Texas City and its surrounding region in Galveston County is home to many petrochemical plants. By at least 1990, Texas City acquired the unattractive nickname of “Toxic City.” The nickname, unfortunately, is still used by many in the area.
Wikipedia: Texas City, Texas
Texas City is a city located in Galveston County, Texas, a County in the U.S. state of Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 41,521 (though the 2005 census estimate placed the population at 44,274).
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Texas City is also home to the Texas City Dike, which is a man-made breakwater built in 1915 to protect the Texas City Ship Channel from silting, and it extends out more than five miles into Galveston Bay. “The Dike,” as it is more commonly referred, is often called “the world’s longest man-made fishing pier.”
Texas City’s port is currently the 8th largest port in the United States.
Wikipedia: List of city nicknames in Texas
Texas City
City By the Bay
Toxic City
15 February 1990, Washington (DC) Post, “American Journal: Texas Anti-Pollution Activist No Match for Smell of Money”:
“She has called us Toxic City,” said Holm, who sees her efforts as ...
New York (NY) Times
Petrochemical Disasters Raise Alarm in Industry
By KEITH SCHNEIDER,
Published: June 19, 1991
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The White House, in a statement, said it has not acted because of concerns over the structure of the board, how its activities will be coordinated with the Environmental Protection Agency and OSHA, and whether it will function as an independent group or under the jurisdiction of the President.
But Mr. Strickland of the chemical manufacturers group said there should be no delay: “Congress intended for the board to be established rapidly, and the events we see today suggest it should be expedited as quickly as possible.”
OSHA now conducts investigations at accident sites, but its findings are often kept secret, pending the outcome of court cases involving penalties or, in rare cases, criminal charges. ‘We Live in Toxic City’
In the cities and towns that are host to the nation’s 2,300 refineries and chemical processing plants, more and more workers and residents are asking whether the disasters are a coincidence, or an urgent signal.
“We live in toxic city, and it is very scary,” said Bebe Lising, 39, a resident of Texas City and chairwoman of the Galveston-area chapter of the Sierra Club. “People have been kept so in the dark, and a lot of jobs are dependent on the industry. Our local health department is understaffed, and the plants monitor themselves.”
Google Books
1991-1992 Green Index:
A state-by-state guide to the nation’s environmental health
by Bob Hall and Mary Lee Kerr
Washington, DC: Island Press
1991
Pg. 7:
Your trash and mine pale in comparison to the surge of garbage spewed from corporate polluters like the Union Carbide refinery in Texas City, Texas, in a single day, the plant pours 300,000 pounds of chemicals into the air, making it number 121 on the Environmental Protection Agency’s list of the nation’s biggest toxic polluters.
“I call this Toxic City,” says Rita Carlson, a Texas City native who lives 12 blocks from Carbide. “We have eight plants like this one here, and 29 lined up along Galveston bay to Houston. We’re told that whatthey make—the plastics, pesticides, oil products—is essential to the nation, and that we shouldn’t worry,” she continues. “But I say this is a national sacrifice zone. If people don’t wake up to what’s happening along the Texas and Louisiana coast with all these chemicals, we’re going to lose the nation. The air we breathe comes from the ocean, and that’s where this waste is going.”
HighBeam Research
Doyle Town: One family stands head and shoulders over one of the lone star state’s grittiest places. Urban bruises or hard-working neighborhoods, Matt Doyle’s bank binds it all.
From: US Banker
Date: February 1, 2003
Texas City stinks.
It’s a jibe most in this odor-challenged industrial town have long endured from rival football crowds or visitors. It’s as old as “Toxic City,” a reference to the oil refineries and chemical plants that dominate the local landscape.
But to the thick skins in Texas City, sticks and stones.
“We’re lucky to be in a petrochemical community that employs a lot of people and provides a nice standard of living for folks,” says hometown banker and lifelong resident Matt Doyle. People have miles of shorelines and seawalls to enjoy as scenery, he says.
Forbes.com
Scourge From Texas
Daniel Fisher, 10.04.04
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There’s substance behind Fleming’s bluff. A native of Texas City, Texas—“Toxic City” to some because of its sprawling petrochemical plants—Fleming graduated from the University of Texas law school and spent five years as a trial attorney with the Justice Department in Washington before returning home to practice tort law.
Google Books
Texas Disasters:
Wind, Flood, and Fire
by Mona D. Sizer
Lanham, MD: Republic of Texas Press
2004
Pg. 133:
For the last half of the twentieth century, graveyard humorists jokingly referred to Texas City as “Toxic City.”
Google Groups: ShadowGovernment
From: “smacko”
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:16:46 -0700
Local: Sun, Jun 29 2008 6:16 pm
Subject: Texas Terror, Code Blue!—Will Dr. Ron Paul Operate?
Given his tour de force diagnosis of the worldwide situation, it’s stunning that Paul hasn’t done anything to protect his home turf. His district 14 is dense with Big Oil refineries that are labeled top terror targets by the Bush administration. This is especially true of Texas City, which worried residents have grimly nicknamed Toxic City.