85 "new cities of fertilizer plants, boron manufacturers, methanol terminals, polymer plants, ammonia factories and paper-finishing facilities" Dennis K. Berman, "Are You Underestimating America's Fracking Boom?" Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2014.
86 It conveyed the idea of power, importance, and prosperity The ethane cracker— soon to become the largest one in the United States—was designed to pipe in cheap natural gas, separate its parts under very high heat, and produce a cleaner-than-normal diesel fuel. The gas-to-liquid plant would also start with natural gas, add oxygen to create syngas, and refine that into paraffin, which is used in such things as candles and lipstick.
88 and the Philippines to fill service industry and construction jobs Eric Cornier, "Construction Boom: Labor Shortage Among Area Concerns," American Press, February 10, 2013.
89 But in a sodden rice field in 1901 Oil was first spotted as bubbles in a sodden rice field in Jennings in 1901. Wildcat prospectors, then bigger companies, probed farther into the earth and farther out to sea. Then the petrochemical companies set up nearby, processed the oil, and produced various feed stocks, which they then shipped to companies that made things from it.
89 then in the 1940s, along the outer continental shelf Ruth Seydlitz and Shirley Laska, "Social and Economic Impacts of Petroleum 'Boom and Bust' Cycles,' prepared by the Environmental Social Science Research Institute, University of New Orleans, OCS Study MMS 94-0016, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Minerals Mgmt. Service, Gulf of Mexico OCS Regional Office (New Orleans, LA, 1993).
90 a shiny new buckle in the nation's energy belt A 2012 analysis by the American Chemistry Council reported that low-cost natural gas could directly generate a $121 billion increase in U.S. output from oil and petrochemical industries, resulting in yet more investment and construction. "Lake Charles: A Case Study: With Massive New Industrial Investments and up to 25,000 New Workers Headed to Town, the Landscape of Lake Charles Is Changing Dramatically," Business Report, September 25, 2014, https://www .businessreport.com/article/lake-charles-a-case-study-with-massive-new-industrial-investments-and-up-to-25000-new-workers-headed-to-town-the-landscape-of-lake-charles-is-changing-dramatically.
90 a five-year growth rate for 2014—2018 of 4.7 percent Louisiana Economic Development, "Louisiana: At the Epicenter of the U.S. Industrial Rebirth" (accessed January 4, 2014), http://www.opportunitylouisiana.com/index.cfm/newsroom/detail/265. As of 2013, the Louisiana Chemical Association listed sixty-three companies operating in over a hundred sites across Louisiana. The Louisiana coast looks out on the Gulf of Mexico continental shelf, the largest oil-producing region in the United States, and the state owns more underwater footage than Texas or Mexico. It also boasts the world's only offshore super port—letting supertankers unload crude oil via pipeline to on- and near-shore terminals (80 percent of the Gulf of Mexico offshore wells are in Louisiana waters).
90 which usually imported oil from Mexico and Venezuela, were reconfigured to export it Kurth, "On the Brink of the Boom," 13.
90 make ink pigment that wouldn't show through the back side of a newspaper "We salute PPG on its decision to locate the new pigment plant here and want to assure the firm that all citizens of the area are grateful," an editorial in the American Press read in 1966, hailing PPG s announcement to expand its pigment production plant in Lake Charles. This is, the author said, "another step in a great future.... The magnitude of petro-chemical investments in Calcasieu Parish almost staggers the imagination. There can be no question that the Lake Charles area is indeed fortunate to have had such tremendous growth over the past 10 years in the two fields of petrochemical development. But even more important is the realization that greater things are yet to come." The American Press, June 22, 1966 (archive).
91 four-and-a-half-hour public hearing regarding the Sasol expansion Berman, "Are You Underestimating."
91 This it would use, pollute, and dump back in the Calcasieu River The thirteen million gallons was to be added to the five million gallons already permitted.
91 10,000,000 tons of new greenhouse gases Frank DiCesare, "All Water, Air Permits for Sasol Approved," American Press, June 2, 2014.
