Ep. 1 - An Unreasonable Woman with Diane Wilson
One woman’s fight against one of the most powerful chemical companies in the world.
In this episode of A People’s Climate, Shilpi Chhotray sits down with Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation shrimper and relentless environmental activist, to explore her decades-long fight against Formosa Plastics—a $250 billion petrochemical giant polluting the Texas Gulf Coast.
From hunger strikes to scaling the White House fence, Diane’s unwavering activism has not only won a historic $50 million settlement, but transformed her community’s fisheries and galvanized citizen-led environmental justice.
Her story is a masterclass in persistence, civil disobedience, and the power of ordinary people to create extraordinary change.
Key Topics
Diane Wilson’s activism against Formosa Plastics
The historic $50 million settlement and community-led ecological restoration
Citizen science and nurdle collection as evidence in legal action
The power of civil disobedience
Co-founding CODEPINK and the Texas Jail Project
Parallels between environmental and anti-war activism
The ongoing fight against corporate polluters and systemic injustice
Resources to Explore
Credits
Presented by Counterstream Media and The Nation
Powered by Wildseeds Fund
Host: Shilpi Chhotray
Executive Producer: Mindy Ramaker
Engineer: Francisco Núñez-Capriles
Project Manager: Marianella Nuñez and Sarah Morgan
Additional Research: Sarah Morgan
Diane Wilson
A fourth-generation shrimper, former boat captain, author, and mother of five, Diane Wilson has launched environmental campaigns, demonstrations, hunger strikes, climbed towers, and even attempted to sink her boat in the fight against local industrial polluters that made her rural gulf coast county the most polluted in the country. She wrote her first book when she was 55 and recounted that dramatic environmental struggle in An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters, and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas, published by Chelsea Green Publishing Company in 2005.
She is a co-founder of Code Pink, the women’s anti-war group based in Washington, D.C; co-founder of Texas Jail Project which advocates for inmates’ rights in 254 Texas county jails; and is founder and executive director of San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper. In 2019, Wilson and Waterkeeper won a $50 Million settlement in a Citizen Clean Water suit against Formosa Plastics, Texas in Point Comfort, Texas. It is the largest settlement in US history. In 2023 Wilson was the North American recipient of the Goldman Environmental Award. Wilson lives in Seadrift, TX where she was born.
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A People’s Climate “An Unreasonable Woman” with Diane Wilson
Shilpi Chhotray [00:00:02] This is A People's Climate, powered by Wildseeds Fund, from Counterstream Media and The Nation. I'm your host, Shilpi Chhotray. I'm so excited to kick off the season with you. Our show is all about people-powered movements. And in today's episode, we're getting into the story of one woman's fight against one of the most powerful chemical companies in the world.
CLIP Formosa Plastics is accused of dumping plastic pellets into waterways.
CLIP [00:00:34] In Taiwan and in Texas and Louisiana, where it also operates. Around 30 people stood outside the Formosa plant in Point Comfort this afternoon to initiate a worldwide hunger strike.
CLIP [00:00:46] The plant has a history of accidents and safety violations. In fact, 14 people were hurt in an explosion back in May. In 2005, an explosion injured more than a dozen workers.
CLIP [00:00:59] Ranking members-
CLIP of Diane Wilson [00:01:01] This is what it looks like in the marches, this is what it looks for fishermen down here, and I think you need to be charged with a crime! You need to go to jail. As a matter of fact, I've got some chains and I'm going to do a citizens arrest! You need be charged with a crime!
Shilpi Chhotray [00:01:22] Formosa Plastics is a $250 billion petrochemical giant, and for decades they've been polluting the Gulf Coast of Texas with toxic chemicals and billions of tiny plastic pellets. But Diane Wilson, a fourth generation shrimper and mother of five, didn't let them get away with it. This is a story of shrimp boats, of lawsuits and the kind of stubbornness that can bend history. Over the last 30 years, Diane has launched successful legislative campaigns led hunger strikes, and even scaled the White House fence, all in the name of justice. She's been arrested more than 50 times and has never once backed down. Her stubbornness and her belief in the power of ordinary people to create extraordinary change is exactly what we need in this moment. Let's get into it. Welcome to the show, Ms. Diane.
