News Plume

Enjoying Those Record Low Ozone Levels Yet?

Fri, 18 May 2012 20:31:00 GMT

Thursday was another Orange ozone day (why not use a "grey-brown-black" lung color scheme?) as is today. Pilot Point and Denton monitors recorded 8 hour averages over the old 1997 federal ozone standard of 85 ppb that DFW still hasn't met, while they and four more - Keller, Frisco, Grapevine, and Eagle Mountain Lake - exceeded the new 2011 75 ppb standard. So far, the last two days have seen five "exceedences" of the 85 ppb level - now considered "unprotective of human health" by EPA. This doesn't look like the kind of summer we were promised by the folks at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, but maybe things will get better in June, July and August, huh?

CDC Recommended Lead Levels Go Down, Exide Lead Numbers Go Up

Fri, 18 May 2012 19:54:00 GMT

Behind-the-scenes, many factors are driving the action between the City of Frisco and the owners of the Exide lead smelter that sits in the middle of town. We can only speculate for now. Meanwhile, let's look at some pressure points that entered the public record this last week on a collision course, and make the smelter's exit seem inevitable, no matter how much the state tries to stave it off. On Wednesday, for the first time in 20 years, the federal government lowered the recommended limit for lead exposure in young children, where it can often do the most harm. And it wasn't just decreased by the Centers for Disease Control - it was slashed by 50%, from 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood to 5. If those sound like tiny amounts, that's because they are. But the bad news is that the overwhelming consensus of environmental health specialists is that numbers even below this amount are doing cognitive and behavioral harm to children. Even the CDC itself states that there is no known safe level of lead exposure. Not that any amount will do harm necessarily, but that any exposure is statistically capable of doing harm based on the field studies coming in. CDC estimates there are 450,000 kids nationwide that don't meet the new standard for a poison that will not honor it. We don't know how many children in Frisco fall into this category, but we do know, thanks to Dr. Howard Mielke of Tulane University, that the children the state health services agency tested for blood lead showed that 1.6 times more kids living in Frisco had blood lead levels above 2 micrograms per deciliter compared to the state as a whole - 60% above the norm. Meanwhile, new monitoring results from around the Exide smelter show that it failed for a second month in a row to obtain the new federal standard for lead particles in air of .15 micrograms (Look under "Monitoring Data" and download). In March the three month rolling average for March was.19 and .22 for April. This would mean more if TCEQ had not granted a 13 month free pass to break the standard instead of enforcing a deadline in November of this year. Did we mention that the new air-lead standard is of course based on the science behind the old blood lead level of 10 micrograms per deciliter, and therefore instantly obsolete even before Exide has to comply with it? The regulations are forever chasing the science. It might take another 4 to 10 years to lower the lead-air standard. And then more research will show even more subtle effects of lead at lower levels of exposure and so on. People who live around facilities like Exide can never win. And sooner or later, Exide lawyers or its insurance companies will be explaining why its a really bad idea to keep operating a lead smelter in a densely populated area that includes gated communities where people can spend a lot of money on attorneys themselves. We hear that things are proceeding apace in some kind of "peace with honor" resolution to this train wreck between the city and he company. Surely this last week's news can't help but spur those discussions.

DPD Needed (Again) to Protect Gas Drilling Proposals

Thu, 17 May 2012 16:24:00 GMT

(Cross-posted from the Dallas Resident at Risk website) The last time the Dallas Gas Drilling Task Force met in February, they voted on recommendations so bad—like fracking inside city parklands and within 500 feet of neighborhoods—they actually needed police protection during the deliberations. As the Task Force finally presented those recommendations to Mayor Rawlings and the City Council today, the only thing that changed was the crowd: What had been a small handful of activists became a filled-to-capacity hearing room with more people lined up outside than sitting down inside. Several organizers were forcibly removed yet again as they vocalized their disagreement with the idea that drilling all along the Trinity River floodplain and even inside the levees is somehow “safe and reasonable.” As it turns out, stating the obvious can get you kicked out of City Hall very quickly.Lots of coverage! CBS - NBC – KERA – Dallas Morning News – Dallas ObserverTo their credit, several City Council members pushed back against the worst proposals and even started using some independent thought to come up with better ideas in a few minutes than the Task Force had conceived of in 8 months. Unfortunately, some of the other Council Members fantasized about drilling royalties replacing billions of dollars of tax revenue and improving quality of life in Dallas—as if you can just go out and buy that at the mall. Some seemed convinced that fracking is perfectly safe and that it is going to be allowed in Dallas, regardless of what the pesky residents want. But neighborhood groups representing close to 180 homeowners associations all over the city have endorsed our “five protections” position. The gas-masked protesters were the lead story on the 6 o’clock news tonight. Democracy is on the march, and the police can’t evict us from the streets.Mayor Rawlings announced that there will be two more briefings before the City Council takes any votes, so we’ll see you all at City Hall again in the near future. You’ll get the schedule as soon as we do. Stay tuned for more interruptions of your normally scheduled programming.

