By Kris Maher and Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky | Photography by Danielle Villasana
THOMPSONS, Texas -- One of the fastest-growing counties in the nation is also home to one of its biggest coal-fired power plants: the W.A. Parish Generating Station.
The plant, in Fort Bend County, is the largest in Texas and can generate about 5% of the state's electricity. It also contributes to air pollution in Houston and haze as far away as Arkansas. Now its towering stacks are fueling residents' concerns about the air they are breathing.
"It's hazy most of the time," said Sarah Roberts, 49 years old, who lives east of the plant in Sienna, a planned community whose website boasts amenities such as a sports complex, amphitheater and "endless fresh air."
From her plant-filled patio, Roberts said she often sees a brown haze and believes emissions have made her allergies worse. "Newcomers to the area have posted, 'Is there a fire going on?' " she said. "There are still a lot of people that have no clue."
Last year, Parish pumped out 36,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, 49% more than the prior year. Its emissions exceeded those in 43 states in 2025. The surge came amid rising power demand and a shift to coal as natural-gas prices rose. Only one other U.S. plant, the Labadie Power Station in Missouri, produced more sulfur dioxide. The colorless gas can harm the respiratory system of sensitive individuals, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
NRG Energy, which owns the Parish plant, said it takes environmental and safety compliance seriously and that its emissions are within permitted levels.
Just west of the plant, a 4,700-acre community called Austin Point is under construction and projected to attract 50,000 new residents to 14,000 homes, priced from roughly $200,000 to $900,000. A few dozen are finished and occupied. "Watch the future unfold from your front porch," a billboard reads.
Mushtaq Manasia, 45, a software engineer, said he only started researching the plant after moving in March to a five-bedroom house with his wife and two sons, ages 8 and 3. The first thing he saw online was a 2018 Rice University study that found the Parish plant caused 178 premature deaths a year.
"The stats on the internet are very scary," Manasia said. He is still happy with his home's $421,000 price, he said, but might have explored other options had he known about the plant nearby. The family is still furnishing the house but has already purchased an air filter.
Another homeowner, Jonathan Gonzalez, 38, who owns a restaurant-cleaning business, said his real-estate agent told him about the Parish plant. The skies were hazier when he lived closer to Houston, Gonzalez said, and he isn't worried. "I think I moved to the right place."
Parish began generating electricity with natural gas in 1958 and operated in rural anonymity when Fort Bend County's population was 40,000. It started adding coal units in the late 1970s; only one from 1982 was required by federal law to include sulfur-dioxide controls, known as scrubbers.
Today, the county has ballooned to nearly a million residents and the Parish complex spans 4,664 acres. Three of its four coal units don't use scrubbers.
Nationwide, sulfur-dioxide emissions have plunged over decades as coal plants switched to natural gas, added scrubbers or closed entirely. Still, Parish and a handful of other plants remain top producers of sulfur dioxide, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of years of EPA data.
The EPA during the Obama and Biden administrations tried to use a rule regulating haze in national parks to require Parish and other power plants to reduce sulfur-dioxide emissions, potentially by adding costly scrubbers or shutting coal units altogether. The changes, favored by environmental groups, were never completed.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration, amid other moves favoring the use of coal, has said it won't pursue such haze regulation. The EPA said the haze program needs revisions to avoid placing unnecessary burdens on states. NRG said regional haze is generated by many sources.
Today, about 15% of coal units in the U.S. have no sulfur-dioxide controls, according to Energy Information Administration data. Units that have the technology remove more than 90% of sulfur dioxide before it reaches the atmosphere.
"The idea that we still have Parish and a few other power plants without scrubbers is mind-boggling," said Daniel Cohan, an atmospheric scientist at Rice University. He co-wrote the premature-death study , which was based on 2015 data. That year, Parish emitted 42,689 tons of sulfur dioxide, about 16% more than last year.
NRG said it is familiar with the study and takes community-health research seriously. It said Parish operates within regulatory limits informed by extensive scientific review.
Matt Pistner, president of NRG Wholesale, oversees 36 power plants and says safeguards are in place. Touring Parish, he pointed to pollution controls for mercury, nitrogen oxide and fine particulate matter, investments totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. Parish, which has 350 employees and between 100 and 600 contractors on-site daily, is needed to support an overstretched power grid, he said.
At full capacity, Parish can power a million homes. About two trainloads of coal arrive daily from Wyoming, and workers tend to the stockpile around the clock to keep it from catching fire.
At one coal-burning unit, emissions for mercury, nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide were well under permitted levels, according to hourly and 24-hour measurements on a computer screen.
"We will not go after a dollar or a megawatt and put our compliance or anyone's safety in harm's way," Pistner said. "We have a relentless pursuit to stay in compliance."
He compared operating the plant to owning his 2005 Jeep Wrangler. He could replace it with a newer, more efficient model. "But my 2005 still passes the inspection," he said. "It still gets me from Point A to Point B."
From an 11-story-high catwalk atop the coal unit, the view included power lines and Houston's skyline faintly visible 25 miles away. That morning, high ozone levels led Texas regulators to issue an air-quality alert for the city and surrounding areas, which also includes refineries and chemical plants.
"You've probably noticed that the air looks smoggy today -- that's the particulate matter," Cohan, the Rice University professor, said via email that day.
Local groups such as Fort Bend Environmental and Air Alliance Houston have tried to raise awareness about the region's poor air quality and lobby for a regulatory air monitor. Last month, the county and university researchers sent a van through neighborhoods to measure pollutants, partly in response to residents' concerns.
This fall, the groups invited residents on a "toxic tour" along the fence line of the Parish plant and nearby Thompsons, which is surrounded by grazing cattle and pecan trees. Sarahy Garcia, 49, a nurse in Richmond, volunteered to let University of Texas researchers install an air monitor next to rose bushes in her backyard. "We want to find out what we're being exposed to," she said.
Freddie Newsome Jr., mayor of Thompsons since 1999, heard the tour group's concerns when they rolled into town. He supports the plant and said he has rarely, if ever, heard complaints from his 136 constituents.
Thompsons's municipal building, powered by solar panels, has a photograph of a handwritten sign recording the 1979 vote to incorporate: 59-1. Newsome said leaders wanted to keep neighboring towns from capturing Parish's tax revenue. Today, that is about $350,000 a year and keeps Thompsons debt-free. "That's our moneymaker, so I feel good about it," he said.
Write to Kris Maher at Kris.Maher@wsj.com and Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky at jjw@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 21, 2026 05:30 ET (09:30 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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