Petrochemical developments in the Ohio River Valley

An overview of the petrochemical buildout in Southwestern Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia.

Raina Levin - Environmental Health Project (EHP) Summer Fellow

The Ohio River Valley, particularly Southwestern Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, has had a long history with extractive industries. From  coal mining  to steel production to  fracking , these states have seen the rise (and fall) of a variety of industries—and petrochemicals are now gaining a foothold. 

Petrochemicals, o r chemicals made from petroleum or methane gas , are a rapidly growing industry in the Ohio River Valley. From production to disposal, they can harm the health of nearby communities, many of which  already have concerns from historical contamination of the area. 

This map focuses on Southwestern Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. It displays environmental justice indicators from the EPA’s  EJScreen  tool (2023 data) and socioeconomic data from  CDC PLACES  (2020-2021 data).

For example, several census tracts near Parkersburg, West Virginia, are at or above the 80th percentile for the EPA’s AirToxics Cancer Risk, which calculates how toxic chemicals in the air can affect the chances of developing cancer.

Click on a census tract to see more information. In this area of Washington County, about 22% of the population is over the age of 64. About 10% of the population has asthma, 14% has diabetes, and almost 17% report frequent mental health distress. With 9.3% of the population having cancer, this census tract is in the 82nd percentile for AirToxics Cancer Risk.

This area is in the 87th percentile nationwide for proximity to  Superfund sites , which are areas contaminated by hazardous waste.

With this background, we can look at where petrochemical facilities are being built in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia.

Common types of petrochemical facilities include:

  • Chemical manufacturing facilities: These facilities manufacture chemicals for fertilizers (such as ammonia and urea), industrial uses (methanol and chlorine), and consumer products (PFAS for Teflon) 
  • Gas processing and fractionation: These processes are “upstream” of other petrochemical facilities, meaning that they supply or process the raw materials that other petrochemical facilities use. The processes include separating methane gas into ethane, propane, butane, and gasoline. 
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The blue shapes on this map represent existing petrochemical facilities, and the green shapes are facilities that currently exist but are planning to expand their operations.

Returning to West Virginia, you can see an existing chemical manufacturing facility, the Chemours Washington Works Plant.

Click on a facility to learn more about it. The Washington Works Plant produces PFAS and has been  out of compliance with state  and national regulations many times in the past few years.

You can also see approximations for the plant’s emissions of greenhouse gases ( in carbon dioxide equivalents ), particulate matter, and hazardous air pollutants in tons per year.

The Liberty One Methanol Plant near Charleston, West Virginia, produces large amounts of hazardous air pollutants, carbon monoxide, and other emissions.

The facility is planning to expand, opening a second methanol plant that produces up to 150 thousand tons of methanol every year. This would increase their production by 62.5%.

The communities near the methanol plant already face environmental challenges. This census tract is in the 89th percentile for PM 2.5 , 96th percentile for ozone, 97th percentile for AirToxics cancer risk, and 98th percentile for wastewater discharge.

With the expansion of the methanol plant, residents will face additional pollution.

The black shapes are planned facilities at various stages of development. Some have already received permits, and some are in very early stages of planning.

For example, the planned ARCH2 Empire Green Follansbee Plant will be located near several other existing and expanding petrochemical facilities.

Limited information is available about its exact emissions, but, based on permits, it could emit many types of hazardous air pollutants, including

Each of these chemicals are harmful to people nearby who breathe them in.

Topography and wind influence where these emissions end up, and a model called  HYSPLIT  provides an approximation for how air pollution can spread from a source.

Air pollution from a facility spreads upward and outward, but some eventually settles to the ground. Ground-level pollutants can be breathed in or react with other  chemicals and sunlight to produce ozone .

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In relatively flat areas, emissions tend to radiate outwards from a facility in a circle.

For example, the Alterra Akron Plastic Recycling Facility is located in a flat area of Ohio. Each band of the figure shows the relative amount (%) of air pollution from that facility that reaches the ground.

The darkest purple ring shows where the concentration of ground-level air pollution from the recycling facility is highest. That area experiences at least 50% of the maximum ground level concentration of air pollution.

The white ring shows areas that experience at least 1% of the maximum ground level concentration of air pollution generated by the recycling facility.

Some census tracts that are close to the recycling facility are above the 80th percentile for AirToxics Cancer Risk.

This area is also at the 96th percentile for toxic releases to air.

The prevalence of asthma in this census tract is 14% and the prevalence of COPD is 13.3%. Both of these respiratory diseases can be worsened by

The Shell Polymers Monaca Site in Beaver County, Pennsylvania is located in an area with more varied topography. The facility is located in a hilly area on the banks of the Ohio River and south of the Beaver River.

As a result, the emissions from the ethane don't spread in a perfect circle. Instead, they follow the rivers.

A census tract that is highly exposed to the emissions from the Shell ethane cracker is in the 94th percentile for toxic releases to air.

Some areas, such as Monroe County, West Virginia, are exposed to the emissions of several petrochemical facilities at once.

This model does not provide the cumulative impacts of multiple facilities. Instead, each band represents the relative ground-level concentration of chemical emissions from any one facility.

Emissions from both the Natrium Extraction and Fractionation Facility and the Natrium Chemical Plant reach this census tract.

If the Mountaineer Storage Hub and the PTTGCA Petrochemical Complex are constructed, nearby communities will face even more air pollution.

The petrochemical build out in Southwest Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia is dangerous to residents who live nearby.

Feel free to continue exploring this map.

  • Search for specific locations using the search bar in the top left corner.
  • Click on any facility to view a description and its emissions.
  • Click on any census tract to view health and environmental justice metrics.
  • Click on the circle in the bottom left corner to view the legend.
  • For a more complete list of chemicals and their health effects, scroll down or click  here .
  • The black/gray crosshatch pattern represents the approximate footprint of an existing facility, based on satellite images.

This map is meant to serve as a resource for those looking into the petrochemical industry’s growing presence in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, but please note that it is not exhaustive. It was last updated in August 2024.

Several other types of infrastructure, such as pipelines and compressor stations, are not displayed on this map. These come with their  own emissions and health consequences.  

For more information, please refer to the resources below.

Health effects

Sources

Health Effects

To learn more, visit:

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the Environmental Health Project (EHP), especially Nathan Deron. Additional support from the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), Beyond Petrochemicals, Cancer and Environment Network of Southwestern Pennsylvania (CENSWPA), and Community Foundation for the Alleghenies.