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Drilled
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“All Hell Breaks Loose”: How Big Oil Ruined a Small Texas Town
22 minutes Posted May 30, 2025 at 2:21 am.
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This week we're thrilled to be re-publishing a series on our site from The Xylom about a small town in Texas that happens to be the country's top oil export hub. But it wasn't always that way. About 10 years ago, residents bought houses next to a naval base -- maybe not ideal, but they could get a house near the ocean in an affluent, sleepy community. Then the naval base shut down, the export terminals took over and this predominantly white, conservative affluent town became a fenceline community.

Alex Ip, who reported and wrote the series, joins the podcast this week to tell us more.

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