Houston City Council’s Special Meeting on Toxic Air
by Vicki Wolf, February 11, 2005
“Our health and air need protection,” Rosario Marroquin, whose 7-year-old son has leukemia, told Houston City Council at a special meeting on air pollution Feb. 7. Marroquin says pollutants emitted from a nearby plant cause her house to stink. She worries that any tiny particle could increase cancer dangers for her son. She’s also concerned that toxins emitted for the past 20 years may increase chances that her entire family is at greater risk of getting cancer.
“One cancer death is one too many,” said Melba Clark, whose husband died from bone cancer. Clark has lived within five miles of the Houston Ship Channel for 48 years. Her brother was on a ventilator for two weeks before dying of lung cancer. Her 50-year-old son has been diagnosed with lung cancer. She has asthma. In her three-block by three-block neighborhood, Clark said she knows of 44 cancer cases.
In response to citizens’ expressions of concern and call for action to protect public health, Mayor White assured them that, “We are going to do something about this.”
White said many citizens had stories they wanted to share, but the council needed to hear the scientific view point.
Jonathan Ward, Jr., PhD, toxicologist and faculty member at The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston (UTMB), told the council, “Butadiene in humans as well as animal models is a hazardous air pollutant.” Butadiene is one of the cancer-causing chemicals that have been found in unsafe concentrations in southeast Houston and East Harris County communities. Even though health effects of low-level exposure to butadiene is unknown, Ward suggested better monitoring, and more effective emissions control. He also said better disease data and community-based studies are needed to understand the relationship of low-level exposure to pollutants and disease risk.
Burton Dickey, MD, pulmonary physician at M.D. Anderson, said cancer is quickly becoming the No. 1 killer in the United States, after cardiovascular disease. He noted that he treats lung disease and sees complications from cancer such as pneumonia. “If I never saw another case of cancer, I would be very happy,” he said.
Dr. Dickey said that the toxicity from air pollution is not limited to the lung: bone marrow, for example, is even more susceptible.
Lovell Jones, PhD, director, Center for Research on Minority Health at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, told the City Council, “It is important to improve the scientific base. When science is incomplete, exercise caution, especially for those who have less health care and political access.”
U.S. Representative Gene Green called for more studies of cancer risks. “We will hold the EPA and the Administration to uphold current deadlines,” he said. “City, County and State officials need to work together on this,” he added.
White responded, “We don’t want a study to take 10 years and have people getting sick while the study is going on.”
Texas Petrochemicals and Goodyear had representatives at the meeting to tell City Council about measures they had taken to reduce emissions. White asked them to propose a plan to lower pollution each year. He also asked them to report how much they would invest in better monitoring and a system of accountability that could be enforced.
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) representatives apologized for missing a community meeting on Feb. 2 where 200 citizens came to discuss concerns about hazardous pollution. They said TCEQ has shifted resources to do better monitoring of emissions in the Houston area, and is taking steps to lower emissions where their monitors found high concentrations of pollution. They said TCEQ will continue working until concentrations reach safe levels.
White and City Council members urged the State to accelerate efforts to address hazardous air pollution in the Houston area.
