Our friends in the River Parishes reported a massive fire Friday at the Marathon plant in Garyville.
This fire and the subsequent evacuation prompted media coverage from various outlets, but if you really want to know how it affected the people who live in the vicinity, we recommend the joint statement from from RISE St. James and the Concerned Citizens of St. John Parish. Here’s the link:
GNOICC Secretary Peter Digre noted that “Marathon is one of the highest PM 2.5 emitters in the country (without fires). Children in schools near the plant are hospitalized for asthma at a rate 150% higher than the rest of Louisiana.” For those who don’t know the lingo, PM 2.5 refers to particulate matter: “fine inhalable particles, with diameters that are generally 2.5 micrometers and smaller.” Furthermore, we couldn’t help but be reminded of the explosion at the same Marathon plant in 2022.
Meanwhile, way over near the Texas border, a fire of a different sort has been threatening the town of Merryville and other communities. The so-called Tiger Island wildfire is the “largest fire ever recorded in Louisiana,” according to the sheriff of Beauregard Parish, as reported in The Advocate. That smoke has blown all the way to New Orleans and beyond.
Tristan Baurick recently noted another grim fact in a special report:
Louisiana averages about 770 wildfires per year, but August alone has already produced almost 400.
Dire Warning
It’s bad this year because of the record-setting heat and the extreme drought conditions. Unfortunately, our changing climate would seem to indicate we’ll have more such disasters in the future. Maui, we feel your pain!
Tying these two together? The Dyno Nobel plant in Jefferson Parish has requested permission to “dramatically increase the amount of pollutants it can release into the atmosphere.” The reason is partly because their refrigeration system can’t keep up with temperatures in this “Summer from Hell.”
So let’s see… air pollution is causing the climate to change, and climate change is causing record-breaking heat waves, and the heat waves are causing polluters to want to add more pollution to the air. Does anyone see the irony of this situation? But, Dyno Nobel warns, if they don’t flare off more ammonia, the whole thing could explode, perhaps leading to a situation similar to the Marathon plant in Garyville. We seem to have a tiger by the tail.
