Texas City & Its BP Plant Star In The New York Times

A not-so-beguiling description of Texas City

​BP's release of massive amounts of carcinogens into the Texas City air has been covered by the media here, but today it's getting a much larger spotlight.

The New York Times looks at the incident, in a story headlined "With Neighbors Unaware, Toxic Spill at a BP Plant."

The story covers the ground pretty thoroughly, and it offers this description of Texas City for its readers:

Still, the refinery is a major employer in Texas City, a town with about 45,000 residents, modest frame houses, fast-food restaurants and dollar stores on the coastal plains across a channel from Galveston. The refineries dwarf the clapboard abodes of workers here, thrusting up into tropical skies in utilitarian ugliness and painting the azure with smoke. Those smokestacks mean jobs, and many people are skeptical about those claiming they have gotten sick.

It goes on to quote a resident who says those who are suing are "money-hungry money grubbers," but overall the piece is sympathetic to those claiming to have been made ill by the release

Although to be sure, "refineries...thrusting up into tropical skies in utilitarian ugliness and painting the azure with smoke" is not going to be quoted by the Texas City Chamber of Commerce anytime soon.