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.