Between 1982 & 84, my single mom environmental writer moved to SETX partially because it's one of the most polluted in the US. Since my late 20s, I have opened social media to find people who I grew up with dying from cancer. It's happened about every 2 months for 10 years.

The Port Neches explosion is not shocking, just like the one in Houston after Harvey. We have one party that wants to do away with the EPA and another that pats itself on the back for saving it. While companies do whatever they want in the name of the free market.

People I grew up with have accepted that to make your gasoline and rubber tires, and they may have to die an early death because of it. Most people I grew up with smoked cigarettes because they know (maybe subconsciously) that they are going to get cancer anyway.

My mother died of cancer probably from the polluted water she wrote about, but no one will ever investigate that. I don't have a solution. I do want you to know it's a special place George Jones and UGK are from there. 1 of the biggest and oldest art spaces in Texas.

Lots of musicians, artists, comics, and athletes at the same time love it and want to leave it as much Louisiana as Texas but neither. It's a ghost town and a storybook. It's a sad beautiful place, and I guess I just don't want it to die. Thanks for listening.