Wanted: Straight Answers from Big City Polluters
by Jane Dale Owen
EARLIER this month, the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission heard
two proposals from its staff. One was to end the 55-mph speed limit in the Houston-
Galveston area. The other was to ease industry standards on air pollution. Unfortunately,
the speed limit has drawn most of the attention, while the industry rollback has taken a
back seat.
Several elected officials spoke in favor of returning speed limits to 70 mph, but not
one of them spoke about the TNRCC's caving in to industry once again. Just the opposite
should have occurred.
Congress amended the Clean Air Act in 1990 because states had failed to pressure
industry to clean up its emissions. The ultimate penalty is the loss of federal highway
funds, $4 billion worth in Texas. Numbers can be numbing, but reducing the speed limit
from 70 to 55 mph were numbers that got attention. People quickly figured out that such
a slowdown wouldn't contribute much to solving the problem of ozone pollution.
Houston's air pollution is not just a local problem, either. During the last two weeks, San
Antonio and Austin experienced several high ozone days, created by stagnant weather
and high temperatures along with another factor: the transport of Houston air pollution
west.
Let's look at the major cause of the ozone problem in Houston: industrial pollution. In
response to citizen complaints, Congress required industry to self-report its pollution in
the Toxic Release Inventory. The concept of the TRI is simple: The public has the right
to know what industry is doing with its waste, especially since it is waste we breathe,
waste that enters our bodies.
Because industrial pollution is so vastly underreported, some environmentalists say
the public shouldn't even bother with the TRI. The computer modelers charged with
understanding Houston's ozone problem complain that the emissions inventory is wildly
off base. But the TRI is a place to begin to understand the scope of the problem, however
underreported. The Harris County Pollution Control Agency has assembled TRI data for
Harris County on its website at www.hd.co.harris.tx.us/pcd/pcd.htm. The data show that
our public policy is to dump far more emissions in the air than in the water. During a 14-
year period from 1987 to 2000, industry reported that it dumped nine times more
pollutants into the air than into the water. It's almost as though we imagine that when
pollution goes into the air, it evaporates harmlessly. But these are toxic materials,
dangerous to human health, and we breathe them every day.
One other trend in the TRI numbers has created cynicism. According to the TRI, total
reported toxic air emissions in Harris County have dropped from 54 million pounds in
1987 to nearly 24 million pounds in the year 2000, the most recent year for which records
are available. If these numbers were accurate, then Houston's ground ozone, which is a
unique blend of industrial and auto emissions, should have decreased. But as we all
know, Houston surpassed Los Angeles in ozone pollution in 1999.
The latest studies point to three highly reactive compounds in our air that are
sometimes called ozone precursors: ethylene, propylene and 1,3 butadiene. In the year
2000 data, industry reported discharging 7 million pounds of these three chemicals. Now
this number may be wildly low, by multiples from five to 15, but at least the TRI
indicates who is producing these chemicals.
Nine companies stand out in the data, all of them reporting emissions of more than
100,000 pounds. These could be called the Big Nine in producing ozone precursors. They
are: Chevron Phillips Co.; Equistar Chemical Bayport; Equistar Chemicals, LaPorte; the
combined three Exxon Mobil plants in Baytown; Huntsman Corp.; Lyondell Citgo
Refining; Oxyvinyls LP; Shell Chemical, Deer Park; and Solvay Polymers.
These companies combined to report 5.8 million pounds of the 8.1 million pounds
reported in 2000. Shouldn't the leaders of these companies come forward and explain
what they are going to do about their emissions? It's time for them to own up to their
responsibility for the ozone mess.
Proposed SIP Revisions Hard to Swallow
The Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission has proposed changes to the
Houston-Galveston ozone reduction plan that will make the SIP (state implementation
plan) hard to swallow. If the recommendations are approved in December, industry will
be allowed to release more NOx into the air in exchange for cleaning up its emissions of
VOCs (volatile organic compounds). But why the tradeoff? Industry is obligated to clean
up all of its emissions. This is like having someone say he will cut down on sidewalk
spitting if he can throw more trash on the street.
But there's no reason for such a trade-off. Environmentalists, state air scientists and
industry all acknowledge that industrial emissions have never been properly measured in
the Houston area. The best scientific measurements show that industry discharges far
more than it reports to the government. No tradeoffs should be made with industry until
we actually know what industry is emitting. Please make your opinion known by writing:
Commissioner Robert J. Huston
Chair, Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission
POB 13087, MC 100
Austin, TX 78711-3087
Fax: 512-239-5533
