Diane Wilson is an award-winning environmental activist and author. She has won numerous awards for her work in environmentalism, but initially, this was something she never envisioned herself doing.

In 1989, Diane Wilson was a shrimp boat captain at a fish house in Calhoun County, Texas, when a co-worker approached her with an article in their hand. What was the article about? It was the first year the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) was released, providing detailed information about the toxic waste discharge in her county.

The TRI is a resource for learning about toxic chemical releases and pollution prevention activities reported by industrial and federal facilities. When Diane looked at the report, she was appalled by what she saw:

Her tiny county of about 16,000 people was the number one county in the nation with the most toxic waste disposal.

Her reaction?

“So, I acted out of character. This was not something I would do at all. I just went down [to] the city hall and said, ‘I want to have a meeting about this article.’”

Diane Wilson

Wilson received a lot of pushback in the following days, which discouraged her from having this meeting (which she went through with anyway). 

In this meeting, Wilson learned that Calhoun County was not only number one in the nation for toxic disposal but also recognized that Formosa Plastics was a significant contributor to this.

Formosa Plastics is a Taiwanese chemical company that, at the time, was proposing a $3 billion PVC (polyvinyl chloride) facility expansion right on the bay of Calhoun County. At the time, it was the most enormous plastic expansion in Texas’ history. 

Diane saw what happened in Taiwan with Formosa and did not want the same to happen to her community. Unfortunately for Formosa, there were other voices of dissent besides Wilson.

Taiwanese citizens have been outraged and fed up with Formosa Plastics over the heavy pollution released into their water sources for decades. In the present day, Formosa Ha Tinh Steel (a subsidiary of Formosa Plastic Group) is under fire due to its role in contamination, which led to millions of dead fish washing up some 200 kilometers of shore in Vietnam—a distance stretching four provinces.

The $3 billion expansion in Texas was first proposed in Taiwan, and the general public reacted badly.

“They [Formosa] are so bad at pollution that when they were trying to do the expansion, the people [Taiwanese citizens] over there literally threw rocks at them.”

Diane wilson

With no prior organizing experience, Wilson decided to go on a hunger strike. Her goal? To use civil disobedience to draw enough media attention to Formosa Plastics and save her county from more toxic waste disposal.

Due to her incredible work, Formosa awarded her ‘zero discharge’ (meaning no liquid effluent discharge into the environment) agreements in 1994.

Her work didn’t end there because, in 2019, she was a plaintiff in a suit Waterkeeper v. Formosa against Formosa Plastics for their violation of the Clean Water Act, which was settled for $50 million in October of 2019.

Diane Wilson’s story is filled with tenacity and drive, powered by her love for her community and her dissent about pollution’s effects on human health.

The fight against Formosa Plastics is not over in the United States and abroad. To get involved, visit https://www.stopformosa.org/ and https://sanantoniobaywaterkeeper.org/ to help keep the fight for clean water on the Gulf Coast going!

We got to hear Diane’s story in person! Click here to watch Diane Wilson speak about her experience.

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