Dow lands at Texas Gulf Coast the week of its plastic pollution permit fight

Dow flew from Baton Rouge to Texas Gulf Coast Regional Airport on June 11, a one-hour hop that landed N892D, the company's Bombardier CRJ-900, at the doorstep of its Seadrift chemical complex. The flight arrived the same week the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is reviewing Dow's permit amendment that would effectively legalize discharges of plastic pellets into waterways feeding San Antonio Bay — a move environmental groups call unprecedented, per the Texas Tribune [texastribune.org](https://www.texastribune.org/2026/03/02/texas-dow-seadrift-complex-pollution-icn/). Separately, the Texas Attorney General's office sued Dow subsidiary Union Carbide in February, alleging hundreds of water pollution violations at the 4,700-acre facility.

The shuttle pattern is familiar: N892D has made multiple round trips between Baton Rouge and the Houston-area airport since early May, a route that mirrors Dow's supply chain between its Louisiana operations and the Gulf Coast manufacturing corridor. The aircraft's size — a 90-seat regional jet — is unusual for a corporate fleet, but Dow uses it to move large engineering teams between its sprawling chemical plants. This week, those teams are likely focused on the Seadrift complex, where the company faces both a legal deadline and a regulatory decision that could reshape how plastics waste is managed on the Texas coast.

Meanwhile, Dow and X-energy received a 'finding of no significant impact' from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on May 18 for a proposed advanced nuclear reactor at Seadrift [corporate.dow.com](https://corporate.dow.com/en-us/news/press-releases/nrc-issues-environmental-assessment-with--finding-of-no-signific.html) — a project that would provide steam and electricity to the same facility at the center of the pollution dispute. The juxtaposition underscores the company's twin tracks in Texas: one pushing clean energy, another seeking permission to keep plastic pellets in the bay.