US Asthma Rate Reaches All Time High

Thu, 17 May 2012 06:00:00 GMT

From the LA Times: "The proportion of Americans with asthma increased from 7.3% in 2001 to 8.4% in 2010, marking the highest level ever, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday. In 2010, an estimated 18.7 million adults and 7 million children had the disease -- one in every 12 Americans. Overall, about 29.1 million adults have been diagnosed with asthma at some point in their lives, but many of those were misdiagnosed or have apparently recovered, leading to the current figure of 18.7 million. Children (9.5%) had a higher asthma prevalence than adults (7.7%), suggesting that the disease will become a bigger problem in the future. Females (9.2%) had a higher prevalence than males (7%). People of multiple race had an incidence of 14.1%, while Asians had the lowest (5.2%). Blacks were at 11.2%, while whites were at 7.7%. Hispanics of Puerto Rican descent had the highest prevalence, 16.1%. Death rates were highest for women, blacks and people over the age of 65. In 2009, the most recent year for which data are available, asthma accounted for 3,388 deaths in the United States, 479,300 hospitalizations, 1.9 million ER visits and 8.9 million visits to physicians' offices, the CDC said. The estimated costs to society were $50.1 billion per year due to medical expenses, $3.8 billion resulting from missing work and school, and $2.1 billion from premature deaths."

Three DFW Ozone Monitors Have "Exceedences" of Old Standard to Officially Kick-Off Season

Thu, 17 May 2012 05:46:00 GMT

Even though the federal government has established a new ozone standard of 75 parts per billion, DFW still hasn't managed to conquer the previous standard of 85 ppb. That was true again on Wednesday - the very same day the Dallas City Council began debate over a new gas drilling ordinance that could worsen regional air quality. Three ozone monitors - Dallas Executive Airport (the old Redbird), Dallas Hinton Street, and Arlington Municipal airport all registered 8 hour averages of 85 or above. They were the first such "exceedences" of the standard this year. Arlington had at last three or so hours when it was breathing ozone levels of over 100 ppb. Whatever was happening today stuck around long enough to cause Parker County's monitor to still have readings in the 80's well past 10 at night. There were nine monitors that were at or above the new standard of 75 ppb spread out over four counties. Thursday is being forecast as another Orange Day for DFW, so in short order we could be halfway to an official violation (4 readings at the same monitor of 85 or more in one season) by the end of the week.

Neighborhood Opposition to Dallas Drilling Grows - Will Council Listen?

Wed, 16 May 2012 05:22:00 GMT

Word came Tuesday that two important Dallas neighborhood groups took very tough stands on the re-writing of a new city gas drilling ordinance. The Dallas Homeowners League, a city wide alliance of neighborhood associations and civic groups. adopted the same Dallas Residents at Risk resolution outlining the Five Basic Protections that you can find on this page to your right. That's a major milestone in and of itself. Not to be outdone, The Old Oak Cliff Conservation League passed a resolution that demanded the Mayor and Council prohibit ANY drilling within Dallas city limits. Go to each of these group's website. Both prominently feature headlines and pictures about the Dallas Drilling controversy. It's not just Downwinders and other environmentalists anymore. The sound you hear is this two-year struggle gaining sudden and significant momentum.

