Dow lands at Texas Gulf Coast the week layoffs and a pollution lawsuit converge

Dow flew from Baton Rouge to Texas Gulf Coast Regional Airport on June 18, a 50-minute hop that landed N892D, the company’s Bombardier CRJ-900, at the doorstep of its Seadrift chemical complex. The flight arrived the same week Dow confirmed it has begun notifying approximately 4,500 workers globally about layoffs as part of its Transform to Outperform initiative, per the Victoria Advocate and KFDM. The Seadrift site has been a focus of both the restructuring and a separate legal battle: 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, as reported by the Texas Tribune.

The shuttle pattern is familiar: N892D has made at least eight round trips between Baton Rouge and the Houston-area airport since June 11, 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 engineering teams between sprawling chemical plants. This week, those teams are likely focused on the Seadrift complex, where the company faces both a legal deadline to clean up plastic pellet discharges and the human cost of a global workforce reduction.