The plain version

Deer Park sits on the Houston Ship Channel, and that isn't scenery — it's the town's economic foundation and its biggest civic question. The refineries and petrochemical plants along the channel sit mostly outside the city's ordinary tax roll, in an industrial district that pays the city a negotiated in-lieu payment instead of property tax. That single arrangement — the industrial district agreement — is a large part of why a town of 34,000 stays solvent, and it's the subject of the Municipal Page's deepest analysis.

This page is the resident-facing door to that story: what the channel and its plants are, how the district works, and what the town gets from it. It leans on the sourced figures already on the Municipal Page, and every number names its document.