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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)

Truly bringing different “stakeholders” to the table - because the Rio event was very much taken over by the corporate green consultants

It seemed to be all about communications strategies - not necessarily ads but knowing how to handle media when something happens, oh and having those meetings where they set all the ground rules - so they agree to meet with activists but only on the corporation’s terms. Leveraging the UN stage - so signing charters and prominently displaying their messaging at the stage of a conference.

t seems like the consultants truly see the corporations as the victims here - the CEOs or the people in the companies who can get jail time for not putting appropriate audit systems in place or get trapped in complex legal monitoring requirements - they don’t seem to have a bit of sympathy for the victims or for the activists, who they see as “attacking” them.

There’s a little bit where the CEO of Union Carbide claims to be doing the “moral” not just strictly legal amount of help in the aftermath of Bhopal, given the Indian government’s ownership stake in the plant. 

Mostly responsibility is seen as a performance by the Green Consultants - because no matter how “good” you are you still get attacked by activists and the laws are too hard to follow and are designed to trip you up. So responsibility also becomes a pre-emptive offensive strategy - And Green Consultants try to get people within the corporation to see the political, financial investment, PR, etc. benefits that come with this performance of green. It’s necessary to perform “Transparency” [though it wasn’t called that yet, perhaps]- the house analogy. Like the case of ARCO - the somewhat green-er gas is celebrated and rakes in profits and maintains a car-based status-quo; and the explosions are not mentioned.

Taking over the definition of “sustainable development” and making this concept rational, ensuring that economic growth is no longer in opposition to environmental protection - “leading” by being a driver at a UN conference - work done by the “beyond blame” rhetorical trick of [weaponizing inclusion] - self-imposed audits, monitoring, and management tools which are then loudly communicated about, in addition to the participation in institutions that give outside credibility

After it’s clear an “it can’t happen here” approach won’t work, Green Consulting and Enviro-comms and harmonization of oppositions come into play- corporations listening to the different “customer-publics” and finding a way to meet what’s being asked for but on the corporation’s terms. Coming to the table to negotiate but never take demands. Pushing on their own definitions of these terms, especially sustainable development, and co-opting the movement so that environmentalism becomes corporate.