Bad Air Day Alert for Wednesday - And This Time We Mean It

Wed, 16 May 2012 02:35:00 GMT

(Clarification - The alert came out today, Tuesday May 15th. It applies to Wednesday the 16th)The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has issued an "Ozone Alert" for DFW for Wednesday May 16th predicting "Orange" i.e. unhealthy and illegal pollution levels. So far, it's the only one announced for any metro area in Texas, which is a little strange, because we're usually tied in tandem to Houston in such matters. This is the second Officially bad air day of the seven-month-long season so far. The first came back in March with the late Spring heat wave and left us with the highest March ozone readings ever recorded by the state - on a Saturday at that. Please take it easy out there and pass the news along. Not to worry too much though, we're sure this is an aberration. The TCEQ computer in Austin, affectionately nicknamed GIGO by admiring citizens, has spoken and said that DFW shall have historically low ozone levels this year.

Judge Strikes Down TCEQ Permit for Corpus Coal Plant

Tue, 15 May 2012 21:29:00 GMT

Example Number Too Many to Count of why you just can't trust the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to be the watchdog they're supposed to be. Last year the state agency awarded a permit to the $3 billion Las Brisas coal-fired power plant in Corpus Christi last year over the objections of the EPA, AND two of its own Administrative Law Judges. When that happened, the Sierra Club and Environmental Defense sued. Yesterday they won when a District Court Judge issued a ruling that will send the plant back to TCEQ for an new air quality review. "Here, the worst-case scenarios factually and legally were not modeled," the Judge wrote.The opinion letter concludes by stating that the ruling may require an additional hearing or briefing to determine whether a permit reversal, or reversal and remand is appropriate. It's not surprising the TCEQ gave the plant a permit. They'll give a permit to just about anyone or thing that asks for it. But they usually don't get slapped down for it these days. Good for Sierra and EDF to call them out and win.

Homework for Tomorrow: KERA Dallas Fracking Debate; NPR on Health Effects, and Interview with Trinity East Manager

Tue, 15 May 2012 21:03:00 GMT

For your consideration on the eve of the beginning of the Dallas City Council efforts to rewrite the Dallas gas drilling ordinance: Your local NPR affiliate decided to return to being a Public Broadcasting station for an entire hour on Monday when KERA-FM held a little mini-debate in its studios between Council member Scott Griggs, the Ft. Worth League of Neighborhoods president Libby Willis, and industry rep David Biegler. Griggs had a good time with Biegler while Willis was the Ft. Worth Cassandra warning Dallas what it was about to step into. Please go check it out and encourage KERA to do more public affairs shows like this. Next comes a national NPR story on fracking that also ran on Monday and tells the story of downwind residents and their doctors in Pennsylvania who are attributing familiar illness and ailments to the introduction of fracking: "And all of a sudden your tongue gets this metal taste on it. And it feels like it's enlarging, and it just feels like you're not getting enough air in, because your throat gets real 'burn-y.' And the next thing I know, I ... passed out." Finally, a fascinating Dallas Observer interview with a Manager of Trinity East Drilling who promises Dallas "billions" in gas reserve money and no harm to scary-looking parkland that's sitting in the useless floodplain anyway. Absorb all this and be prepared for a pop quiz tomorrow at 1 pm at 6ES at City Hall when gas drilling Task Force Chair Lois Finkelman officially hands over her recommendations to the Council and debate begins. We're told this is just the first of what will be multiple briefings on the issue with a timeline for a vote happening before they Council goes on summer break around July 4th.

