Posted by John Donovan: 20 March 2024
Once upon a time, in the quaint town of Vanport, PA, Rebecca Quigley lived a simple life, her days brightened by the charming view from her wraparound deck, overlooking the serene Ohio River. Little did she know, the oil titan Shell had grand plans to transform her picturesque panorama into something straight out of a dystopian novel. Enter the “ethane cracker,” a behemoth plant designed not for cracking jokes, but for churning out tiny plastic pellets, lighting up the night sky like a low-budget version of Gotham City.
As if summoned from the depths of an oil exec’s wet dream, the plant soon began its symphony of pollution—flaring waste gases, puffing out black smoke, and diffusing an aroma that could only be described as eau de antifreeze meets syrup. Quigley, suddenly finding herself living in an industrial perfume ad, started worrying about the “minor” side effects of air pollution and potential health hazards.
But fear not, dear citizens, for the state’s Department of Environmental Protection swooped in, slapping the plant with fines over $10 million for being naughty not once, not twice, but 19 times, releasing fun stuff like volatile organic compounds and benzene into the air. Who needs clean air when you can have carcinogens, right?