Diane Wilson [00:02:14] Well, thank you very much. I'm real proud to be here.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:02:17] I kind of want to start with a sense of place and you're from this little town called Seadrift in Texas.
Diane Wilson [00:02:23] Sea Drift's on the mid Texas Gulf Coast. It's a very rural county. It's the last authentic fishing village on the Texas Gulf coast. And the heart and the soul of the entire community was the bay, was the fish house, the boats and been on a boat since I was eight years old and I really love it. It's my life and it's not a job, it's something I'm doing, it's my identity.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:03:03] Absolutely. I know that's something that resonated with me when I first met you back in 2018 or 19, and you were talking about how you were a fourth generation shrimp farmer. When I first heard about it, I felt like it was sort of rare for a woman to do in this particular region of the country.
Diane Wilson [00:03:19] So I've been around it my whole life. I was a boat captain, and that's kind of rare in itself. The other thing that made me really valuable to the fisherman, I'm a pretty dang good net builder. I can build shrimp nets, I can repair them, and that is the main thing. When you are on a shrimp boat, a shrimper especially, is like a good working net. Will make or break your career. Who taught you that skill set? Believe it or not, I kind of taught myself.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:03:56] That is not surprising. Thanks so much for setting the stage. I want people to understand how special Sea Drift is to you. I want to go back to 1989, because this was such a pivotal year for you. There was a stripper named Bill Bailey, who handed you the AP article, and that sort of changes everything for you, I want know what did that article say?
Diane Wilson [00:04:18] Well, it was the first time the Toxic Relief Inventory data that the EPA required. And that it was because after Bhopal, the congressional leaders said, we're not going to have something like this that happens in the United States.
CLIP [00:04:36] Of the worst industrial disaster in India's history. 30 years ago, on the night of December the 2nd, 1984, plumes of poisonous gas leaked from an American-run chemical pesticides factory in the town of Bhopal in central India.
CLIP [00:04:52] At one point, an official said one death was being recorded every minute from the poison gas leak in the city of Bhopal.
CLIP [00:04:59] Escape from a Union Carbide plant on Monday has killed at least 1,600 people and they say another 50,000 people may suffer serious after effects such as blindness and sterility.
Diane Wilson [00:05:13] People are going to know what the industries around them are putting in the sky, putting in the water. We're going to let people know. So 1989 was the first time that TRI data was made public. And it was in the newspaper, and he threw it on the fish house desk where I was working And he said, read this. Our county, which is a tiny county at that time, I bet it was no more than 16,000 people, and we were number one in the nation for toxic disposal to the land. We were number three on injection wells. We were a number six on emissions. We were like number 20 in the nationwide on the transfer of hazardous waste. I mean we were ranking all over the place and I couldn't believe it because I had never in my entire life seen a single article, TV, series or anything ever mentioned in anything about the chemical plants.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:06:27] Well, a lot of people read articles like that even when it's in their own community and they feel sad and angry about it, but they kind of move on. That's not the case with you. What happened next?
Diane Wilson [00:06:37] You know, and a lot of people don't believe this, but I really am a real introvert. I like the solitude of boats. I'm not, I don't like crowds or anything like that, but that article really upset me. I went down to our little city hall now and I said, I want to have a meeting in that building and I won't talk about this article. The secretary, she just... Wrote it down. She come down to the fish house and she said, Diane, you cannot have that meeting at the city hall. She just kept saying, it's red flags, red flags. You can't do it. The next day I had the bank president at the Sea Drift bank in a three piece suit and here he come, he come out on the dock. And he said, Diane, are you fixing to start a vigilante group roasting industry alive? And I'm like, wow, I haven't even had a meeting. And from there, it escalated. The next day, I got an anonymous letter in the mail and it just had my name and it said, Miss Wilson, do you know this? And the writer had clipped out seven air permits for Formosa Plastics and had no idea. Who Formosa Plastics was. That was the first time I ever heard of him.
CLIP [00:08:12] Formosa plastics. Formosa plastic. Formosa Plastics. Formosa Plastics. The Formosa Plastics Corporation is facing over $121,000 in state fines for polluting a tributary of Lavaca Bay.
