A pair of small, community-based organizations, one in Mississippi and the other in South Carolina—members of the national environmental coalition Anthropocene Alliance—are celebrating victories after court rulings halted manufacturing toxic to their health.
Cherokee Concerned Citizens (CCC) of Pascagoula, MS—led by Barbara Weckesser—sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and won after a judge invalidated EPA’s approval for Chevron to produce jet fuel oil from discarded plastic. Chemicals in the process are known to cause cancer.
CCC’s success is the subject of an article by ProPublica, which led an investigation in partnership with The Guardian on EPA’s initial approval for Chevron to engage in the toxic manufacturing process.
The Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition of St. Helena Island, SC, led by Queen Quet, joined a coalition that was successful in getting a judge to stop the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) from going forward with production of plutonium pits at sites in South Carolina and New Mexico.
A plutonium pit is a hollow sphere of plutonium about the size of a bowling ball that forms the core of a nuclear weapon and triggers the explosion. Plutonium processing is one of the most dangerous manufacturers in the world.
Kept in the Dark
Pascagoula is a fence line community where residents are used to having industries, as Weckesser puts it, “dump their garbage and trash on us.”
But Chevron’s plans to produce fuel from oils extracted from plastics—a process that would release cancer-causing toxins in their midst—proved to be one insult too many for residents.
The fact that Weckesser and her neighbors found out about Chevron’s plans via a news app was particularly galling. “No one reached out to us at all,” she said.
Chevron’s Pascagoula oil refinery is the corporation’s largest and one of the biggest in the country, generating $10 billion in annual revenue. It’s also one of the most polluting: Operations there have emitted into the air and soil heavy metals and volatile compounds, including benzene, xylene, toluene and ethylbenzene.
Now, the U.S.-based multinational corporation plans to produce jet fuel from oils extracted from plastics. The process of extraction—called pyrolysis—emits carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, increasing air and water pollution.
Some of the chemicals emitted during Chevron’s process are so toxic, it would give one in every three to four people cancer who live in a three-mile radius of the plant.
The EPA has hailed this repurposing of plastics as “climate friendly,” and in line with an effort the agency announced in 2022 under the Toxic Substances Control Act “to streamline the review of new chemicals that could be used to displace current, higher greenhouse gas emitting transportation fuels.”
Although Chevron’s plan involved purchasing the oils from another to then turn it into jet fuel, Weckesser discovered via EPA’s own study that some of the chemicals emitted during Chevron’s process are so toxic, it would give one in every three to four people cancer who live in a three-mile radius of the plant. “That's the whole city of Pascagoula!” said Weckesser.
According to ProPublica/The Guardian, the EPA has not released the list of cancer-causing chemicals to the public, citing the need to preserve Chevron’s corporate confidentiality against competitors. A portion of the report that ProPublica/The Guardian was able to obtain had a redacted list of the offending chemicals.
Alarmed by what they did know, Weckesser’s group felt they had enough information to take legal action and reached out to a local attorney who connected them with Earth Justice, a nonprofit public interest environmental law organization.
In April 2023, Earth Justice filed a suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on behalf of CCC asking the court to invalidate EPA’s approval for Chevron to produce the fuel.
EPA needs to follow the law and protect people at the fence line, not greenwash for Chevron by passing off the company’s plastic-waste fuel as a solution to the climate crisis.
In a statement released at the time the suit was filed, Earth Justice, stated that “under the Toxic Substances Control Act, EPA can’t approve new chemicals with serious health or environmental risks without identifying and implementing ways to minimize the dangers. The agency can also order lab testing that would clarify such risks. EPA did not do either before approving Chevron’s request to produce this hazardous fuel.”
Earth Justice attorney Katherine O’Brien, who represented CCC on the case, added, “EPA’s decision to let Chevron poison the community in Pascagoula with chemicals posing astronomical cancer risks makes a mockery of the agency’s stated commitments to environmental justice. EPA needs to follow the law and protect people at the fence line, not greenwash for Chevron by passing off the company’s plastic-waste fuel as a solution to the climate crisis.”
Weckesser said she is pleased with the ruling and thanked Earth Justice for stepping up to take on the case. But she felt the whole issue could have been avoided if the EPA focused more on protecting taxpaying citizens and less on furthering the interests of industry.
