Dow flies to Baton Rouge the week its nuclear project moves ahead

Dow flew from Tiki Beach Bar & Grill Airstrip in Michigan to Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport on June 9, a brief 30-minute hop aboard N892D, the company's Bombardier CRJ-900. The aircraft touched down at 10:27 a.m. local time after a low-altitude cruise that hugged the Mississippi River corridor.

The flight arrives the same week the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a Finding of No Significant Impact for Dow and X-energy's proposed advanced nuclear project at the company's Seadrift, Texas complex, per a Dow press release on May 18. The NRC completed its environmental assessment ahead of schedule, clearing a path for what would be the first grid-scale advanced nuclear reactor at an industrial site in North America. The project is designed to provide both electricity and high-temperature steam to Dow's UCC Seadrift Operations, which produces more than 4 billion pounds of materials annually.

The shuttle pattern is familiar: N892D has made multiple round trips between Baton Rouge and Texas Gulf Coast Regional Airport in recent weeks, ferrying engineering teams between Dow's Louisiana operations and the Seadrift manufacturing corridor. The timing of this trip, however, places Dow's leadership in Louisiana the same week the company faces a separate legal deadline — a Texas lawsuit over plastic pellet pollution at the same Seadrift complex, as reported by the Texas Tribune.