CLIP [00:08:24] We are told in each case tons of plastic pellets, just like the ones you're seeing on your screen, were discharged from the Formosa plant at Point Comfort here in Texas. A federal judge called Formosa a serial offender.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:08:37] Formosa Plastic, that's actually based in Taiwan. It is the sixth largest chemical company in the world, actually. Miss Diane here, she sued Formosa in 2017 and she won. She won a historic $50 million settlement and that's what we're going to get into here. But it was fascinating to hear this actually started in 1989. One of the things that have stood out to me was the evidence. You literally collected millions of plastic pellets. They're also known as nurdles. By hand, it could fill up the back of a pickup truck. In fact, when I first met you in Houston, you had brought those nurdles with you in a mason jar. And this is so indicative of the importance of citizen science and community-led local ecological knowledge. Can you talk to us about this approach and why it made such a difference in this case?
Diane Wilson [00:09:31] In the beginning, Formosa was making PVC powder and it was all over the units, all over the road, it was, all of the whole community of point comfort. It was in the swimming pools, on their cars, it was in their yards. Like tiny flakes of it everywhere? Yes, the powder. And it was like PVC and that's polyvinyl chloride.
CLIP [00:09:58] This is polyvinyl chloride, a synthetic resinous material converted from vinyl chloride gas.
CLIP [00:10:05] That's often used in building material like vinyl siding, cable coatings, or vinyl tile flooring, and it can be deadly. The World Health Organization, Environmental Protection Agency, and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have classified vinyl chloride as a known human carcinogen.
Diane Wilson [00:10:24] I remember at one time I had a meeting with Formosa. I bet there were 20, 20 guys, 20 suits. I said, how many plastic pellets are y'all losing out there? The main guy in this unit, and he like nearly come across the table at me and he said, we're not losing a single pellet. We sell everyone. And it's like, well, I knew that was a lie right off. And I remember the state environmental executive director said. We don't need to worry about the pellets because it's in the permit and if Formosa violates it, they'll turn it in. So I went down to the Texas Air Control Board and to the Texas Water Commission and there wasn't a single violation. The state agency had never penalized them. Formosa had never turned it in, neither the EPA. So that's when we started collecting. January 2016 and we collected for two and a half years almost every single day and had 2,500 samples and about 8,000 photographs and videos.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:11:42] I did want to ask because it sounds like you got to talk to a bunch of people on the inside, which is so critical. Why do you think these folks trusted you with this information?
Diane Wilson [00:11:54] Well, in the beginning, it was people who were real intimidated. These are people that are not making a lot of money and they're afraid. For instance, one lady was interested in getting involved and the bank president and neck pulled her into a meeting and said, you're trying to get a loan at the bank and you're not going to get it unless you shut up and sit down. They're totally in tears, scared them to death, because it's very hard. Even now for people to publicly stand with me and stand out. I was talking to workers who, they were either exposed, a worker is exposed or harmed, or if he sees something, if he goes to management, you will be fired. They do not want to hear it. Say you go to the DEA or the sheriff's department and they say, we can't do anything, we're getting a computer system from Formosa. And you find out the mayor is getting contracts with them. Even our senators were getting contracts with them. I even had inspectors at the state agency call me in and give me records and say, do something with them because we can't get it anywhere in Austin. You do something.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:13:29] The historic $50 million settlement in 2019, which was game changing. You didn't take a cent, you could be filthy rich. Where did you take the money?
Diane Wilson [00:13:39] There was 50 million dollars and we put it into environmental projects in Calhoun County. The most, which was 20 million, we put into creating a sustainable fishery cooperative. The season of shrimping that used to last for months and had like 120 boats in our community, there were maybe... Three people and the season was over with in a couple weeks. It was tragic. The 20 million dollars was to bring it back. We have created one of the co-ops and it has 240 members and now they have one of largest oyster farms in Texas. I think we put a million dollars into Nurdle Patrol, which is documenting the plastic that is being found along all of the Gulf Coast. And matter of fact, now it's international.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:14:50] I'm really hopeful that Sea Drift will be looking really different. All of this storytelling right now reminds me of the phrase that you've been coined, which is “an unreasonable woman.” And I would love to know what that phrase means to you personally.
