A detailed inventory of hazardous chemicals around the Ship Channel remains difficult to come by, thanks to a Texas law that restricts public disclosure of information that could be utilized by terrorists. However, a 2016 Houston Chronicle investigation of the area’s dangerous chemicals revealed that communities near the Ship Channel live in close proximity to toxic substances, such as silane gas, methyl mercaptan, hydrofluoric acid, sodium sulfide, and ammonia. On at least three occasions, the investigation found, those substances have been released, killing workers and endangering nearby residents. The paper has also catalogued more than one hundred toxic releases during Hurricane Harvey alone, most of them from Houston’s petrochemical corridor.
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