San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeepers
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Nurdles
$50M Historic Settlement by Texas Residents has Big Local Impacts
Diane Wilson and her scrappy crew of volunteer citizen-scientists took on a polluting billion-dollar plastics company and, nurdle by nurdle, won.
Texas Monthly
$10 million to Green Lake Park
Millions of dollars push forward development of Calhoun County area park benefiting wildlife, children and park seekers
Wastewater Sampling Mechanism
Part of the Formosa Clean Water Act Lawsuit requires zero discharge of pollutants and this new technology will help get there
$750K to YMCA Camps
Nearly a million dollars was Port Lavaca YMCA to fund camps for children and teenagers in the area
Texas Citizens fight Plastic Pollution: Clean up Lavaca Bay
In 2016 the San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeepers began collecting pellet (nurdle) and powder samples from over twenty- miles of waterways and shoreline along Cox Creek and Lavaca/Matagorda Bays. Between January 31, 2016 and March 2019, Diane Wilson and the San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeepers collected approximately 2,500 samples and took 7,000 photos/videos demonstrating that the Formosa Plastics, Point Comfort facility had repeatedly violated the federal Clean Water Act by dumping pellets and powder on an ongoing basis. In March 2019, the Clean Water suit went to Federal Court, and Judge Hoyt described Formosa as a “serial offender” and wrote that its violations of the Clean Water Act were “extensive, historical, and repetitive.” In December 2019, U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt approved a $50 Million settlement between Formosa Plastics Corp. and plaintiffs, San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper and Diane Wilson. The agreement is the largest ever settlement of a Clean Water Act suit filed by private individuals. The settlement funded six key pollution mitigation projects near its Point Comfort, Texas facility and it also required Formosa to meet a stringent standard known as “zero discharge,” in which the Point Comfort facility must stop all discharge of plastics from its facility.
Now Wilson’s trove of pellets is part of the evidence against Formosa in a federal lawsuit that could help revolutionize the way citizens hold corporate polluters to account.
Texas Monthly
VIOLATIONS
DOCUMENTS
Map
Get to know Lavaca Bay
Find out more about the History, Regulatory Reports, and Ecological Information on the twenty- miles of waterways and shoreline along Cox Creek and Lavaca/Matagorda Bays.
Haragan, the UT law professor, considers their project proof that organized citizens can hold polluters— and regulators—accountable.
Texas Monthly
Help us hold corporate polluters to account
Remediation Efforts
Learn about the remediation efforts on Cox Creek and in the bay by Freese and Nichols and Horizon
Clean Water Lawsuit timeline of Texans fighting plastic pollution
Clean Water Act Lawsuit Short History
2009
2010
EPA Inspection
EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) Facility Report for the Point Comfort facility, Formosa Plastics has been releasing a variety of compounds into Lavaca Bay through a combination of point source discharges via these outfalls and air emissions via flares. Beyond water discharges, the ECHO database cited above also lists Formosa..EPA 2010 Inspection Report
2017
2018
2019
Texas Monthly : No More Nurdles? Formosa’s Agreement to Stop Pumping Plastics Into Lavaca Bay Is Historic
Gulf Coast citizen-activists collected 30 million plastic pellets in order to prove that Formosa was violating the Clean Water Act.
2021
Nurdle Search Dec 2018
No More Nurdles
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