Will a push for plastics turn Appalachia into next ‘Cancer Alley’?
by Emily Holden in Monaca, Pennsylvania from Environment | The Guardian on (#4SB6R)
Critics say ethane expansion will not only prolong fracking but could also trigger a public health disaster
Construction cranes climb into the sky and sprawl across the massive petrochemical facility that will turn a byproduct of fracked gas into plastic on the banks of the Ohio River, just outside Pittsburgh.
Even at a distance, from the car park of a cancer treatment centre on a nearby hilltop, Royal Dutch Shell's 386-acre site is a behemoth. It will anchor yet more gas, plastics and chemicals infrastructure in the tristate region of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.
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