{"id":125348,"date":"2026-02-27T19:13:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T19:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/125348\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T19:13:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T19:13:06","slug":"we-caught-shell-polluting-in-pa-again-our-partner-did-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/125348\/","title":{"rendered":"We Caught Shell Polluting in PA, again! Our Partner did, too."},"content":{"rendered":"

Since opening in November 2022 the Shell Plastic Plant in Beaver County, Pennsylvania has been wrought with malfunctions and violations. In the first year<\/a> alone the facility wracked up over 25 malfunctions and thirteen notices of violations. This included chemical events and exceeding the pollution limits set by a number of air permits. <\/p>\n

Since that disastrous first year of operations the facility has failed to improve. Since that first year, it received 33 violations, now totalling over fifty notices of violations<\/a> listed<\/a> since 2017 and in 2023, entered into a consent agreement<\/a> paying $4.9 million in civil penalties and putting $5 million into an environmental mitigation fund, one of the largest funds in Pennsylvania history.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earthworks and our partners have been watchdogging this facility since it opened, including making multiple trips to the facility with an Optical Gas Imaging Camera to make the invisible pollution from this facility visible. During our first visit in 2023, we captured<\/a> a significant pollution event from an inefficient ground flare. We worked with community advocates then and did what Shell and our state government should have done: informed residents of potential harms to their health.<\/a><\/p>\n

We returned to the facility on February 16th, 2026, and once again found inefficient combustion from the same ground flare.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Flares are meant to burn hydrocarbons so they are not released directly into the atmosphere. Hydrocarbons are pollutants released by fossil fuel operations. While they are invisible, they are often hazardous to our health and climate. Hydrocarbons released by the Shell Plastic Plant include the known carcinogen benzene and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as toluene and xylene. Because this flare is not combusting efficiently at the moment we documented this event, it is likely that VOCs were being released into the air, potentially contaminating the air beyond the facility.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s reason to believe that the pollution event we documented on Monday, the 16th, was not just a one day event.<\/p>\n

Our partners at Physicians for Social Responsibility PA also visited the facility with an OGI camera the following day. They monitored<\/a> the flares throughout the day and saw<\/a> a large amount of hydrocarbons also coming from that flare. On the same day as their investigation residents reported an emergency alarm<\/a> (Shell later claimed this was a false alarm). But that\u2019s not all.<\/p>\n

Less than a week before our visit, the facility had a confirmed benzene leak<\/a> due to equipment failure.\u00a0 A few nights before our visit the facility flared from its emergency flare <\/a>for nearly the entire night simply letting the public know via facebook<\/a> they would be using their flares due to an offline ground unit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This pattern of pollution is not new for this facility and neither is the corresponding lack of transparency. It is clear Shell is not following through on the good neighbor promises it made to our community.\u00a0 Just because we cannot see the pollution with a naked eye doesn\u2019t give Shell a free pass to pollute.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you are a resident of Beaver County or the surrounding area we need your eyes, ears, and nose to help watchdog this facility! Resident watchdogs are how we hold Shell and other massive corporate polluters accountable to the communities they are poisoning. Follow Watchdogs of Beaver County on instagram to get involved and make a watchdog report by calling (724 923 3244) or emailing (watchdogsofbc@gmail.com<\/a>).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"Optical gas image of pollution at Shell Plastics Plant in Beaver, County, Pennsylvania. Taken 16 February 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since opening in November 2022 the Shell Plastic Plant in Beaver County, Pennsylvania has been wrought with malfunctions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-125348","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-pennsylvania","9":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","10":"tag-pennsylvania-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}