Final Round in Dallas Drilling Fight Begins Wednesday at City Hall

Mon, 14 May 2012 07:47:00 GMT

Show the Dallas City Council you expect them to do better.....This Wednesday, May 16th the Dallas City Council will finally be getting the recommendations of its gas drilling task force. The recommendations will be summarized by Task Force Chair Lois Finkelman during the regular Dallas City Council briefing meeting right after a break for lunch, approximately 1:00 pm in Room 6ES at Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla. Among those recommendations: * Allow the drilling of natural gas wells and the siting of natural gas compressors as close as 500 feet from a home, school or hospital, *Reverse the current ordinance and allow drilling throughout the Trinity River floodplain, *Allow drilling in Dallas park land. After Finkelman's presentation, there will probably be discussion among council members about what to do next, i.e. hold public hearings, schedule a vote, etc. There will be no opportunity for public input before, during, or after the task force briefing except for the regularly-scheduled open mic speaker slots at 9 am, and at the very end of the meeting. Some representatives of the Dallas Residents at Risk alliance Downwinders included, signed-up for those slots last week, so the council will be hearing from proponents of a stronger drilling ordinance in the morning and late afternoon. But they need to see you in front of them at 1 pm at City Hall. They need to know the public, their constituents, are watching. They need to know it's not OK with you to drill in parks or the floodplain or close to people. The Briefing Room is smaller than the regular Council Chambers. It doesn't take many people to fill it up. Your presence can make a big difference. We know it's a work day, but if you can take a late lunch and join us, please do. Thanks.

State Gives Frisco the Finger, Grants Exide Another Year to Violate Law

Mon, 14 May 2012 07:27:00 GMT

Instead of enforcing a November 1st, 2012 deadline for lower levels of lead pollution, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality will allow the Exide lead smelter in Frisco to violate the more protective air quality standard until January 6^th 2014 as part of a plan for the facility the state agency is submitting to EPA later this month. The decision is a reversal of policy in place as recently as last summer, and came with no opportunity for public hearing. It also makes it clear that TCEQ is siding with Exide in its on-going battle over zoning regulations with the city of Frisco. In pushing back the compliance date, the TCEQ specifically noted Exide's lack of building permits from the City of Frisco, an unresolved zoning battle that might have kept the smelter from meeting the November 1^st deadline, and eventually forcing its closure. In giving the extension at the last minute, the state is allowing the smelter regulatory breathing room it didn't have before. Frisco Unleaded, the residents group devoted to closing the 50-year old smelter that Downwinders is sponsoring is calling for its supporters to be at Tuesday's city council meeting to demand City Hall protest the extension and help persuade EPA not to endorse it. Once the new deadline passes, Exide will still be getting a break. Despite assurances from Frisco's Mayor and City Council that the smelter's new permit would be "first class" or they wouldn't support it, the TCEQ will also allow Exide to spew ten times as much lead as a similar Exide smelter operating in Vernon, Californianot require that Exide spend money to install pollution control equipment could reduce emissions from 1-3 tons to 1-3 pounds of lead a year because it's "unnecessary" to meet the new standard. According to Jim Schermbeck of local clean air group Downwinders at Risk, "The TCEQ is telling Frisco residents that the "first class" controls they want are too good for them; that they're too effective at getting rid of lead, a poison we know is capable of doing harm at any level of exposure. These controls work. TCEQ just doesn't think Frisco residents are worth the cost." Released late last Friday, the TCEQ plan, called a State Implementation Plan, or SIP, will be voted on by the agency's three Commissioners at their May 30^th meeting. EPA will then have six months to accept, modify or reject the plan. Green noted thatFrisco Unleaded is calling on residents to let their city council members they don't want Exide to get any extra time to further pollute their city. Tuesday's council meeting is the last one scheduled before the TCEQ vote on May 30^th. Schermbeck said the law states that Exide must comply with the new standard "as expeditiously as practicable," and no later than the end of 2015. "This extension is the opposite of that language. It delays the implementation of the standard, and does so by taking sides in a local zoning fight the TCEQ has no business in. For a state government that likes to exalt the virtues of local control, it just did a pretty good job of undermining Frisco's."

Dr. Al Goes To Washington

Sun, 13 May 2012 23:37:00 GMT

Not content to cynically railroad a dedicated public servant out of his job, we have it on good authority that Smokey Joe Barton and Company on the Republican-led House Energy and Commerce Committee are holding a public flogging of former EPA region Administrator Dr Al Armendariz on June 6th in Washington DC. It's an all day hearing about the contrived controversy that cost us the Best Regional Administrator We Ever Had. Before the Congressmen commence their chest beating, Dr. Armendariz will be allowed to make an opening statement. We hope we can catch this on C-SPAN, because other than his resignation letter, it'll be Dr. Al's first public statement on the whole mess since it began. Unfettered by Administration filters, Congressman Barton might be getting more than he bargained for at the hearing - bringing a lot more attention to a sorry episode that happened so fast, it didn't have time to snowball the amount of ridicule it deserved the first time round, Now everyone from Rachel Maddow to John Stewart to Stephen Colbert will have a shot at using this story against Dr. Al's critics as another example of their having gone off the deep end when it comes to anything EPA-related. And instead of muted Dr. Al, they're likely to see a Dr. Al Unplugged who's able to talk about what really goes on behind he curtain in Rick Perry's Texas. Having made a martyr out of him, we wonder if his critics understand that they could now be sponsoring Dr. Al's powerful resurrection?

