A CITY BY The Shell Terminal and the future of Providence
TEXT LUCAS GELFOND AND PEDER SCHAEFER
DESIGN XINGXING SHOU
ILLUSTRATION IRIS WRIGHT
METRO
nationwide. Companies like Shell exercise vast influence over the political systems meant to keep them in check. A CLF victory would be a triumph of the legal system—and citizen advocates—over the immense corporate power of Shell. Fossil fuel giants in coastal communities across the US might have to spend huge sums of money on retro-fitting their facilities. But, as CLF is only able to sue for permitting violations and debatable language in the Clean Water Act, it cannot use the law to put on trial the very existence of such fossil fuel facilities and the huge amount of damage—like rising sea levels—they are causing to the city. The case’s scope is narrow, and the chances of victory slim, but CLF’s lawsuit could mobilize public support against the existence of companies like Shell and extract moral dues from polluters. Finally, after decades of knowing, Shell would have to acknowledge and pay for some aspect of the climate change they’ve caused.
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In 1635 the Great Colonial Hurricane sent a 22-foot storm surge tearing through Narragansett Bay. One year later, Roger Williams colonized the land that he began to call Providence. Generations since have transformed the local topography, stripping the landscape of natural protections against storm surges and rising waters. In 1938 and 1954, two more large storms hit Providence, flooding vast swaths of Downtown. Government leaders built a hurricane barrier a decade later, but they didn’t take into account rising seas due to climate change. Now, another 1635-like storm would nearly overtop Providence’s only defenses, and the low-lying industrial facilities at the port of Providence—such as Shell’s Providence Terminal—would be destroyed, unleashing toxic waste into Narragansett Bay. The Conservation Law Fund (CLF) is suing Shell for failure to prepare their facility for climate change, provoking larger questions about how the city will adapt to rising water, bigger storm surges, and the power of massive polluters like Shell. Preparing Providence for climate change requires shattering the myth of a static, never-changing landscape. The city can choose to do nothing and eventually be destroyed, or build new coalitions around ambitious designs in pursuit of a radically re-imagined, climate-adapted Providence.
The Providence Shell Terminal and the Conservation Law Fund’s case The Providence Shell Terminal is one of dozens of industrial facilities that reside on Allens Avenue, a long stretch of road that runs alongside the Providence River, away from Downtown and towards Fields Point. The east side of Allens Avenue is manmade; the land rests on an area that was once a marsh estuary. Maps from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management show that the waterfront slowly expanded over decades through a combination of dredging and dumping of city trash. Most of the riverfront is inaccessible to the public or littered with scrap—old tires, rusted manhole covers, and even a decommissioned submarine—and other toxic waste. A flood here would be catastrophic for the ecosystem of the Narragansett Bay and the Rhode Islanders who depend on it. In 2017, the Conservation Law Fund sued Shell in Rhode Island federal district court, alleging that the company is aware of climate-related dangers to their 75-acre facility but has done little to mitigate such risks. Last September, the lawsuit moved into legal discovery in federal court, requiring Shell’s team of lawyers to present evidence to defend their
The Fox Point Hurricane Barrier and the topography of Providence
facility. The CLF lawsuit is based on a federal law passed in 1976, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which acknowledges that most environmental laws are not properly enforced— mostly due to bipartisan austerity measures—and so allows for ‘citizen’ reporting. CLF’s lawsuit accuses Shell of numerous violations of the RCRA and Clean Water Act, mainly concerning visible oil sheen, failure to correctly report pollutant concentration, and a lack of disaster preparedness. The most compelling accusation CLF puts forth, however, is an allegation of a “Failure to Prepare SWPPP [Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan] in Accordance with Good Engineering Practices.” The suit claims that Shell knows of sea level rise and the extreme weather events expected as climate change occurs, but has failed to take this knowledge into account in the design of their Providence terminal. The CLF has precise legal arguments and sophisticated scientific climate modeling on its side. In addition, the federal judge hearing the case, William E. Smith, has a reputation for being friendly to environmental causes. Nonetheless, CLF President Brad Campbell told the College Hill Independent that his team of lawyers are in the middle of a David versus Goliath fight. Shell is the seventh largest company in the world and has nearlimitless legal and lobbying resources. Shell’s lawyers have already attempted a variety of diversionary legal tricks, like claiming that the CLF’s case doesn’t have standing in federal court or that debates about climate change don’t apply to Shell’s permits. A representative from Shell told the Indy that the company does not comment on ongoing litigation. Campbell told the Indy that a successful suit would finally make the economic cost of climate inaction transparent, putting a price tag on rising sea levels. The case would also set a precedent in federal court that could impact low-lying fossil fuel facilities
In 1954, Hurricane Carol dumped 12 feet of water in Downtown Providence, causing $1.9 billion in damages, adjusted to 2021 dollars. In the years that followed, thanks to federal funding and public outcry, planning and construction began on the hurricane barrier. State and federal leaders chose to build at Fox Point, deciding against other proposals, such as floodgates at the mouth of the Narragansett Bay or across Fields Point, because they were economically and ecologically infeasible, despite protecting port infrastructure. The massive barriers further south of Providence would have cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and could have destroyed the fragile estuary ecosystems at the head of the Bay. Still, as it stands, the Fox Point barrier protects only the wealthiest parts of Providence—such as Downtown and the cluster of historic buildings at the base of College Hill—leaving marginalized communities in Olneyville and Washington Park vulnerable. Providence’s natural topography, formed by glaciers thousands of years ago, has typically protected the city from large storm surges. Most of the residential areas of Providence are above sea level, a byproduct of powerful ice sheets moving back and forth over the land, creating the narrow channels, bluffs, and hilly terrain that today define much of the city. Before colonization, the head of Narragansett Bay was also a thriving marshland and estuary. Indigenous peoples of the region, such as the Wampanoag and Narragansett, worked the land to provide food and shelter for their communities without destroying the local ecosystem. Since colonization, Europeans, exploiting the labor of enslaved Africans, have levelled hills and pushed earth into the Providence River, altering parts of the landscape that once acted as carbon sinks, rainwater storage, and natural barriers against storm surges. Specific parts of Providence, such as Fields Point, are victims of the terraformed landscape, and are now only a few feet above sea level, but most of the city is protected by gentle hills. In cities without rolling terrain, such as low-lying Miami, New Orleans, and Boston, building protective dikes and tidal gates is economically infeasible, but in Providence, a smaller barrier could protect most of the city. However, the current Fox Point Hurricane Barrier wouldn’t protect the city in the