91 "today's not a good day to he outside" Justin Phillips, "Calcasieu, Cameron Areas 'on Bubble' with EPA for Air Quality," American Press, July 11, 2014, http://www.americanpress.com/news/local/Air-quality. The big money, the many workers, the euphoria—these centered on natural gas that was cheaper than oil. If the price of natural gas rose and that of oil fell too much, the entire bubble could burst. In 2007, oil cost seven times as much as natural gas on the world market. In 2014, oil cost about twenty-four times as much as natural gas. Sasol needs the price of oil to stay at least sixteen times higher. For the petrochemical companies, natural gas was the main ingredient to what they produced, and if they could buy it cheap and sell what they made for more, they could make a profit. But who could predict the relative price of oil and natural gas? "They must know what they're doing," one man told me confidently. Berman, "Are You Underestimating." Also see Kurth, "On the Brink of the Boom."
91 it could triple the amount of feedstock needed to make plastic As Sandra Stein-graber observes in Living Downstream: A Scientist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment, evidence is accumulating that should give us pause about health effects and pique interest in the green Chamber of Commerce. Sandra Steingraber, Living Downstream: A Scientist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment (New York: Vintage, 1998).
92 that lifted the poor and added to the common good Clem Brooks and Jeff Manza, "A Broken Public? Americans' Responses to the Great Recession," American Sociological Review 78, no. 5 (2013): 727-48.
93 Blacks turn to black neighbors without them Nancy DiTomaso develops this thesis in The American Non-Dilemma: Racial Inequality Without Racism (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2013). Also see Deirdre Roysler, Race and the Invisible Hand: How White Networks Exclude Black Men from Bhie Collar Jobs (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). Also see Appendix C.
93 "Good idea," Hardey says This came in the form of outright payments, tax write-offs, and publicly funded services.
93 Louisiana was a -poor state Richard Thompson, "Giving Away Louisiana: Industrial Tax Incentives," The Advocate, December 11, 2014, http://blogs.theadvocate.com/specialreports/2014/12/03/giving-away-louisiana-industrial-tax-incentives.
95 advised them not to put their hands in local water if they had open wounds The advisory reads: "The germs, bacteria and parasites in the State's natural waterways, such as rivers, lakes, marshes and the Gulf of Mexico can make you sick and sometimes may be fatal. Some microorganisms occur naturally, and others come from human and animal waste. These materials can enter water from sewage overflows, polluted storm water runoff, sewage treatment plant malfunctions, urban and rural runoff after rainfall, boating wastes, malfunctioning individual sewage treatment systems and agricultural runoff."
"Most people can swim and enjoy the water without any problems or concerns," said State Health Officer Dr. Jimmy Guidry. "But contaminates can find their way into all waterways, so there is always a slight level of risk for infections." The advisory continues, "Dr. Guidry also says it's not a good idea to ingest the water or swim if you have cuts or open wounds." Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, "Health Department Advises 'Take Precautions While Swimming,'" May 21, 2014, http://new.dhh.louisiana.gov/index.cfm/newsroom/detail/3024.
95 The possibility of recruiting the best minds in the nation ground to a quick halt In late 2015, Governor Jindal was proposing another $533 million in cuts. Kaitlin Mulhere, "In the Face of Colossal Cuts," Inside Higher Ed, April 27, 2015, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/04/27/anxiety-over-massive-proposed-cuts-louisianas-colleges-felt-across-state.
95 "explore options and ramifications of ending the Desegregation Order" See CSRS, Southwest Louisiana Regional Impact Study (accessed August 4, 2015), 121, http://www.gogroupswla.com/Content/Uploads/gogroupswla.com/files/SWLA%20Regional%20Im
pact%20Study_Final.pdf. The U.S. Department of Justice has listed twenty-five un-desegregated schools on its Civil Rights Division's "Open Desegregation Cast List." And it has held up a school voucher program in an attempt to force desegregation—locking children into failing schools, critics charge. Since Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, desegregation of public schools has been legally mandatory. But today schools remain very separate and unequal. More than two million black students attend schools where 90 percent of the student body is made up of minority students. According to a Center for American Progress report, such schools spend a full $733 less per student per year than schools with 90 percent or more white students. Across all schools, a 10 percentage point increase in students of color at a school is associated with an average decrease in per-pupil spending of $75. Ary Spatig-Amerikaner, Unequal Education: Federal Loophole Enables Lower Spending on Students of Color (Washington, D.C.: Center for American Progress, 2012), https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/UnequalEduation.pdf.
