Daniel Rossi-Keene
speaker
68 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Mar 2026
last heard 23 Mar
Daniel Rossi-Keene’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Mar 2026 with 2.
Appearances
Daniel Rossi-Keene has lived in Beaver County for 15 years.
He runs a local community development nonprofit called Riverwise.
He's touring me through small town after small town along the Ohio River, past lots of people in Pittsburgh sealers beanies, plus boarded up storefronts and closed down factories and power plants.
Fourteen years ago, some residents were convinced that a new plant would reverse Beaver County's decline.
It's the height of the shale boom.
Pennsylvania and neighboring states were one of the largest sources of natural gas in the whole country.
And Shell announces it's going to build a plant that turns that gas into the plastic you'd find in water bottles and toys and car parts right in Beaver County.
There will be new jobs and tax revenue and prosperity, just like the old days.
But instead of steel, it's plastic.
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania granted a $1.65 billion tax break, the largest in its history.
Beaver County resident Jolene Atkins says her neighbors were thrilled.
What I've learned about this area because of the steel boom and then the steel decline is
Years of construction brought in thousands of new temporary jobs.
The plant is a giant lattice of pipes with a line of stacks billowing white plumes on one side.
It's a bit sci-fi, but since it opened in 2022.
It doesn't, I don't know, it just kind of doesn't seem like the employment cash cow that it was supposed to be.
The American Chemistry Council, a trade group, estimated that plants like this one in Beaver County generate more than 17,000 direct and indirect jobs.
Shell said in a statement that it employs 500 people full-time and 400 contractors.
The plant has faced millions of dollars in penalties for environmental violations.
Several local news outlets say Shell is trying to sell the plant, although it wouldn't confirm that.
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