Diane Wilson [00:15:12] I know when I started out trying to protect the bays from these chemical plants, you got absolutely nowhere. I mean, it's like the politics was unreal. And so I realized that the only thing I could do was civil disobedience. So I remember the first time someone told me the campaign is over. It's, I'm at the end of the parade, you did a good job, but it's over. There's nothing you can do. And off the top of my head, I said, I can do a hunger strike. And I remember that guy, he laughed and laughed. He said, people in Texas don't do hunger strikes. He said maybe California, they don't know him here. And I said I don't care. I immediately called a reporter and said, I'm doing a hunger strike. And I found out from that one hunger strike. That I did with very little media, no support, no budget, no nothing. I got exactly what I wanted in two weeks.
CLIP [00:16:26] Environmentalist Diane Wilson will refrain from eating and strike out in front of the plant until Formosa initiates some sort of response or change.
CLIP [00:16:35] Wilson was arrested Wednesday for pouring fake oil on herself during a Senate energy hearing.
CLIP [00:16:40] We are tired of being dumped on in the Gulf. I'm a commercial fisherman from the Gulf of Mexico and we're tired.
CLIP [00:16:46] About Diane Wilson who's in her 57th day of a hunger strike. She went over the fence of the White House.
Diane Wilson [00:17:02] I realized the power of civil disobedience. It's got a soul power. And for me, integrity is the only thing I had. And I believed as a country, we are too well behaved. I used a quote, I misquoted was George Bernard Shaw who said, a reasonable man adapts to the world and an unreasonable man makes the world adapt to him, and all progress dependent upon unreasonable men. I really believe that. Most of the, you know, I've been doing this almost 40 years now, and most of it I have used civil disobedience. And I still do it, I still do it.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:17:51] I want to dig in here a little bit more because your activism doesn't start and stop in Texas. Okay, you're one of the co-founders of CodePink. It is one of most vocal and visible anti-war groups in the country that has taken an aggressive stance, a much needed stance against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. What made you want to challenge war and U.S. Foreign policy?
Diane Wilson [00:18:21] I was a medic during the Vietnam War and I opposed that war because I was there when the war was going on and when you get young men into, you start on boot camp and you're getting ready to send them to Vietnam and where they're going to be killing people is like, how do you get them in that mindset? Well, I was in boot camp with them and I saw how they do it. So you can see where they revved up this kill, kill, kill, and then when they started coming in from their battles and wounded, and they were, to me, they were lost boys. Because they were so young and they were like lost. And it was tragic, it really was tragic. You know, and in my own hometown, the guys I graduated with who went to Vietnam, three died over there, three committed suicide, and three are 100% PTSD. And it's like, I really, I have a issue about the war and what we are doing to each other.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:19:41] Yeah, I mean, you were on the front lines of it. Can I ask you if you see any parallels with Vietnam and Palestine?
Diane Wilson [00:19:50] Oh my God. The thought of what is going on in Palestine just kills my soul. And the fact that they are dropping these bombs and children and the women and the families that are collateral. There's no words. Yeah, there's no words that can describe, I cannot believe that we're 2025. And we don't have enough consciousness, our compassion, our empathy to see what we are. I can't believe it. It blows my mind. It totally blows my head. I was actually on one of the sailboats that were taken to Gaza a number of years ago.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:20:42] You were on a Freedom Floatilla?
Diane Wilson [00:20:44] I was, yeah, because I was a shrimp boat captain. I think it's a terrific idea. And I think they ought to recruit shrimp boat captains.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:20:52] It's very much an anti-war, non-violence tactic. I do wanna talk about the Texas Jail Project because it's another incredible organization you co-founded in 2015. It's now the only advocacy group focused on the state's 254 county jails. And thanks to your work, pregnant women are no longer chained to hospital beds.
Diane Wilson [00:21:13] That's right. Can you believe?
Shilpi Chhotray [00:21:15] Right? But why was this particular work so important to you? I can imagine you have seen things inside jails. After...
Diane Wilson [00:21:24] Climbed that chemical tower at Union Carbide. I was arrested and I was fined $2,000 and I got like three months in jail. Texas does not have nice jails. People think county jails, oh, you're just in six hours and you out and no problem. There is so many people that are in for long periods of time. They never see a judge and they don't have money to get a bond. When I was in the jail cells, the stories that I learned from the women that were in there were unbelievable. I started compiling a pretty good inventory of some horrific incidents that were happening inside the jail, and we started sending it out. We sent it out to the sheriff, we sent it out to governors, to every representative we could, because most people, they think if you're in jail, you deserve it, no matter what happens, you deserve it, and I remember how bad that just really makes me when people say that, because I wrote about a woman, a black woman, there was a warrant. For her arrest, but that said do not pick this woman up. She is pregnant. Do not pick her up. Well, the sheriff was running for office and he wanted to look like he was bringing a lot of people back to the jail. So they went and brought this woman back. They threw in jail. She started a pre-labor.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:23:19] Oh no.
