BIG OIL ON TRIAL.

• Author: Morris, Ashira

Darrell Brown drives down Providence's Allens Avenue several times a week. On both sides of the busy road, Shell Oil's massive oil storage terminal looms. Each of its squat white tanks reaches 50 feet high and stretches even wider. The sight of them serves as a stark reminder of the risk of pollution from the tanks every time it rains and the silent threat of the catastrophic damage they could unleash when hit by a powerful storm.

"It's an intimidating stretch of road," Brown says. "It feels dangerous."

As vice president for CLF's Rhode Island advocacy center, Brown actively works to hold Shell responsible for the harm its facility could cause and to prevent a massive spill in the future. CLF has sued Shell Oil for failing to accurately report what pollutants its oil storage terminal releases into the Providence River and for neglecting to prepare its facility for the impacts the company knows the climate crisis will bring.

Despite the oil giant's attempts to get the lawsuit dismissed, the case is moving forward. It marks the first time a private fossil fuel entity will need to answer fully for its knowledge of climate change and its risks.

It's Not a Coincidence

The oil terminal in Providence sits at sea level on filled land in the Washington Park neighborhood, a diverse working-class community. While the entire Narragansett Bay and surrounding area would be impacted by an oil spill, the people living closest to the terminal endure its harms already: worse air quality, respiratory illness, and noise pollution from huge trucks going in and out of the facility.

"There's a sense of powerlessness in the neighborhood," says Brown. "There's the community, and then there's this big oil company with lots of money. Black and Brown communities are disproportionately affected by this kind of pollution. It's not a coincidence."

It's not just Washington Park residents who live with the daily risks of pollution and looming threat of an oil spill. Across New England, oil and gas company terminals and storage tanks are often located in environmental justice neighborhoods: communities of color, low-income communities, working-class communities. And Big Oil's operation of those terminals leaves these communities vulnerable to severe weather and risks of pollution.

"It's simply outrageous how ExxonMobil, Shell, and other companies have ignored the climate science and risks," says CLF President Brad Campbell. "They've acknowledged it internally. But in the...