Lavaca Bay, a steel, gray waterway along the Central Texas Coast, is home to one of the most notorious Superfund sites in Texas—a huge, abandoned industrial plant complex (and island full of dredge materials) that leaches toxic mercury into surrounding waters, creating a zone where, for decades, the fish has been too dangerous for humans to eat.
The hulking complex near the town of Point Comfort is already one of about 49 Superfund sites in the United States considered the most vulnerable to climate change. Indeed, Lavaca Bay already has been repeatedly hammered by major storms, including Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and Tropical Storm Beta in 2020.
But the latest threat to unleash more mercury is entirely man-made. In January 2021, the Port Calhoun Authority voted to approve a public-private partnership with the Houston-based oil company Max Midstream to deepen and widen the bay’s existing shipping channel by 2023. Max Midstream is expected to invest $360 million in the project, including $120 million in public bond funds. The company, which acquired an existing pipeline that led to the port, has already begun shipping oil through it and plans to greatly increase its operations there.