Diane Wilson [00:23:20] And if you're in the jails, you will find out no matter how bad you feel. If you say you're sick, they think you're lying. She was causing so much trouble by saying she was in labor that they threw her in isolation and she delivered the baby in isolation. By herself and when they realized the baby was dying, then they tried to hurry up and get them to the hospital. So I guess so the baby wouldn't die in the jail and she'd die in hospital. Young woman was not even able to go when her baby was buried.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:24:23] I think it's important to note Formosa is still polluting and now they just have to pay a fine of $65,000 per violation, which it sounds like a lot until you realize they make over $2 million a day. Can you talk about how our system treats polluters? To me, it almost feels like they get rewarded in a way. They just have pay a little bit here and there, but they don't have to change their status quo. They keep polluting and producing.
Diane Wilson [00:24:53] Well, y'all, absolutely. The state agency and the feds weren't doing a thing. It's like, I think they want to do something, but the politics is it doesn't happen. And so it ends up with people like us. And sometimes it makes me mad. It's, like, what are agencies and our elected officials for? What are they doing? That was an illusion that really burst for me. It's like, I lost. Faith in it. I did. I lost hope there from them.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:25:25] I completely understand it. You know, as someone that has been in the environmental space my whole career, I've never seen a settlement like this for clean water. It's incredible what you've done. However, we're seeing the same playbook again, there's Exxon now planning to build another $8.6 billion plastics facility in Point Comfort, same promises, same government subsidies, same dumping into the same waterways.
Diane Wilson [00:25:52] Same water ways.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:25:53] How are you staying grounded through all of this?
Diane Wilson [00:25:57] I am a person who is in the moment. I definitely don't look back and I do what I have to do right then. And I think I've got energy and I get the energy, I really do. I feel like the things I do feed my soul. I felt better after 30 some odd days of a hunger strike than I did before. And I really feel like there's some sort of electrical exchange, some sort energy that keeps me going.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:26:37] Would you say it's spiritual?
Diane Wilson [00:26:39] Oh yeah, I definitely, I'm a bit of a mystic. I'm actually a bit a mystic, yeah.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:26:44] One final question for you. You have paid a personal price for your work and for your advocacy. Are you comfortable speaking about what has actually transpired in your day to day life?
Diane Wilson [00:26:58] I have talked with some women activists before. It's a common thread because eventually I lost my husband, I lost the marriage, the house that I lived in, I lost that, the fish house I was working at, I got fired from because he was afraid it was gonna get burned down, I lost me boat. But the thing I always say is I never liked myself so well. That you and you truly can lose it all and gain your soul. I have a great deal of peace with myself, a great deal.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:27:39] I'm not alone in how amazing and incredible I think you are. You may call yourself unreasonable, but in a world poisoned by corporate greed, cowardly politicians, demanding clean water, clean air might be the most reasonable thing anyone could do.
Diane Wilson [00:27:56] That was beautiful.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:27:58] We are so grateful to be in community with you.
Diane Wilson [00:28:00] Thank you, thank you, and thank you for allowing me a voice. Thank you for that.
Shilpi Chhotray [00:28:11] Diane's story is living proof that taking on polluters and broken systems is possible. She went up against a multi-billion dollar corporation. And won. It's a reminder that lasting change takes persistence and sometimes a little stubbornness. And that's it for our very first episode of the season. We're just getting started and we've got so many more powerful conversations coming your way. If you liked what you heard, hit follow, share this episode with a friend, and tune in next week. And if you want to get in touch with us, drop us a line at hello at a people's climate.org. We'd love to hear from you. Thank you to Wildseeds Fund for making this podcast possible. This episode of A People's Climate is executive produced by Mindy Ramaker with engineering and sound design by Francisco Núñez Capriles. Additional research and support by Marianela Núñez and Sarah Morgan. Recorded at Studio 132 in Oakland. From Counterstream Media and The Nation, I'm your host, Shilpi Chhotray. Until next time.