Coastal flats energy inc houston tx10/7/2023 ![]() ![]() John Beard, a former city council member and energy worker for more than three decades, looks out at the refineries from the observation area of Port Arthur’s City Hall. “That was Port Arthur’s economy: You worked for Gulf or Texaco or the City of Port Arthur or the school district.” I have family pictures of me as a young boy, and our house was so close that you could lean out the window and touch fence.” His father worked at one of the city’s refineries, and the steady salary allowed him to buy a home. “We were right next to the old Texaco plant. “My parents came here in the late ’20s and early ’30s,” Beard says. By 1914, Port Arthur was one of the nation’s largest oil refining ports. The oldest refineries in Port Arthur date back to 1901: The same year that Spindletop, the state’s first major oil gusher, erupted in nearby Beaumont, Gulf Oil built the town’s first refinery. The tagline is plastered all over city hall. Port Arthur bills itself as the Energy City. Now retired, he’s found himself on the other side, fighting off the industrial expansion that fueled Port Arthur’s growth for more than a century. ![]() Just like a city booster in another town might point out skyscrapers and their architectural features, Beard can tell you what each facility produces and what pollutants are carried in the plumes of gray-brown smoke from their flares.īeard has lived in Port Arthur for most of his life and spent decades working at the local Exxon plant. ![]() John Beard, a former city councilman, can name each and every facility that’s visible on the horizon. The channel is lined with massive tankers and refineries. The viewing deck at Port Arthur’s City Hall offers visitors to the industrial city a view of the small downtown and the glimmering waterway. ![]()
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