The 7 worst neighborhoods near refineries
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Oil is everywhere
If oil is the blood of the world (and it is), then the oil refinery could be thought of as both the heart and brains of the operation. Oil refineries are where we take the raw crude oil sucked out of the earth, process it and pump out the thousands of different kinds of products that drive and support our comfortable, first-world lives.
Oil is everywhere: It's in our plastics, our foods, our clothes, and even our medicines, but to get to the products, the raw material must be cracked, boiled, catalyzed and processed. Oil refineries are one of society's great necessary evils. On one hand, they provide one of the building blocks of modern life, but on the other hand, they create all kinds of pollution.
Oil refineries are smelly, polluted places. Here are seven of the worst neighborhoods located next to refineries. (If it seems like we're picking on Texas, consider first that the state refines more than a third of the nation's oil and is home to half of the 20 biggest refineries in the country.) (Text: Shea Gunther)
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Comments
Wow! Has whoever made this up ever had ANY journalism training? The demographic info on Beaumont TX (about 45% African American in the last Census) must have been pulled from thin air. And why would someone think it's OK to accuse a corporation of illegal dumping of chemicals with absolutely no attribution.
This type of unresearched, unattributed garbage gives environmentalists a bad name rather than leading to a better understanding of the very real problems we face on this planet..... More
Hi Beth, we appreciate hearing from you. There was a copy editing error in the original version of this article where the population of Beaumont was listed as *95*% African-American rather than the accurate *45%*. We regret this error and it has been corrected.
San Pedro and Torrance, CA are not only surrounded by oil refineries, but they boast a much larger population, endangering many more people. Carson, CA stinks 24/7 and on "inversion layer" days we can't even go outside. Disgusting.
I make my living in the Oil Field.
That's why we are called "Oil Field Trash"
I say give me more!!!
361 CROOKED CHRISTI ALL DAY WE THE DIRTIEST MOTHER ******* IN THE SOUTH, GOONS ON DECK.
Stop buying gasoline, diesel, and plastics! Don't travel on planes! Then there won't be any need for these places!
Thats pretty scary when you think about it.
jess
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