This week Brave New Films released a short documentary exposing the impact just one Koch Industries operated Georgia Pacific plant in Crossett, Arkansas is having on the local community. The film takes a look at a neighborhood around Penn Road downstream of the facility where an abnormally high number of people have died from cancer. The community believes the source is the waste flooding out of the Georgia Pacific facility down a stream that runs nearby. Please take the time to watch this film, it offers a glimpse into the real impacts of the Koch’s reckless corporation.

When they’re not selling chemical equipment to Iran, Koch’s toxic facilities are strewn around the nation pumping pollution into the air and water, and many also store large amounts of poison gasses. The facility examined in Crosset, AK is George-Pacific LLC – Crossett Paper Operations which has 72,000 lbs of chlorine gas and 35,000 lbs of chlorine dioxide, poison gasses that can be lethal if inhaled. According to Koch’s own reports to the EPA, if just the chlorine dioxide was released from an accident or a terrorist attack it could endanger 36,129 people in the surrounding town. And many other communities remain at risk – nationwide, Koch’s facilities threaten more than 4 million people with a catastrophic release of poison gasses, as we showed in our report, Toxic Koch: Keeping Americans at Risk of a Poison Gas Disaster.  Meanwhile, just as Koch lobbyists aim to roll back clean air and water protections, they also play a major role in blocking chemical disaster prevention legislation that would make their facilities safer.

Citizens activists from Crossett are going to hand deliver messages to Koch Industries, you can submit a message at their action site here: http://kochbrothersexposed.com/cancer/

Please share this with everyone you know so that Koch is held accountable for its risky business.

Greenpeace activists are visiting Senate offices around the country to warn them to beware of Koch lobbyists pedaling a catastrophic agenda. This follows the release of our report last month, Toxic Koch: Keeping Americans at Risk of a Poison Gas Disaster, exposing how Koch lobbying and campaign contributions are keeping over 100 million Americans at risk of a poison gas disaster, including over 4 million from Koch’s own dangerous facilities.

In our report we showed that Koch has 57 facilities that together put more than 4 million Americans at risk of a chemical disaster. They have also deployed one of the largest armies of lobbyists on Capitol Hill who are fighting against comprehensive chemical security legislation in order to keep those facilities from using safer technologies that would make Koch’s facilities safer and more secure. To help their lobbying efforts Koch has been bankrolling key politicians to encourage their support for Koch’s agenda, even while their constituents remain at risk.

Koch’s actions are at the center of one of the biggest security gaps in our nation. Just 300 of the thousands of high-risk facilities put one third of Americans within the danger zone of a poison gas release. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory estimates that more than 100,000 people could be killed or injured within the first 30 minutes of a terrorist attack on a chemical facility. Most, if not all, of these high risk facilities could switch to safer technologies but they are operated by companies like Koch Industries who are refusing to make their facilities safer, and on top of that are lobbying to keep it that way.

Senator Lautenberg has authored two bills that together would close these severe security gaps and make facilities safer and more secure. The Secure Chemical Facilities Act (S. 709) and Secure Water Facilities Act (S. 711) would require the highest risk facilities to convert to feasible safer alternatives, and close the exemptions that allow 2,400 water treatment facilities and 500 port facilities to avoid current security standards. Greenpeace activists visited the offices of Senators Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, Jeff Merkley, Dick Durbin, Bill Nelson, Michael Bennet, and Kay Hagan to ask them to support these bills and to keep a wary eye out for Koch Industries’ lobbyists. As we come up on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, it is long past time for Congress to take real action in passing a comprehensive chemical security program that would protect communities from a poison gas disaster.

Last night Koch Industries issued a statement on Kochfacts.com that effectively agrees with the main tenet of our new report: Toxic Koch: Keeping Americans at Risk of a Poison Gas Disaster.

“Koch supported the bipartisan Chemical Facilities Antiterrorism Standards (CFATS) that was enacted four years ago. We regarded CFATS as the most feasible and productive measure being proposed and, what’s more, we advocated for its reauthorization in 2011.” –Koch Industries

“Advocated” means lobbying, and that’s exactly what our report shows. Koch has deployed one of the largest army of lobbyists to reauthorize this weak security program and fight against policy that would focus on preventing chemical disasters. CFATS was meant to give the Department of Homeland Security a head start while Congress got its act together. The DHS is now asking Congress for a comprehensive plan that removes the exemptions for other high-risk facilities (some of them owned by Koch) and also to include the use of “inherently safer technologies” as a measure to make facilities more secure.

Well, ok, Koch didn’t agree with everything we said in our report. Koch’s so-called “response” in fact fails to even address the vast majority of our report’s findings. They make no mention of their lobbying activities to block comprehensive chemical security legislation, their campaign contributions to key lawmakers, or why they have failed to convert their dangerous chemical facilities to safer processes. Koch claims that they “place safety and compliance before profits.” If Koch truly placed safety before profit, why haven’t they converted their dangerous facilities to safer alternatives? Companies like Clorox are already taking this step to convert all of their high-risk facilities to safer technologies. Koch, on the other hand, is still operating 57 of their facilities in ways that put over 4 million people in a catastrophic danger zone.

They also object to the way we characterize their subsidiary Invista’s environmental record. But aside from an attempt to distract from Invista’s environmental violations by emphasizing that they were “self-reported,” Koch fails to address the main issue raised in our report: “Invista operates four dangerous facilities, the most dangerous of which is the INVISTA Intermediates Plant in LaPorte, TX. This facility puts an estimated 1,889,251 people at risk with its use of a formaldehyde process.” Why does Koch feel that it is acceptable to endanger 1.8 million people in the Houston area, and why hasn’t the company addressed that issue in their “response?”

Koch also is disappointed that we didn’t tout their “386 safety awards and 28 environmental awards.” Many of these are from industry groups like the American Petroleum Institute or the International Liquid Terminals Association. Koch is even a prominent member of some of the groups that gave Koch “awards” such as the National Petroleum Refinery Association. Other “awards” are from organizations like the Wildlife Habitat Council (board members include vice presidents of Monsanto, Dupont, and ConocoPhillips), or government agencies recognizing Koch for doing what they should do anyway.

Finally, Koch tries to distract from the issues we have raised by attacking Greenpeace: “Greenpeace’s radical agenda is widely known and it is highly irresponsible for it to use national security as a cover to advance their extreme policy preferences.” – Koch Industries. First, the fact that Koch doesn’t seem to think this is a national security issue shows how little regard the company has for the extraordinary threat of dangerous chemical facilities. National security experts have stated time and again that these facilities are a major threat and that is why the DHS has requested the authority to require safer technologies.

As for Koch’s attack on Greenpeace’s supposedly “extreme policy preferences,” we are proud to stand with a coalition of more than 100 labor, environmental, and health organizations in calling for comprehensive chemical security legislation. We believe that if a dangerous chemical facility can feasibly use a safer technology or process and remove the risk of a poison gas disaster, then it should do so. And it’s precisely because of companies like Koch that put profits over the health and safety of their workers and nearby communities that our regulators should be allowed to require that. Koch Industries believes that it should be allowed to operate without regard for the communities and workers they threaten with a poison gas disaster; that’s what is irresponsible, radical, and extreme.

I addressed the main concerns last night on RT’s The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann: