Nadine Luci lives on a breezy hill south-western Pennsylvania, but hardly ever opens her windows for fear the air outside is harming her.

“I have to live in a cocoon year-round,” she said.

Luci, 60, lives just two miles from the Shell Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex, a huge plant that “cracks” ethane, a byproduct of fracked gas, to make millions of tons of plastic each year. The plant, which became operational in 2022, sits on 386 acres along the Ohio River in Monaca, Pennsylvania.

Initially, Luci was concerned about the project’s pollution in an area long plagued by emissions-heavy industry. But she looked forward to the needed jobs the plant would bring to a region that has seen many factories and mills shutter.

In the following years, Luci’s optimism faded. Some days, she noticed dark plumes billowing from the cracker’s stacks. Other nights, the project would shoot flames or dye the sky orange. And every couple of months, a nauseating sweet odor wafted from the plant, like a syrup you would never want to eat.

One morning this past summer, Luci and her neighbor were having a coffee outside when they were hit with “a huge and rancid chlorine smell” that burned her eyes and nose.

Luci, who grew up in nearby Beaver, has suffered from respiratory illness since childhood and she fears pollution from the plant is exacerbating her symptoms. Since its construction began in 2017, the plant has received 33 violations for illegal levels of air and water pollution.

“I don’t even want to drink my tap water,” said Luci, who fished in the Ohio River’s tributaries as a youth.

The Ohio River supplies drinking water to more than 5 million people, including Luci’s town of Rochester. It is one of the most contaminated watersheds in the country. John Stolz, a microbiologist at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, said it was “definitely possible” that the Shell project had added to that contamination.

Natalie Gunnell, spokesperson for the Shell plastic plant, said “the local water suppliers treat and monitor the drinking water.”

Heather Hulton VanTassel, who directs the Three Rivers Waterkeeper organization in Pennsylvania, said Luci’s water should be cleaned by authorities, though bills may increase if they have to increase “pollutant removal”.

For her part, Luci said she had noticed a “dead fish” smell occasionally coming from her tap water. Like many of her neighbors, she buys plastic water bottles in bulk. “We bitch about it, but we buy it, plastic, constantly,” she said from her kitchen.

Critics say support for the plant was built on the company’s use of manipulative public relations tactics, and on reports that overstated the plant’s expected economic benefits while downplaying its potential environmental harms.

“I think some of us went pretty quickly from hearing it’s going to increase jobs and home values and fix the economy … to learning it was going to be an environmental disaster,” said Rachel Meyer, a coordinator for the environmental group Moms Clean Air Force, from her dining room.

Shell’s local influence campaign, critics say, came amid a broader, decades-long effort by fossil fuel companies to downplay the dangers of fossil fuels.

Gunnell said that Shell had “made it a priority to work closely with communities near our operations to manage the social impacts of our activities and enhance the benefits we are able to bring”.

Plastics boom for whom?

In 2008, Pennsylvania began to experience a surge in fracking, giving fossil fuel producers access to once inaccessible gas. The boom left the area awash in petrochemicals including ethane, a common raw ingredient in plastics.

Four years later, a bipartisan group of state lawmakers, looking to capitalize on this abundance, proposed offering Shell $1.6bn in tax incentives to build a new plastics plant – the largest subsidy package in Pennsylvania history. Citing Shell’s promise to create up to 20,000 jobs, they said the project would revitalize local economies.

Two Shell-funded studies would later back up that claim: a 2014 report estimated the plant would contribute up to $4.4bn to the local economy over its 40-year operating lifespan, and a 2021 follow-up report placed that estimate at up to $17bn.

But in January, independent analysts with the Ohio River Valley Institute found that the studies were too rosy, due to their failure to consider costs to the public or shifts in the market and regulatory environment.

Though nearly 8,600 workers did provide a surge of economic activity to Beaver county during the plant’s construction, many hailed from out of state. Today, the cracker plant only employs about 500 full-time workers, according to Shell.

