IN THE not too distant past, the citizens of Houston, Tex., considered a day completely lost which did not include an announcement in local newspapers of plans for a new chemical plant costing millions of dollars. Today, Houston with its surrounding area constitutes one of the largest concentrations of chemical manufacturing activities in the United States. If one looks down from the San Jacinto monument near Houston, he sees a countryside dotted with chemical and chemical processing plants. At night the same area looks like veritable fairyland. If one cruises down the Houston Ship Channel, he sees huge chemical plants on both sides of the channel where formerly there was little, if anything, but wilderness. Within 10 or 15 years, Houston has become the center of one of the largest chemical producing areas in the world, and the end of this expansion is not in sight. Along with this growth in chemical production facilities, there ...