95 Sasol, 10 percent Heather Regan-White, "Westlake City Council Reaches Agreement with Sasol on Expansion Costs," Sulphur Daily News, November 25, 2015, http://www.sulphurdailynews.com/article/20151125/NEWS/151129875.
96 the largest chemical leak in American history Condea Vista is a subsidiary of a German petrochemical company called RWE-DEA.
96 "But Condea Vista management told them their illnesses derived from other causes" Interviews with Robert McCall, May 29, 2015, and William B. Bag-gett, June 5, 2015, both of Baggett McCall, Injury Attorneys, Lake Charles.
7: The State: Governing the Market 4,000 Feet Below
100 then remembered it had been broken for months Deborah Dupre, "State Blames One Company for Gassy Sinkhole, Orders More Seismic Monitors," Examiner.com, October 12, 2012, http://www.examiner.com/article/state-blames-one-company-for-gassy-sinkhole-orders-more-seismic-monitors. or http://quadrust.com/state-blames-one-company-for-gassy-sinkhole-orders-more-seismic-monitors/
100 when it began to shake Xerxes A. Wilson, "Mysterious Tremors Raise Questions," DailyComet.com, October 4, 2012 (accessed November 19, 2015), http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20121004/ARTICLES/121009798 or https://www.sott.net/article/251968-Mysterious-tremors-raise-questions. According to the U.S. Geological Survey (https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1984/0958/report.pdf), the last local earthquake, which "rattled windows," was around Baton Rouge in 1958.
100 the workers were rescued in time Christina Ng, "Louisiana Boat Disappears into Sinkhole, Workers Rescued," ABC News, August 16, 2012, http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/louisiana-sinkhole-engulfs-boat-workers-rescued/story?id=17021557.
101 unseen and fairly common in the Gulf In a process known as injection mining, it sank a series of wells deep inside the dome, flushing them out with high-pressure streams of freshwater and pumping the resulting saltwater to the surface. From there, the brine was piped and trucked to refineries along the Mississippi River, where it was broken down into sodium hydroxide and chlorine for use in manufacturing everything from paper to medical supplies. Other brine-miners sell this super-salt to frackers, who add it to chemicals and water to force natural gas from shale rock.
101 one wall of the cavern crum-pled Charles Q. Choi, "Gas-Charged Earthquakes Linked to Mysterious Louisiana Sinkhole," Live Science, http://www.livescience.com/46692-louisiana-sinkhole-explained.html.
102 126 salt domes in Louisiana Vicki Wolf, "Salt Dome Instability Caused by Bayou Corne Sinkhole Tragedy and Others," Clean (Citizen's League for Environmental Action Now, based in Houston, Texas), http://www.deanhouston.org/misc/salt_dome.htm.
http://www.deanhouston.org no longer a valid web site... do a search for: 'Salt Dome Instability Caused by Bayou Corne Sinkhole Tragedy and Others'
102 Dow and Union Carbide Other companies, too, own spaces and rent them out to those who want to store chemicals, some toxic, some not—OxyChem, Acadian, and Crosstex Energy Services, for example.
102 the very idea of regulation has fallen into very low esteem Jeffery D. Beckman and Alex K. Williamson, "Salt-Dome Locations in the Gulf Coastal Plain, South-Central United States," U.S. Geological Survey, Water-Resources Investigations Report 90-4060, 1990, http://pubs.usgs.gov/wri/1990/4060/report.pdf. There are 624 salt domes in the Gulf of Mexico, south-central United States, and adjacent continental shelf, many of them offshore from Louisiana, with names such as "Good Hope."
103 done absolutely nothing helpful to this community Robert Mann, "Residents of Bayou Corne Ask, Where Are You, Bobby Jindal?" December 16, 2012, http://bobmannblog.com/2012/12/16/residents-of-bayou-corne-ask-where-are-you-bobby-jindal.
103 one disgruntled resident tells me—to address the gathering Sheila V. Kumar, "Jindal Meets with Bayou Corne Residents, Promises to Fight Texas Brine for Fair Buyouts," Times-Picayune, March 19, 2013, http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/03/jindal_to_visit_assumption_par_1.html. On May 21, 2013, he made another visit.