Four Years After Kiln Waste-Burning Ends, ATSDR's "Evaluation" of Midlothian Keeps Going

Fri, 11 May 2012 08:00:00 GMT

Although on any given day there's a lot of competition, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry might be the most irrelevant government bureaucracy going. Thursday it announced that the latest installment of its years-long "health consultation" of Midlothian will be the subject of yet another community meeting in that town on Thursday May 24th from 7 to 8:30 at the Midlothian Conference Center. The ATSDR evaluation started in 2005 at the request of Midlothian Citizens when TXI was still burning hazardous waste. It then was the subject of a 2010 Congressional investigation that revealed how the Agency mostly neglected to do any real science in the course of its evaluation. This new meeting concerns an analysis of air monitoring information that "will support public health evaluations for many of the pollutants of concern." Of that we have no doubt. Since ATSDR does no monitoring of its own, it's completely reliant on the monitoring done by theTexas Commission on Environmental Quality. Does anyone know of any instance where TCEQ monitoring has shown anything to be concerned about? If citizens complain about getting sick from industrial pollution, it's TCEQ position that it's the fault of anything but the pollution itself. No amount of empirical evidence collected by citizens in the field from their own sampling or experience can convince Austin otherwise. TXI quit burning waste in 2008. ASTDR's evaluation of Midlothian? It just might outlast the plant itself.

Texas Fracking "Disclosure" Law So Industry Friendly Industry Adopting It

Fri, 11 May 2012 06:42:00 GMT

One of the reasons Dallas Residents at Risk has made full disclosure of fracking chemicals one of its five basic protections to be included in Big D's new gas drilling is because the Texas law passed last year by the legislature is so inadequate. Besides allowing for "trade secrets" that mean there's no real disclosure, the law doesn't even allow physicians or first-responders to know what's behind those trade secrets before they respond to an emergency situation involving them. Now we know that the law is so industry-friendly that Exxon and its gas drilling subsidiary XTO sponsored it as a nationwide model within the notorious American Legislative Exchange Council which received a lot of publicity over its controversial "Stand Your Ground" legislation.

Study: Low Levels of Hydrogen Sulfide Linked to Asthma

Wed, 09 May 2012 18:47:00 GMT

You may not know the name of the chemical, but you know it by smell. "Rotten eggs" is the olfactory indication you're being exposed to Hydrogen Sulfide. There's a reason it smells like that. Biological sources can emit it. Certain bacteria produce hydrogen sulfide as they decompose waste - like rotten eggs. It also occurs in geothermal situations. Hot water, steam and magma from inside the Earth carry heat, minerals and gases – like Hydrogen Sulfide – to the surface, liberating them in springs, geysers and volcanic lava. If you've ever been to Yellowstone, you know the smell. Industrial sources of hydrogen sulfide include oil and gas drilling, refineries, paper mills, large scale livestock production, waste water treatment and landfills. At high levels of exposure, Hydrogen Sulfide is linked with serious neurologic damage – including death. Lower levels can trigger eye irritation, fatigue and headaches...and asthma according to a new three-year study out of Iceland. Measuring levels of Hydrogen Sulfide near major intersections and power plants in the capital city of Reykjavik that turn geothermal energy into electricity and heating steam, researchers found a weak but constant association between the pollutant and asthma medication rates. It's one of the first studies to find respiratory ailments at low levels of Hydrogen Sulfide - much like you'd find in the Barnett Shale or any gas or oil patch. The fact that oil drilling has been around for over a century, and yet only now are we actually studying what happens when people are exposed ti it at exposure levels found in real life, tells you all you need to know about the risks of allowing drilling so close to people.