In the Houston area, many neighbors of the López family in Deer Park work at the plants or have relatives who do. They say they appreciate all that the corporations have done for the community, such as donating money to expand playgrounds and supporting local schools.
Candace Dray, 43, has lived in the Deer Park area all her life. She remembers growing up when her father used to play football outside with the neighbors, the night sky lit up by flares from the plants. Her son Joshua Howard Jr., 6, still plays in the front yard, jumping into mud puddles with his boots on, as the flares burn on the other side of the highway.
“I’ve got the V.I.P. seats, absolutely,” Ms. Dray joked, looking across from her house at the endless line of plants that turn crude oil into gasoline and produce chemicals needed to manufacture plastics and sanitize drinking water. “But these plants have to be somewhere. Somebody has got to do the work. You have to have these products.”
But the threats are at times overwhelming. A fire in March 2019 spread to almost a dozen chemical tanks, forming a plume of smoke that lingered over the area for three days and prompting a formal shelter-in-place warning from the local authorities. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of hazardous waste spilled on the ground and leaked into the water.
A recent study by the E.P.A., the first of its kind by the agency, concluded that about 100,000 people who live within six miles of chemical plants it is cracking down on — mostly in Texas and Louisiana — have an elevated risk of cancer.
In Houston, a separate study found elevated levels of formaldehyde, which is formed as different toxic chemicals from many sources mix in the air. The highest concentrations were picked up at an air monitor north of where the López family lives. People living nearby face an increased risk of developing cancer if the levels persist, according to the Houston Health Department.
Another study by the city’s health department and the University of Texas School of Public Health said data on actual cases of childhood lymphoma showed a “56 percent increased risk of acute lymphocytic leukemia among children living within two miles” of the Houston Ship Channel, compared with those who were at least 10 miles away.
