The company she’s protesting this time? Dow Chemicals — a petrochemical giant operating a plant that she says has been releasing plastics into Texas waterways.
The longtime environmental activist and fourth-generation fisherwoman is entering the ninth day of her hunger strike in protest of a proposal that could give Dow permission to pollute and its plans to build four nuclear reactors on the same industrial site.
“We are striking because Dow [and its parent company] Union Carbide has been putting plastics into San Antonio Bay for decades,” Wilson said in a video posted on Instagram. “And now they want to increase their permit to dump even more so they can make more plastic.”
Dow is requesting that the Texas Commission on Environmental Equality legalize discharges of plastics into waters feeding into the San Antonio Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. The request came after the San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper, where Wilson is Executive Director, filed a legal notice of intent to sue Dow in December for illegally polluting waters.
The current permit held by Dow says that only ‘trace amounts’ of floating solids can be discharged into waters. But Wilson says she has found over 100 pounds worth of plastic pellets — known as nurdles — in the water. “In nurdle terms, that’s over 2 million pellets. That’s not ‘trace amounts.’ That’s reckless disregard. That’s ‘We don’t care,’” she said.
Wilson has launched countless hunger strikes since the early 90s against chemical companies. In 2023, she went on a 30-day hunger strike against Formosa Plastics, following a $50 million settlement she won in 2019.
“I feel like the things I do feed my soul. I felt better after 30-something days of a hunger strike than I did before,” she told Counterstream Co-Founder and Host Shilpi Chhotray in Ep. 1 of A People’s Climate.
“I realized the power of civil disobedience. It’s got a soul power.”
Counterstream is actively reporting on Wilson’s hunger strike. Follow us on social media to stay up to date with our coverage.
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