“They say they’re creating hundreds of jobs, but that’s a drop in the damn bucket,” said Luci.

Officials said the plant would anchor a vast petrochemical hub, employing tens of thousands, but that hub never materialized.

Gunnell said: “We are proud of the jobs, economic benefits and social investment dollars and projects we have brought to the region and will continue to bring to the regional economy for decades to come.”

Pollution

When the new plant began operations in November 2022, Shell touted a “strong and innovative safety focus”. But the Shell plant emits a wide range of pollutants, including volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide and other toxins that have been linked to illnesses ranging from respiratory disease to cancer.

The project has received two dozen violations for air pollution and eight for water contamination, with the first issued just months after construction began in 2017, and the most recent issued in September.

“Meeting or exceeding regulatory requirements is part of our operating framework,” Gunnell said. “If we fall short, we aim to understand why and implement new ways of working that are clear and actionable.”

Shell reports emissions to regulators and publishes “fenceline monitoring results” from the facility’s property line, Gunnell noted. Advocates say the latter came only after years of pressure.

Residents have also accused officials of failing to address locals’ concerns. In April 2023, as neighbors said that the air smelled like kerosene, monitors placed by a local grassroots organization detected levels of benzene that exceeded federal standards. But when the Pennsylvania environment department came out to investigate, they relied only on a human “sniff test” and downplayed concerns, advocates said.

“Visiting the Shell plant and merely smelling the air is inadequate to assess whether there are any air permit violations or malfunctions, let alone whether it’s safe to breathe the air,” said Alex Bomstein, executive director of the environmental non-profit the Clean Air Council.

Benzene, the main pollutant of concern during the incident, can be smelled in concentrations of 12 parts per million, but federal officials say exposure to concentrations of just 0.01 parts per million require workers to wear protective equipment, he noted.

Lauren Camarda, the Pennsylvania environment department spokesperson, said the agency was “committed to ensuring that the Shell facility is operating in accordance with Pennsylvania’s laws and regulations and has held them accountable for violations”, Since fall 2023, the Shell plant’s emissions have been on a “constant downward trend”, she said.

The Clean Air Council and other green groups have taken legal action against Shell over this incident and others. Those organizations are also pressuring the state to tighten the plant’s water pollution limits.

In May 2023, the company agreed to a $10m settlement with the state for air pollution violations. The plant had then only been operational for about six months, but had already surpassed its 12-month emissions limits on volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and other pollutants. This agreement addressed “previous emissions exceedances”, Gunnell said.

Shell was required to report the facility’s emissions to authorities monthly as part of the settlement, Camarda said.

A local resident this February also launched litigation claiming the plant is both a private and public nuisance and seeking class-action status. And in a Washington county courthouse in early December, Shell was convicted of criminal charges after pleading no contest to three misdemeanor counts brought by the Pennsylvania attorney general, for violating the state’s clean streams law during the construction of the Falcon pipeline, which feeds gas to the cracker plant.

“Shell is aware of two lawsuits pending in the western district of Pennsylvania relating to Shell Polymers Monaca, which remain in active litigation,” Gunnell said, adding that Shell’s positions on and responses to the allegations were public record.

At peak capacity, the project will require ethane to be extracted from 1,000 new gas wells every five to 10 years, experts say, creating additional pollution.

‘You can’t avoid influence’

Before construction on the plant began, Shell’s plastics division began providing equipment to local schools and sponsoring scholarships – public relations tactics that have recently come under increasing scrutiny. It even spent $1m to create a new technology program – which sports the Shell name – at one community college.

The company has also donated handsomely to the local Salvation Army, the YMCA, and other non-profits, and has paid for local park benches and a new basketball court at one elementary school.

Gunnell, the Shell spokesperson, said: “We have enjoyed the support of the local community and are committed to being a good neighbor.

“The bulk of our Shell Polymers employees live, work and play here, so we want to help make our community better whenever we can,” she added.

But Vanessa Lynch, a local organizer with Moms Clean Air Force, said many residents find their community contributions confusing.

