Search

This supplementary legal document describes recommendations for storm- and waste-water management improvements for the Formosa petrochemical plant in Calhoun County, Texas. The text is a fairly standard drainage assessment. The author describes non-trivial discharge of pollutants out of the plant’s outfalls, which drain into local waters, and the inability of the plant’s systems to prevent flooding from even small storms. For some context on this, it is pretty standard to design a stormwater system to be able to drain the 100-year storm (that is, the storm with a 1% or less chance of occurring in any given year). Formosa’s Texas plant demonstrated the inability to convey even the 2-year storm.

Emphases are mine:

“Problem areas were identified based on the results from the outfall drainage studies provided by Formosa. Thus, all the results in the OPCC rely on those studies, uncertainities associated with those studies, and the assumptions made for those studies, some of which may or may not be appropriate as I pointed out in Supplement #2 [Page 4]” (3)

“The proposed improvements assume that the conveyance capacity of the problem areas is increased 100%, which would be able to handle twice as much flow that it currently does. The results from the Drainage Study are not conclusive as to what storm event Formosa’s system currently is capable of conveying. The report does mention that the system is not capable of conveying the 2-year storm, and “sometimes” not even the 1-year storm event.” (3)

“A 45% contingency is applied to the OPCC due to the uncertainties associated with underground utilities, likelihood of existence of low road crossings and need to replace those, groundwater impacts, other unknowns, and additional costs associated with engineering, etc. 45% is reasonable and in line with industry practices in my experience, especially given the large amount of unknown information available.” (4) 

“My opinion from my July 9, 2018 report that “there have been and are still pellets and/or plastic materials discharges above trace amounts through Outfall 001” is further supported by the deposition testimony of Lisa Vitale, as representative for Freese & Nichols, Inc, that she and her colleagues have seen floating white pellets or small plastic pieces in Lavaca Bay and in the area near outfall 001 as part of her work on the receiving water monitoring program for Formosa’s TPDES permit...Ms. Vitale also testified that she told John Hyak of Formosa about these sightings as well as has sent him water samples with the pellets about five or six times, including at least one time prior to 2010. This, along with the June 2010 EPA Report I cited in my July Report, demonstrates to me that Formosa was aware of problems related to discharges of plastics from its facility since at least in 2010.” (6)

N/A, but when I looked up Telefonica, their homepage is all COVID-19 stuff which is pretty much what everyone is doing but I may look more closely at this particular case and continuity with the current situation

The initiative forecloses a serious discussion about the harms caused by transnational capital and privatization of the telecom industry

And it forecloses more meaningful connections across difference/ more meaningful activism by putting people into a happy shallow self-centered kind of activism

It forecloses a deeper engagement with issues and inequalities that cause child labor and make it harmful for the children and their families

It forecloses more radical conclusions for tech workers hoping to contribute to ‘social good’

The “free press” generated by social media sharing of the gamified achievements of the app users, which were branded with Telefonica

The publicity video for downloading the app was also shared on social media and was posted to the author’s facebook by her presumably nonacademic friend; the video is also on Telefonica’s YouTube channel, perhaps it was an ad on TV or internet as well? The project was also described on the company’s website, although I think that is no longer available.

All users of their prepaid phones being invited to “symbolically vote” against child labor when refilling, by sending a text - 1 million votes was to trigger the “campus party” (hackathon), which then brought together people who came up with the surveillance app

Denuncia-thon which enforced offline connections of the ‘digital activists’ - euphoric

Statements to the academics about moving beyond philanthropy, and about sustainability and leadership, naturalizing their goodness, in contrast to mining companies

Life-changing, according to the tech contractor: "able to make his work count toward a 'social good'" 674 - euphoria described by the otherwise formal corporate overseer of the project, cyber-optimism described by the tech worker - but the beneficiary is abstract to the point of the “activists” not having any idea how the app impacts them (which it doesn't); the distance is emphasized by the author, you see the child worker on the street but you don’t interact with them. The closeness of the online/offline relationship among “geeks with a heart” intensifies the Othering and abstracting of the beneficiary. 

Continuing the development orthodoxy - the ethical is defined in terms of universalized values like “children’s rights” without any deeper understanding of local context than that child street vendors exist. 

Responsibility is twisted around to work with the exit narratives - failed or quickly terminated programs are ok because they are responsible for enabling other actors who are really responsible for the outcomes. They enact the ethical and responsibility by platforming it for others to participate in and carry out - through the interactive apps, the hackathons, and the immediate handoff of all collected data to an overworked government agency

They also redefine the ethical and responsibility to line up with their corporate plans anyway - market expansion becomes the right thing to do because they bring digital access to information

Rather than trying to replace the government, they keep the responsibility with the government, but say they are partnering and enabling/enhancing what the government is doing. 

They are shaping conditions for what counts as democratic order, etc. with their creation of shallow and ineffective “activists” doing a corporate-defined action for a corporate-defined cause

Becoming development orthodoxy at the UN Global Compact, see above - Citing Rajak 2016

Distancing from philanthropy

Distancing from mining industry’s CSR, even the term CSR itself, and distancing from harm mitigation

Naturalizing the “goodness” of their regular product/ market expansion mission

Thematically tying CSR initiatives to their product (digital ed)

Creating the consumer-citizen-activist as an activist in a narrow and shallow sense

Positioning self as enabler, not taking responsibility, not replacing state