Greenpeace Says Dow’s Freeport Chemical Plant has Lousy Security

According to Greenpeace, the giant holding tanks and railroad cars full of hazardous materials at industrial plants near Houston, Texas, are ripe for disaster — be it by terrorist attack or work-related accident — potentially harming hundreds of thousands of local residents. To prove its point, the national environmental advocacy group recently inspected the Dow Chemical plant in Freeport, Texas one of the largest chemical manufacturing facilities in the world. “There was no security whatsoever,” a Greenpeace representative said. “There were railcars with stickers on them saying ‘Inhalation hazard,’ and the only thing standing in between us and it was a little ditch, and we just didn’t want to get our feet wet to walk across.” He said the railcar was full of ethelyne oxide. After inspecting the Dow facility, which spans more than 5,000 acres and has 65 production plants, Greenpeace issued a report, essentially flunking the chemical security at the plant.