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Thousands Evacuated After Chemical Leak and Massive Fire at 'Cancer Alley' Oil Refinery
"Such events are an all-too-common and exceptionally dangerous reality for those living within fossil fuel and petrochemical 'sacrifice zones,'" observed one researcher.
Aug 25, 2023
A mandatory evacuation was ordered for thousands of people living within a two-mile radius of a Marathon Petroleum refinery in Louisiana's so-called "Cancer Alley" after a chemical leak and massive fire broke out at a storage tank there on Friday.
The temporary evacuation order, which Marathon Petroleum called "precautionary," followed a leak of naphtha—a hazardous and highly flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture—and blaze at the refinery in Garyville in St. John the Baptist Parish, located about 45 miles upriver from New Orleans.
About 8,660 people live within two miles of the refinery, according to Nola.com. One of them, 42-year-old Lashonda Melancon, said she was trying to figure out where to go with her 14-year-old daughter.
"I've got asthma bad and this is not good for me," she said.
People living near the refinery said flames could be seen dozens of feet in the air. The smoke plume from the disaster was visible from outer space.
Marathon Petroleum said in a statement: "The release and fire are contained within the refinery's property and there have been no injuries. As a precaution, air monitoring has been deployed in the community. No off-site impacts have been detected. All regulatory notifications have been made."
However, contained does not mean controlled—the latter means extinguished—and Marathon Petroleum spokesperson Justin Lawrence said the company did not know when the blaze would be put out.
Operational since 1977, the 200,000-barrel-per-day facility is the newest oil refinery in the United States. Marathon Petroleum's three biggest shareholders are the Vanguard Group, SSgA Funds Management, and Blackrock, private equity firms that have come under fire for financing fossil fuel expansion during a worsening climate emergency.
In May, Reutersreported there had been 13 U.S. refinery fires in 2023, the majority of them along the Gulf Coast.
St. John the Baptist Parish is located in what's known as Cancer Alley or Death Alley, a swath of predominantly Black parishes—the Louisiana equivalent of counties—between New Orleans and Baton Rouge containing nearly 150 oil refineries and plastics and chemical plants, many of them located along or near the Mississippi River.
In neighboring St. James Parish, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has reported an 800% cancer hazard increase due to petrochemical facilities in the parish between 2007 and 2018.
The area is also known as a "sacrifice zone," or place where polluting industrial facilities are built in close proximity to residents—usually people of color or those with low income.
Responding to the disaster, Antonia Juhasz, senior fossil fuel researcher at Human Rights Watch, wrote on the social platform formerly known as Twitter that "such events are an all-too-common and exceptionally dangerous reality for those living within fossil fuel and petrochemical 'sacrifice zones.'"
Anne Rolfes, executive director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, a frontline community advocacy group, said in a statement that "the petrochemical industry is here in Louisiana for one reason only: To make as much money as possible."
"As long as the state of Louisiana continues to look away from fires and mushroom clouds, these accidents will continue," she continued. "I have been dealing with this for nearly a quarter of a century. There are terrible accidents, workers are burned alive, and the state of Louisiana does nothing."
"Workers and residents are left to bear the brunt of the industry's negligence and predatory expansion that continue to jeopardize our health and safety," Rolfes added.
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'Investing in Climate Chaos': Vanguard Is Now World's Largest Funder of Fossil Fuels
"If it is bad for the environment, it is bad for retirement," said one environmental campaigner. "Vanguard's retirement schemes are built on investments that jeopardize our future."
Apr 20, 2023
The Vanguard Group, one of the world's largest asset management firms, has surpassed its competitor BlackRock as the planet's leading investor in fossil fuels, according to a report released Thursday.
The report—published by the German environmental and human rights group Urgewald—shines a spotlight on the 6,500 finance firms whose combined holdings of bonds and shares in oil, gas, and coal companies are valued at $3.07 trillion. That's more than the gross domestic product of any nation on Earth save the U.S., China, Japan, or Germany.
Vanguard and BlackRock—the "Terrible Two" of finance—together account for 17% of all institutional investment in fossil fuels, with the former holding $269 billion in coal, oil, and gas investments and the latter $263 billion.
\u201cNew @urgewald report identifies the top global institutional investors holding bonds & shares in coal, oil & gas companies worth a total of US$ 3.07 trillion. The top 10 are led by Vanguard, Blackrock, StateStreet, Capitol Group, & Saudi Arabia. https://t.co/dwNYal0oJy\u201d— Antonia Juhasz (@Antonia Juhasz) 1681997979
According to the report, Vanguard holds bonds and shares in 200 fossil fuel companies, with its largest single investment—$34 billion—in ExxonMobil.
"If it is bad for the environment, it is bad for retirement," Doug Norlen of the green group Friends of the Earth said in a statement. "Vanguard's retirement schemes are built on investments that jeopardize our future."
\u201c\ud83d\udea8 New research released by @urgewald found @Vanguard_Group & @BlackRock to be the two biggest fossil fuel investors. \n\nThe two US-based asset managers account for 17% of all investments in fossil fuel companies. \n\nhttps://t.co/oWvNXfe5pQ \n\n#IICC #InvestingInClimateChaos\u201d— Climate Votes (@Climate Votes) 1681985944
As the report states:
Vanguard's CEO, Tim Buckley, has made abundantly clear that he has no intention of putting restrictions on investments in climate-destructive business models. Consequently, Vanguard dropped out of the Net-Zero Asset Managers Initiative in December 2022.
BlackRock is a member of the Net-Zero Asset Managers Initiative and claims to be a sustainability leader, but its fossil portfolio barely differs from Vanguard's. Despite the fact that BlackRock adopted [its] first coal policy in 2020, it remains the world's largest investor in companies developing new coal plants, mines, or coal infrastructure.
"At a time when the [United Nations] warns that greenhouse gas emissions must be cut in half by 2030, pension funds, insurers, mutual funds, and asset managers are still gambling away our future by sinking money into the world's worst climate offenders," Urgewald energy and finance director Katrin Ganswindt said in a statement. "By publishing our research online, we want to empower clients, regulators, and the public to hold these institutional investors accountable."
Earlier this month, a sister report—Banking on Climate Chaos—was published by a coalition of groups including Urgewald and showed that the world's 60 largest private banks have provided $5.5 trillion in financing to the fossil fuel industry, belying their net-zero and other pledges that activists have called "greenwashing."
The report was published the same day as 16 Quakers and other climate activists ranging in age from 22 to 84 were arrested during a protest organized by Vanguard SOS—an international campaign launched by civil society groups, grassroots activists, and financial experts—at Vanguard's headquarters west of Philadelphia in Malvern, Pennsylvania.
\u201cActivists are currently blocking all entrances at @Vanguard_Group headquarters. Vanguard would rather shut down their campus than commit to reasonable action on climate.\n@xrphilly @AM_WakeUpCall @fixmyfunds @StopMoneyPipe\u201d— EarthQuakerActionTeam (@EarthQuakerActionTeam) 1681914114
"This is an 'all hands on deck' moment for addressing the ecological crisis," explained Frank Fortino, a member of the climate action group Extinction Rebellion Philadelphia who was arrested at the demonstration. "I'm here today because I feel that urgency and because we need Vanguard leadership to also feel that urgency."
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