BAYTOWN, Tex. — When Shirley Williams chose the brick ranch house in a quiet subdivision east of Houston 25 years ago, she picked it for the lush, peaceful backyard. She pictured her husband, Arthur, puttering around the garden, growing vegetables and caring for a row of citrus trees. This was their retirement plan.
Then their neighbor, ExxonMobil, intruded. The Williamses couldn’t see the company’s oil refinery and petrochemical complex when they bought their house in 1998, but it is impossible to ignore now. Eight towering furnaces, lined up like a formation of infantry soldiers, rise over their backyard fence. On good days, they belch white steam, but there are also days when the “dragons,” as some neighbors call them, fill the sky with black smoke and flames.
In 2018, when the company started up its expanded petrochemical operation, the Williams’ windows shook from the noise and cracks appeared in their ceiling, they said. Shirley retreated indoors; all but one of Arthur’s fruit trees died, the couple said, and he stopped gardening.
To read the full story visit https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/03/15/exxon-pollution-lawsuit-baytown-texas/