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Posts Tagged ‘Hurricane’

Hurricane Harvey is coming to Texas

Posted in Climate Change, Global Warming, tagged , , , on August 24, 2017 |

NOTE: Please stay safe and take precautions to protect yourself and your family from Hurricane Harvey. Resources are available at https://www.fema.gov/hurricane-harvey.

Harvey is the first hurricane since Ike in 2008 to threaten the Texas Gulf Coast. Warnings have been issued from “Brownsville to Beaumont” and Governor Gregg Abbott has issued a preemptive disaster declaration for 30 Texas counties. As Texas braces for the storm, Harvey is a stark reminder that the Gulf Coast is vulnerable to severe storms and the impacts of climate change.

The specter of climate change looms over any severe storm forecast today. We can’t ascribe a particular storm to the effects of global climate change, but we do know that climate change may be responsible for an increase in Hurricanes in the Atlantic. Harvey is a reminder that the Texas Gulf Coast,  must prepare for the impacts of climate change.

Some of the doubt about the real risks of global climate change has been sown by leaders of industry. The accusation that “Exxon knew” about climate change decades before it admitted the risk to the public was recently bolstered by research published in Environmental Research Letters. The research supports the conclusion that ExxonMobil willfully hid research conclusions about climate change from the public for many decades.

Whether or not ExxonMobil publicly admits the risk of climate change, the company would do well to prepare for its effects. ExxonMobil operates the second largest oil refinery in the nation, the Baytown Refinery and Complex, with a daily capacity of 560,500 barrels.

Harris County places portions of the ExxonMobil Baytown complex within the 100-year floodplain, shown below in light blue:

Comparing this map to the Google Earth map of the region, you can see a tank farm within the 100-year floodplain:

Zooming in on the outlined area above, we see perhaps three dozen tanks and two petcoke storage pits in the threatened area:

Research organizations in Houston have been modeling the potential impacts of severe storms on the Houston Ship Channel. At Rice University, the center for Severe Storm Prediction, Education, and Evacuation from Disasters has a model of the potential impacts of Tropical storm Harvey. The SSPEED Center predicts sea level rise of several feet in places (for now, no storm surge is predicted in Houston):

We don’t know if this storm, or the next one, will finally tests Houston’s resiliency. What we do know is that our nation’s largest petrochemical complex is vulnerable to severe storms. We also know that climate change will make these storms more frequent, and more dangerous. If we do not prepare ourselves for their impact, we can only hope to recover from their consequences.

Again, please take all necessary steps to protect yourself and your family. Stay safe and visit https://www.fema.gov/hurricane-harvey.

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That’s the Story of the Hurricane: Las Brisas Drowns Itself

Posted in Coal, Global Warming, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 4, 2009 |

Las Brisas Storm SurgeIf we look at the distribution of the U.S population, we notice there are huge concentrations along the coasts. I was once told that more than half the population lives within 5 miles of the coasts. With so many people living on the coasts, our population is extremely susceptible to destruction from hurricanes. Recent examples of hurricane damage from Katrina, Rita, and Ike loom large in our collective memories.

Recently I came across a study by Jen Irish, an Assistant Professor of Coastal Engineering at Texas A&M, that looked at how Corpus Christi Bay would fare in the event of a hurricane under the conditions describe in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s future climate scenarios. The study found that if the Scenarios are realized hurricane flood levels could increase 3 to 27% over the next 20 years. This will cause damage to homes from flooding to increase by 60% to 100% in the event of a hurricane.

Corpus Christi is already on very low ground that has been slowly sinking for many years. Corpus’ barrier islands, Mustang and Padre, are also eroding. This study particularly interests us at Public Citizen Texas because Corpus Christi is the proposed site of The Las Brisas Pet Coke Plant, which is a project we have been fighting at Public Citizen since it was proposed.

Pet-coke is an incredibly dirty fuel source that emits large quantities of pollutants into the air. For this very reason, pet-coke plants are generally not built in highly populated areas like Corpus Christi. There is also no reason why a pet-coke plant should be built in Texas when better energy sources are available.

To top off the list of objections, Las Brisas will be located directly in the path of the storm surges predicted in Dr. Irish’s model. The proposed location is on a dredge island in Nueces Bay which is barely above sea level, though the developers have proposed raising it another 13 ft (a measure that will only have a minimal effect in the event of a major hurricane).

The Hurricane Research Team at Colorado has already predicted a that this hurricane season (which started Monday) there is 28 to 30% chance that we will see another major hurricane make landfall. In the past, Corpus Christi has been a vulnerable to hurricanes, and considering the IPCC’s finding that warming will increase hurricanes, the facility could be at great risk.

I fear for the residents of Corpus Christi, but I also can’t help but note the irony of a pet-coke facility being one of the first victims of global warming.

–The Disappointed Environmentalist

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