It’s easy to get caught up in the romance of exotic, faraway places when planning your pollution travels. Chernobyl. Linfen. Kanpur. These names conjure the romance and excitement that we’re all looking for. And what with all the air travel required (if you’re from America, at least), they offer you a chance to be not just a pollution-voyeur, but a part of the problem.
Yes, overseas travel is great. But let’s not neglect the virtues of places a little closer to home. Me, I live in New York City—a story of its own—and I’m dying to spend a day biking around that part of New Jersey on the other side of the Hudson that is so aggressively nasty-smelling. Exactly what are those guys brewing up?
For those of you who might be living in the fair environs of Houston, I point you to Port Arthur, TX. In today’s New York Times, Adam Ellick reports about a proposed deal that would bring PCBs from Mexico to Port Arthur to be incinerated. PCBs don’t usually get imported to the US, because they’re wretchedly toxic, and it’s hard to tell when they’re being incinerated completely. So, naturally, the people living in Port Arthur would prefer that these Mexican PCBs be let alone.
To me, the PCB thing is a bit of a sidebar to the real story, which is the town itself:
This downtrodden chemical town on the Gulf of Mexico has no shortage of nicknames: Cancer Alley, the Armpit of Texas, Ring of Fire.
Built on a gush of oil wealth, Port Arthur eventually wooed chemical and waste plants as well. But since the 1970s, this city, which is majority African-American, has complained that it has become a dumping ground for the nation’s toxic waste.
In addition to the print article, Ellick put together a video report that has some great images of what looks like a very depressed town dominated by oil and chemical plants. You know there’s good spots to drink in this place.
I also want to point out that Port Arthur may be the Armpit of Texas, but we all have them. Armpits, I mean. And I’m not planning on getting rid of mine any time soon.