Texas probes pellet pollution at Dow

Texas environmental regulators have opened an enforcement case against Dow Inc. over plastic pellet pollution leaking from one of its factories, amid signs of an increased focus on the issue by environmental and community groups and some federal legislators.

Texas became ground zero for pellet pollution in October 2019 when local conservation groups and Formosa Plastics Corp. USA signed a $50 million settlement to end a federal lawsuit over resin pellet pollution from its Point Comfort, Texas, plant.

Now, the investigation of the Dow facility in nearby Seadrift by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality suggests the issue remains on the agenda for state officials.

Dow responded that it takes pellet pollution seriously and said there was only a small amount of resin leakage from its plant.

Nonetheless, TCEQ investigators told the company in a December letter that they've opened an enforcement case after noticing problems during two recent inspections at Seadrift.

Beyond the state probe, there are other developments. On Feb. 12, the shareholder activist group As You Sow announced an agreement with Westlake Chemical Corp. in Houston, a large maker of PE and PVC resins, to increase its reporting of pellet leakage and its management practices.

As You Sow has been filing shareholder resolutions with several large resin makers, including Dow.

Several members of Congress also introduced legislation Feb. 11 that includes tougher emissions rules for pellet leaks. Environmentalists point to other concerns. According to Cambridge, England-based Fauna & Flora International, for example, pellet leaks are the second-largest direct source of microplastic pollution in the oceans by weight.

In Texas, local concerns are prompting community groups to do more of their own monitoring and reporting to government officials, according to Jace Tunnell, reserve director of the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve in Port Aransas, Texas.

Tunnell founded the Nurdle Patrol, a citizen science project started in 2018 by the estuarine reserve, to help residents document and reduce pellet pollution. The reserve is operated by the University of Texas.

The Nurdle Patrol is about to get a big financial boost: $1 million over the next five years from the Formosa settlement.

Tunnell also filed a formal complaint in October with TCEQ against Dow that triggered the second state inspection of the plant in Seadrift, which is about 25 miles south of the Formosa plant in Point Comfort.

In a Dec. 18 letter, TCEQ investigators told Dow they referred the Seadrift plant, which makes polypropylene and polyethylene, to the agency's enforcement division.

"Due to the apparent seriousness of the alleged violation, formal enforcement action has been initiated, and additional violations may be cited upon further review," TCEQ wrote. "We encourage you to immediately begin taking actions to address the outstanding alleged violation."

The agency told Dow that in two separate investigations at Seadrift in August and November, its staff observed plastic resin pellets, or nurdles, leaking from the facility into the Victoria Barge Canal.

After the second visit, on Nov. 5, it told plant officials that it was referring the matter to the agency's enforcement unit.

In copies of state reports provided to Plastics News, TCEQ noted that Dow said it had upgraded equipment and made other improvements after the August inspection.

In a statement, Dow said it took immediate action to eliminate the pellet leakage after the August inspection.

The company did not comment directly on the enforcement action, but spokeswoman Ashley Mendoza said a "small amount of plastic pellets" were observed being discharged in August from the plant, which formerly was owned by Union Carbide Corp. and is referred as UCC in state documents.

"UCC took immediate action to eliminate the discharge of floating pellets through its outfall and divert water back to the treatment system as necessary," she said.

In the November inspection, she said no pellets were discharged during normal operations but appeared to have gotten out of the facility following a very heavy rainstorm.

"There was indication that a small amount may have been discharged during a significant, exceptional rain event shortly prior to the visit, however, there were no pellets being discharged at the time of the visit," Mendoza said. "The site has since made improvements to further develop its screening system to accommodate exceptionally large amounts of rainfall, and it is continuing to study and implement additional technologies."

TCEQ, however, said in its November inspection report that "the facility had not ceased the discharge of floating solids [plastic pellets]" and noted that Dow staff pointed to recent heavy rains.

Mendoza said preventing pellets from getting into the environment is a priority for Dow and pointed to its work with the industry's voluntary Operation Clean Sweep program for both its factories and its suppliers.

"We are embedding zero pellet loss principles in manufacturing and logistics projects through our commitment to the standards of Operation Clean Sweep," Mendoza said. "Seadrift's site leadership is developing a long-term plan to ensure zero pellets are released from the site."

It's not clear yet what action, if any, would come from the TCEQ enforcement referral.

In the earlier Formosa case, TCEQ fined that company $121,000 for pellet leakage at Point Comfort.

But that was before the federal court case went to trial in nearby Victoria, Texas, and conservationists presented the court with boxes showing several years of pellet spills they collected.

The judge issued a strongly worded ruling in favor of local conservation groups and the parties reached the $50 million settlement, which the plaintiffs said is the largest monetary award in a citizen lawsuit under the Clean Water Act.

The new TCEQ investigation of the Dow Seadrift plant was first reported in late January by the Victoria Advocate newspaper in Texas.

Tunnell said the Nurdle Patrol is working with more than 25 different community groups and partners in the United States and Mexico to monitor resin pellet pollution, and it encourages them to report to government agencies when they find high concentrations.

"There are individuals that are real interested in where these pellets are coming from in their communities," he said. "I think people are realizing the highest concentrations are being found around manufacturing sites. If there's a creek or a river or a bay around there, that's where people are targeting."

The Nurdle Patrol was started in November 2018 by Tunnell's estuarine research center, a few months after a large spill of resin pellets washed onto Texas beaches at Mustang and North Padre islands. The reserve is part of the University of Texas Marine Science Institute and is funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Part of its work on nurdles includes education and training programs to help people collect better data. It's building a map with information submitted by its volunteers, he said.

It's a new approach that will provide data that groups can then take to government agencies "and say, 'Look, this is a problem in our neighborhood,'" he said. "It gives people a tool."

"I don't know that anybody has made the complaints about these pellets before," he said.

The Nurdle Patrol website includes a link to the industry's voluntary Operation Clean Sweep program as a solution, but Tunnell is also endorsing other fixes.

Rather than a voluntary program, Tunnell wants a "zero discharge standard" for pellet pollution written into government stormwater permits, similar to terms that Formosa agreed to in its settlement.

Environmental groups in Texas plan to pursue legislation to do that, he said, as well as have TCEQ do more to investigate the sources of pellet pollution.

A "zero discharge standard" is a priority with environmental groups.

The coalition of organizations that sued Formosa put out a news release Jan. 23 noting that the company had submitted a new permit application to the TCEQ to meet that standard, under the terms of the settlement. They called it precedent setting and said they hoped to make it a broader standard.

"That Formosa agreed to zero discharge is pivotal," said Erin Gaines, an attorney with the Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, which represented the conservation groups. "This is a standard that citizens all over the country are fighting to get enforced in their communities."

The plastics industry in December unveiled upgraded reporting requirements for a part of its OCS program, with trade association leaders saying they were prioritizing making the pellet stewardship program more rigorous.

Some legislators want tougher federal laws. Pellet pollution is part of an ambitious plastics bill introduced in Congress Feb. 11 by Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., and Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Calif.

The bill calls for new federal regulations "prohibiting the discharge of plastic pellets from facilities directly into bodies of water," among other updates to clean air and water laws.

In a news conference, Udall called emissions from plastics factories an area that's not been properly regulated: "It's kind of the Wild West in some ways."