David Leffler | Public Health Watch

Greg is rescued from his home when Hurricane Harvey hits Channelview. The floodwaters gash a temporary cap that covers the Superfund site, unleashing chemicals into the river. Carolyn and Greg join forces to create the Channelview Health and Improvement Coalition. Greg campaigns publicly — and successfully — against a barge company’s plan to dig up tons of river sludge to make way for more barges.

In partnership with Public Health Watch, TPR is airing "Fumed," an investigative podcast series. It's about Channelview, an unincorporated community outside Houston and in the heart of America’s petrochemical industry.

Carolyn’s neighborhood becomes ground zero for Channeview’s rapid industrialization. A fire engulfs a nearby chemical storage facility, and a barge company builds its headquarters across the street from her house. Greg uses drones to keep tabs on the chemical barges that are moving into his neighborhood, close to a Superfund site filled with cancer-causing dioxin.

It’s the 1980s. Carolyn Stone and Greg Moss have settled into quiet lives in Channelview — an unincorporated community outside Houston, in the heart of the nation’s petrochemical industry. But within a few years, petrochemical plants and chemical barges move in, and air pollution and industrial accidents become routine. When they realize that state lawmakers and regulators aren’t going to protect them, Carolyn and Greg start fighting back themselves.

“Fumed,” an investigative podcast by Public Health Watch, will debut on March 7, wherever you get your podcasts. Listen along as we unpack the stories of people who live in the shadows of America’s chemical plants and oil refineries.