Number 10

Corpus Christi is home to the first refinery in US history to be criminally convicted of environmental crimes. I joke in much of this blog, but this is totally serious. The group CFEJ, Citizens for Environmental Justice, detail the crimes and the proceedings on their website. The indictment from the United States of America v. Citgo Petroleum Corporation Citgo Refining and Chemical Companies, L.P. can be found here. Terry Carter, the President and CEO of the Corpus Chamber of Commerce, under the awkward banner "It's better to see the glass as more than half full than to believe it's empty," immediately defended the Citgo refinery and added this admonishment of naive citizens, "If you rely on any newspaper to get the facts, then you only see an issue from the newspaper's perspective." May we assume Mr. Carter would prefer us to get our facts in the Federal case of Citgo poisoning our air, water and soil from the refinery itself? Indeed he does and later urges us to "never take such wonderful corporate citizenship for granite." (Mispelling his.)