104 Had the governor seen the sinkhole? Ibid.
106 The sociability of Bayou Corne brought him out of himself One 2007 study found that strong families, church attendance, and a belief that individuals, not government, offer the best solutions to social ills are all associated with giving to charity. Households headed by conservatives, the study also found, give 30 percent more to charity than do households headed by liberals. Conservatives give blood more often and are more likely to volunteer. The Chronicle of Philanthropy analyzed IRS data and found that the seventeen most generous states, as measured by share of income donated to charity, voted in 2012 for Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Arthur C. Brooks, Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism (New York: Basic Books, 2007). Two MIT political scientists refuted this study, showing that conservatives are richer than liberals and tend to direct their giving to their own churches. See Michele F. Margolis and Michael W. Sances, "Who Really Gives? Partisanship and Charitable Giving in the United States," Working paper, Social Science Research Network (2013): 1-17, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2148033; "How States Compare and How They Voted in the 2012 Election," Chronicle of Philanthropy, updated January 13, 2015 (accessed August 5, 2015), https://philanthropy.com/article/How-States-CompareHow/152501.
107 drilling too close to the caverns edge David J. Mitchell, "Texas Brine Shifts Blame to Occidental Petroleum, Others for Causing Bayou Corne Sinkhole," The Advocate, July 9, 2015, http://theadvocate.com/news/ascension/12870889-123/texas-brine-shifts-blame-to.
107 "with the force of more than 100 H-bombs" Deborah Dupre, "Sinkhole: H-Bomb Explosion Equivalent in Bayou Corne Possible," Examiner.com, August 12, 2012, http://www.examiner.com/article/sinkhole-h-bomb-explosion-equivalent-bayou-corne-possible.
BFL
108 "I feel like I've been betrayed by the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources" Melissa Gray, "Louisiana Probes Cause of Massive Bayou Sinkhole," CNN, August 10, 2012, http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/09/us/louisiana-bayou-sinkhole.
109 it had neglected to levy penalties or, if they were levied, to collect them Office of the Inspector General, Audit Report: EPA Region 6 Needs to Improve Oversight of Louisiana's Environmental Programs (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Protection Agency, 2003), http://www.epa.gov/oig/reports/2003/2003-p-0005.pdf. The report was issued in response to petitions from Louisiana citizens groups, received from October 2001 to March 2002, that requested the EPA withdraw three programs from the state: the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) water program; the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) hazardous waste program; and the Title V air permit program. The petitions asserted that Louisiana was not properly implementing these programs, which the EPA had authorized them to carry out.
109 "unable to fully assure the public that Louisiana was operating programs in a way that effectively protects human health and the environment" Ibid., 1. The report also faulted the head of EPA's Region 6 for its poor oversight of Louisiana. The inspector general could not assure, the report said, that Louisia
na was protecting the environment because Region 6 leadership: "(1) did not develop and clearly communicate a vision and measurable goals for its oversight of the State or emphasize the importance of consistently conducting oversight, (2) did not hold Louisiana accountable for meeting goals and commitments, and (3) did not ensure that data of poor quality was corrected so that it could be relied upon to make sound decisions. As a result, the working relationship between the Region and Louisiana was not cohesive." Also see Office of the Inspector General, EPA Must Improve Oversight of State Enforcement (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Protection Agency, 2011), http://www.epa.gov/oig/reports/2012/20111209-12-P-0113.pdf.
109 "a culture in which the state agency is expected to protect industry" Office of the Inspector General, EPA Must Improve, 16. Upset by a high level of disease in their community, residents appealed to sources outside the state government to document the presence of dioxin in their blood, and high rates were detected by a Louisiana chemist, Dr. Wilma Subra.
109—110 "given back" about $13 million to oil and gas companies that it should have retained in taxes Julia O'Donoghue, "Louisiana Failed to Collect Millions in Oil and Gas Taxes," Times-Picayune, December 2, 2013, http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/12/louisiana_oil_and_gas_taxes.html. In 2009 and 2010, the Department of Revenue's automated system sent out notices for $11.9 million worth of unaccounted for taxes. The program was shut down in September 2010 because of complaints that it was sending erroneous notices. Without the program in place, the Department of Revenue had been relying on audits, which track far fewer companies, to catch those who had not paid severance taxes. The state's legislative auditor said, "We don't know. We don't know what the true [amount of money lost] is."
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right Page 31