“You have a company that is a huge corporation, and they’re telling you: we want to help the community,” she said. “But then, as a community member, you’re watching the increase in fracking. You’re watching a red sky at night. You’re smelling smells …It’s hard to have those two things in your head at the same time.”

Local activists say even the payout from the 2023 lawsuit – half of which has been allocated for air monitoring, environmental projects and other initiatives – has been confused for altruism.

“I’ve heard residents and even county employees mention it like it’s a charity,” said Andie Grey, an activist who lives three miles from the plant.

Shell’s donations may serve to damp down criticism and influence public opinion, said Terrie Baumgardner, a board member of the Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community. “It seems to me that you can’t avoid influence when money comes into play,” she said.

Years before the plant started operating, Baumgardner said she asked an assistant at a local university, where she had worked for 26 years, to use a room for a local environmental group to hold a public meeting.

“Well, you know, Terrie, we have partnerships with Shell,” she remembers being told. Her request was rejected.

Timmons Roberts, professor of environment and sociology at Brown University, who studies fossil fuel companies’ public relations campaigns, said it was common for polluting sectors to partner with community groups to boost their image.

“That’s true on the smaller scale when local people are worried about new industries, and it’s true on the big scale to soothe concerns about climate,” he said. “It seems like a favor … but I think mostly it’s meant to shut people up.”

Impacts beyond Pennsylvania

The Shell plant is expected to reach its full production capacity in 2025 or 2026, when the company says it will produce up to 3.5bn tons of plastic pellets a year. Permits allow the plant to spew out 2.25m tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide annually – the equivalent of putting 523,604 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles on the road.

Plastic creation accounts for 5% of all global carbon emissions, and absent decisive policy changes, that figure is expected to rise. In early December, the latest round of negotiations to reach a global treaty on plastic pollution collapsed amid accusations that industry involvement hampered the negotiations.

Reports indicate that Shell has been aware since the 1970s of the planet-warming impacts of fossil fuels like the ones used to produce plastic. It has set targets to ramp down its carbon emissions but this year watered them down.

Asked for comment, Gunnell said: “The Shell Group did not have unique knowledge about climate change.

“The issue of climate change and how to tackle it has long been part of public discussion and ongoing scientific research for many decades,” she said.

Asked about the planet-heating impacts of using fossil fuels to make plastics, Gunnell said that Shell “supports the need for improved circularity in the global plastics markets, encouraging the reduction, reuse, and recycling of plastics”.

She added that Shell was supporting local recycling efforts, including in Beaver county. But globally less than 10% of plastics are ever recycled.

Plastic producers – including Shell – were warned decades ago that recycling is not an economically or technically feasible plastic waste management solution, a February report revealed. In July, Shell also quietly backed away from a pledge to rapidly increase its use of “advanced recycling” – a polluting practice oil and petrochemical producers have promoted as a solution to the plastics pollution crisis, the Guardian reported. Gunnell did not comment on either finding.

Meyer, of Moms Clean Air Force, feels that her region was “sacrificed” for the sake of profits.

“I don’t like to think of myself as just as expendable [as a] plastic bag,” she said.

But it now seems that even Shell’s profit targets are not panning out. The company has already acknowledged that it won’t meet its initial target – making $1bn to $1.5bn in earnings from the plant – until 2025 at the earliest. And in October, the thinktank the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis found that it may not even reach that goal by the end of 2026, thanks to expected increases in the cost of gas and shifting market dynamics.

“All this sacrifice has been pretty much for nothing,” said Abhishek Sinha, who led the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis research.

As she has continued to see the Shell plastic plant spew pollution into her community, Nadine Luci has thought about moving away. It’s painful to think of leaving her local family members and her childhood memories, but she’s afraid her body can’t handle the pollution.

“It feels wrong because all my roots are here,” she said. “I’ve been here all this time, and now I have to be the one to figure out how to escape.”

Reporting for this story was made possible through a Climate Disinformation Fellowship from the Heinrich Boell Foundation, Washington