Michael Sainato writes:

About 30 miles outside of Pittsburgh, along the Ohio River, lies one of the largest active construction projects in the United States. Dozens of cranes dominate the more-than-300-acre site, where hundreds of construction workers assemble a massive petrochemical facility set to convert natural gas into plastic pellets used to develop a range of products from plastic bottles to car parts.

The ethane cracker plant being developed in Monaca, Pennsylvania, by Royal Dutch Shell is one of at least five currently under construction or being planned throughout Appalachia’s Ohio River Valley, where the petrochemical industry is beginning to expand from its base along Louisiana’s Gulf Coast (grimly known as “Cancer Alley”).Thousands of fracking wells drilled throughout Pennsylvania and West Virginia since 2012 have driven growth in natural-gas production in the Appalachian region..

Pennsylvania state lawmakers offered Royal Dutch Shell nearly $1.7 billion in over a 25-year period to construct the plant in Pennsylvania, with job creation and economic opportunity as a driving argument in favor of its construction. Though the fracked-gas industry’s supporters have extolled the economic prosperity the plant is projected to bring to the region, signs are already showing those promises are falling far short. Many jobs aren’t going to locals and residents are left to suffer from the pollution created by these industries. A Green New Deal would provide the resources to develop sustainable economic infrastructure, from energy infrastructure to resources to develop and sustain clean manufacturing, without destroying the environment. [Continue reading…]