yusen Terminals. The port rule, he added, “may just be adding additional requirements and slowing us down and kind of sapping our resources for buying more equipment and working on these infrastructure projects.”  Cleaning up heavy-duty trucks is another massive challenge. Some fleet owners are already investing in new electric and hydrogen trucks to service the ports. But these drayage companies, often small or owner operated, are struggling to make the same revenue they did with cheaper diesels and facing technological challenges using the cleaner vehicles, such as long charging times and insufficient range. In recent months, the ports have received hundreds of millions of dollars in state and federal grants to improve zero-emission infrastructure that will help them with their growth and emission reduction goals. The Los Angeles port received a $412 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency  to electrify 400 pieces of diesel cargo-handling equipment, and it’s investing another $500 million in a project to upgrade the electrical grid.  “This is how we serve our planet, by collaborating as a port community and contributing to a global effort to build a cleaner world. We’re pushing the boundaries of what’s possible because that’s the only way to secure lasting progress,” said Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Eugene Seroka at a state of the port event in January. The Port of Los Angeles is visible in the background from Wilmington Waterfront Park in Wilmington, on Feb. 12, 2025. Photo by Alisha Jucevic for CalMatters The ports have had their joint Clean Air Action Plan since 2005, after environmental and community groups pushed them to strategize how to clean up emissions. The plan was updated in 2017 to add the goals of 100% zero-emission cargo-handling equipment by 2030 and trucks by 2035.  Some of the ports’ creative, voluntary incentives for terminal operators, ships and trucks have turned into state regulations. For instance, their programs mean that many ships have the cleanest engines, reduce speeds when nearing the port and plug in to electrical systems to avoid idling diesel engines. Now the state requires all container ships that arrive in California ports to plug in at berth.  The high cost of pollution in port communities As a child in school in the 1990s, Roberto Reyes, who is Maria Reyes’ son, couldn’t play many sports without heavy nosebleeds. Doctors couldn’t say for sure what caused them. Elizabeth, her youngest, would run throughout the neighborhood, past street intersections busy with diesel truck traffic as part of her track team training. Some days, she’d come home vomiting, with nosebleeds or bad headaches. “This time I knew that it was the pollution,” Reyes said. Thirty years later, Reyes now is a staunch community advocate with the Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma. She still regrets choosing to live in a neighborhood so close to the ports. “I feel guilty about the place I chose for my children to be born,” she said. “It’s a very cruel thing. I know I shouldn’t feel guilty, but when you have all this pollution around you, you think, ‘well what do I do now?’ ” 

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