Discussion of All Things Political

Port Arthur, Texas
Located among eight major petrochemical and hazardous waste facilities on the Texas Gulf Coast, the largely African-American West Side neighborhood of Port Arthur has long suffered as a result of the near constant emissions spewing from smokestacks ringing the community. Port Arthur is noted by the EPA as having some of the highest levels of toxic air releases in the country, and the companies operating the local plants have been cited with hundreds of state air pollution violations.

The West Side’s asthma and cancer rates are among the highest in the state, while the community’s income levels are among the lowest. As industry has grown, local property values have plummeted. Few jobs exist in the plants for West Side residents. At the end of each workday, a stream of cars heads away from Port Arthur’s industrial facilities toward the more affluent towns nearby as the gas flares continue to burn within sight of the West Side’s schools and federal housing projects.

The facilities operating in the area include the Motiva oil refinery, the Valero refinery, the Huntsman Petrochemical plant, the Chevron Phillips plant, the Great Lakes Carbon Corporation’s petroleum facility, the Total Petrochemicals USA facility, Veolia incinerator facility and the BASF Fina Petrochemicals plant.MORE

SHORTLY AFTER 4:30 P.M. ON MONDAY, April 14, 2003, the power went out at the Motiva refinery in Port Arthur, Texas. The massive plant shut down instantly and, as is common when something goes wrong at a refinery, the "product" in the pipes -- tens of thousands of pounds of highly pressurized liquids and gases -- was released through the smokestacks. In this particular incident, 256,653 pounds of toxic chemicals were hurled into the air over the next 24 hours.

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A Love Letter to Hilton Kelley

I applaud you for your tenacity. You decided shortly after your visit that since there was no one to step up and fight for the survival of your town, it had to be you. And so, incredibly, you moved back, and you took on the fight. And you became known as the man who doesn't give up, who won’t take no for an answer, and who has made an enormous positive impact on environmental protections for Port Arthur. The list of your accomplishments is awe-inspiring:

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This is what we mean when we talk about environmental justice. This toxic stuff keeps on getting located in poor poc backyards. And then next thing you know, politicians are yelling about welfare and overloading hospitals and not doing well in school and the like. This is bullshit. Enough with poisoning people already. Renewable ways of doing things please.

AlJazeeraEnglish — April 10, 2010 — Poland has declared a week of national mourning following the death of its president and many of its political and military leaders in a plane crash in Russia.

In one of the country's worst days since the second world war, 97 people were killed when their plane went down in heavy fog.

The group had been travelling to western Russia for a memorial service marking the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, in which Russian forces killed more than 20,000 Polish prisoners of war.

Church leaders and some of the families of those who had died in the massacre were also on board.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister has promised a swift investigation into the incident and it leading the probe himself.

Al Jazeera's Jonah Hull reports from Warsaw. (Apr 11, 2010)

Lech Kaczynski, the Polish president, will be buried alongside his wife on Saturday at the end of an official week of mourning.

Russian investigators have said there was nothing technically wrong with the plane that crashed killing the president and 95 others on its way to a memorial service in Smolensk.

Some have suggested that the pilots may have been pressured by people aboard the plane to land quickly so as not to miss the ceremony they were due to attend, which had previously been denied.

Al Jazeera's Jonah Hull reports from Warsaw.