26 THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE • Winter 2018-19 TheCoastalBend.com The Big Balance Alead pipefitter with two years’ experience makes $28.50 per hour at Bechtel in Ingleside, a major indus- trial construction contractor—that’s almost $60,000 per year for semi-skilled labor that does not require a high school diploma. For decades, until domestic alu- minum production fell to foreign competition, Reyn- olds Metals (later Sherwin Alumina) operated a major manufacturing facility between Portland and Ingleside on Corpus Christi Bay. The Port of Corpus Christi acquired the property after its owner filed for bankruptcy in 2016, and court filings show how generations of aluminum production have contaminated hundreds of acres of coastal land with toxins that include arsenic, lead and mercury. The contamination is most pronounced in its visible form, as giant beds of rust-red mud can be seen from the air, or more conveniently on Google Earth. Next door to the abandoned aluminum site, a remnant of a long-lost indus- trial past, is the newly constructed Cheniere Liquified Natural Gas terminal. The $11 billion investment is fueled by the boom of Texas natural gas produc- tion, particularly in Eagle-Ford Shale, and the growing demand for natural gas in European, Asian and South American markets. While LNG presents a risk of explosion, its transportation safety record is the best by far of any petrochemi- cal product. Since LNG was introduced in 1964, not a single major spill, explo- sion or environmental disaster has occurred, and due to its chemical character- istics, LNG dissipates quickly if spilled, is non-toxic (though flammable), and transfers no residue into the ocean or on its surface. Environmental protection is a direct function of economic and social evo- lution. For generations, the United States led the aluminum smelting industry, a high-heat process that requires an ample energy supply and that produces a large volume of toxic biproducts. Alcoa and Reynolds were the world’s largest aluminum suppliers, exporting the material across the world for applications ranging from household foil wrap, to automotive and aircraft manufacturing. Today, China produces more than 55% of the world’s aluminum, followed by Russia, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain—all countries with little or no environmental or labor standards compared to the U.S. or any west- ern country. Thus, it is impossible for the U.S. to match those countries’ cost, and price, of aluminum—and, in a way, why would we want to? When you look at the result of 50+ years of aluminum production in Ingle- side, and the giant footprint of toxic red mud that was left behind, should there be any desire to attract a replacement industry that pollutes at such a high rate? If we are all to be honest, we accept that the northwest corner of Corpus Christi Bay in San Patricio County has been environmentally sacrificed to industrial de- velopment. Fine. But as technology advances along with our expectations for a high standard of living that includes clean air and water, the old, high-polluting industries are being pushed out of American communities—the Texas Coastal Bend included. It should be said that very little organized opposition has emerged to LNG facilities like Cheniere, or to highly-efficient chemical plants like that which produces half of the country’s auto air conditioner refrigerant in Ingleside. The repurposed former Naval Station Ingleside is now a major crude oil export ter- minal, located just one nautical mile from some of the Coastal Bend’s best fish- ing waters in Redfish Bay, and which has been developed with no major politi- cal or legal opposition. Even Tianjin Texas, the massive plant in Gregory that produces pipe for the oil and gas industry, and China’s biggest industrial invest- ment in the U.S., was proposed, constructed and now operates free of scrutiny from the local community. In Portland, organized opposition to two major industrial facilities emerged at different stages in each projects’ respective history. Voestalpine is an Austri- an ironmaker that brought a $700 million investment to a site on Corpus Christi Bay, located a short distance from the affluent North Shore Country Club subdi- vision. While opposition to the smelting plant was mild before its construction, the list of complaints and violations related to Voestalpine Texas, LLC, in its first two years in operation, is significant. Immediate complaints from nearby residents were related to sound at the around-the- clock facility. Citations were issued by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), and the company spent over $8 million trying to fix the problem. Over 140 complaints were filed by homeowners related to a mysterious black dust, that turned out to be “harmless” magnetic iron ore, which fell upon homes, vehicles, swimming pools, and made its way into air condition- ing systems. In October 2018 a fire shut the plant down for two weeks, and the overall cost of the facility’s construction ended up $270 million over the company’s original budget of $740 million. As in all industries, some operators do better than others. Ethane is a chemical byproduct of natural gas that is used to produce ethylene through a process perfected 100 years ago called cracking. Ethylene is used to make plastic pellets, the core component of many plastic materials. ExxonMobil, in partnership with Saudi Basic Industries Corp., has created Gulf Coast Growth Ventures for the purpose of building and operating the world’s largest and most advanced ethane cracker plant on a 1,300-acre parcel of former farmland, located where Portland meets Gregory. Despite highly organized, vocal opposition led by a group called Portland Citizens United, and joined by environmental groups in Austin and Washington, D.C., the $10 billion plant is on track, having been granted a first round of permits by the TCEQ. Those in opposition cite concerns over wastewater, the threat to the wildlife presented by plastic pellets, and the plant’s close proximity to Gregory-Portland schools and neighborhoods. It should be mentioned that the campaign to win the ethane cracker plant was highly competitive, with San Patricio County beating out Victoria County and other sites on the Gulf Coast for the facility and the thousands and con- struction jobs, and hundreds of permanent, high-paying, full-time jobs that come with the project. Gulf Coast Growth Ventures has vowed to employ the highest standards and most advanced methods for environmental protection and safety, and the picture of inevitability has formed on the issue of the plant’s development. The results are yet to be seen. Will the ethane cracker plant oper- ater meet the standards promised by its owner, or will it anger and disappoint residents after the fact, as predicted by the opposition? We shall see. (Left) Pirate’s Cove, an upscale, canal-front community on west Galveston Island, won a national conservation award; (Right) Cinnamon Shore in Port Aransas survived Hurricane Harvey nearly untouched.