John Beard doesn’t like being right.
In January, he told Capital B that he was concerned that U.S. military action in Venezuela could result in giving the U.S. preferential access to the South American country’s vast oil reserves, leading to a disaster in southeast Texas.
“The chickens have come home to roost,” Beard said by phone between fielding calls from neighbors. “Exactly what we feared has come true.”
On March 23, an explosion at the Valero Port Arthur refinery shook homes 11 miles away and sent thick black plumes of smoke over the majority-black city.
Days later, people in Port Arthur were still trying to figure out what to do with hairline cracks zigzagging across windows and rooms still smelling of burnt chemicals long after the fireball had disappeared from the sky. Parents kept their children indoors, and local schools closed as a precaution the day after the explosion.
Residents told Capital B that the evening’s explosion woke up residents in the area, which had been contaminated for years, to their role in the larger situation. The explosion exposed how President Donald Trump’s global oil policies have turned long-impoverished Black neighborhoods into front lines in the energy war, residents and advocates said.
With fuel prices soaring due to U.S. airstrikes on Iran, the regime has increased its reliance on Venezuelan oil, pumping the dirtiest crude on the market into refineries such as Valero’s Port Arthur plant, located on the grounds of black homes, churches and schools. Refinery operator Valero has become the largest recipient of Venezuelan crude oil since January’s military action.
Valero officials said the fire involved a heater in a diesel processing unit that uses hydrogen to remove sulfur from vehicle fuel during production and that the cause of the fire was still under investigation.
“The reality is, given what we’re doing in Venezuela and Iran, is it America that bears the brunt of that risk? It’s communities like Port Arthur,” Beard said.
Now residents face new fears about what lies in the thick cloud of smoke that has enveloped their cities, and are wondering why their neighborhoods continue to absorb the risks and toxic fallout of decisions made in Washington, and what will change before the next disaster.
Processing Venezuelan heavy crude oil locally at great expense
The Port Arthur facility was built to refine a specific type of heavy crude oil found in Venezuela. The process of refining oil is more harmful to the environment and climate than the process of refining American oil.
“In this black community, we’re letting them process oil that’s much more polluting and much more toxic,” said Beard, a former oil worker. “Then a catastrophic explosion occurs in one of the units processing that oil, releasing even more toxins and exposing them to the public.”
The refinery has approximately 770 employees, processes approximately 435,000 barrels of oil daily, and is the eighth largest refinery in the United States.
The day after the explosion, wholesale gasoline prices jumped 10 cents a gallon and diesel prices rose 16 cents a gallon, but both were primarily caused by the refinery accident and not the Iranian incident, Andy Lipow, president of consulting firm Lipow Oil Associates, told CNN.
The facility was out of service for more than three days after the explosion. There were no major injuries to refinery workers as a result of this accident.
Capital B reached out to United Steelworkers, the union representing refinery employees, but did not receive a response by press time.
Port Arthur Mayor Charlotte Moses stressed that in her view, the city had avoided the worst. “Yes, there was an explosion, but we’re okay. Everyone’s okay,” she said on a Facebook livestream.
Valero officials added that air testing by company personnel, the Port Arthur Fire Department and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality “indicates no threat to the surrounding community.”
However, a state report found that the explosion produced emissions exceeding state-permitted levels, including the release of more than 21,000 pounds of chemicals. These emissions can irritate the eyes and lungs and cause breathing difficulties.
The facility then released thousands of pounds of sulfur dioxide along with small amounts of hydrogen sulfide in a flaring process intended to burn off excess gas to prevent a large explosion.
Black cities sacrificed in the name of “energy security”?
Hilton Kelly, who was born and raised in the area and is now an environmental activist, said she is advising her neighbors to seek medical attention for headaches, breathing problems and anxiety, and to keep detailed records of symptoms and costs in case there is an opportunity for compensation. One lawsuit has already been filed against the facility on behalf of the residents.
Kelly and Beard said this was the largest explosion they had seen in more than 40 years.
Jefferson County, where Port Arthur is located, is home to dozens of oil and chemical facilities that routinely emit levels of pollutants that exceed state and federal limits. The county is the only county in all of Texas cited by the state Department of Environmental Protection as having dangerous levels of the cancer-causing chemicals benzene, hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide.
“It’s very frightening for the community,” Mr Kelly said. “Right now, we’re just wondering, ‘Will it happen again?'”
The stay-at-home order lasted about 12 hours in the neighborhood, where residents reported their homes shaking and a series of “small explosions” echoing through the night.
“We need to consider long-term exposures from everyday life compounded by emissions from this event,” Kelly said, noting that the smoke plume drifted far beyond that area into mid-county communities like Nederland and Port Neches.
Resident Sandra Smith said on Facebook that a rattling noise in her home caused her to fall. “I bruised both knees and hurt my wrist,” she said. “It was scary.”
Valero CEO Lane Riggs (from left), Continental Resources founder and chairman Harold Hamm, and Trafigura CEO Richard Holtum attend a meeting with U.S. oil executives hosted by President Donald Trump at the White House on January 9. Mr. Trump was aiming to get oil company executives to support his plan in Venezuela, where he expects to control energy resources for years to come. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP)
The explosion is the latest in a series of industrial horrors on Port Arthur’s West Side. Black residents were forced to live there during the Jim Crow era and have since seen large oil and petrochemical complexes grow around them.
Mr. Beard gave a partial history. A pipeline rupture in the 1980s that killed five people, a 2007 incident that sickened many people and overwhelmed local emergency rooms, and more than 600 air pollution complaints in the last five years were challenged in court before Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton intervened and settled with Mr. Valero for about $3 million.
“They keep doing this and nothing is being done and the community is suffering,” Beard said.
Meanwhile, the global powers Beard warned about in January are tightening their grip on Port Arthur.
After President Trump’s deal with Caracas opened the door to new imports, Valero increased purchases of heavy Venezuelan crude for refineries on Mexico’s Gulf Coast and relied on upgrades to Port Arthur, including a new coker, designed to process more of the dense, sulfur-rich crude.
At the same time, the Iran war has given American oil companies an incentive to increase production, and American refiner stock prices have reached all-time highs. The volatile market has pushed the average price of gasoline in the U.S. to about $3.90 per gallon, a significant increase from just a few weeks ago.
These price hikes are being felt in Port Arthur, where residents are bearing the risk of the refinery and yet seeing daily costs rise, Beard said. He said the rising cost of gas at the pump and increased exposure to toxic substances in the home are the clearest signs that President Trump’s energy strategy is not helping communities like his.
A woman enters her home adjacent to an oil refinery in Jefferson County, Texas. (Adam Mahoney/Capital B)
For families living closest to the refinery, the explosion deepened a long-standing housing and land crisis. Real estate prices in Port Arthur’s 77640 ZIP code have lagged far behind due to its high concentration of refineries, chemical plants and petcoke facilities, leaving many homeowners “stuck” with homes they can’t sell for enough money to relocate, Kelly said.
The median home value within the zip code is $127,000. The median price in the US is $361,000. Similarly, the average resident earns only $29,000 a year, compared to the average annual income of $45,000 in the United States.
“We cannot sustain and build communities in the shadow of these types of facilities that have the potential to explode,” he said. “People want to get a fair market price and walk away, but the system traps them.”
Standing in a city still reeling from one explosion and bracing for the next one, Beard said Port Arthur has become a testing ground for what communities the federal government is willing to sacrifice in the name of “energy security.”
“For people who want to see and understand what’s going on, it’s predictable,” Beard says. “Too many people don’t, or won’t. But this is very, very real, as real as the explosion the other day.”
