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.   Read More

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.   Read More

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."   Read More

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?   Read More

Two separate stories about President Obama underscore the shotgun-wedding feeling a lot of environmentalists have when it comes to this November's election. For The Guardian comes news that the President's campaign has launched a new "Environmentalists for Obama" green re-election website. Among the obstacles such an effort has to overcome are Obama's blocking of more protective ozone standards, allowing Arctic drilling, encouraging fracking for oil and natural gas, and advancing the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Locally, throwing the best Regional EPA Administrator We Ever Had under the bus will also leave a lot of us holding a grudge. The Campaign site is selling the positives, like increasing gas mileage standards, cracking down on coal plants and investing heavily in alternative energy. But it's stories like this one in a recent Washington Post that undercut the sincerity of that pro-green message. Responding to a trumped-up request from House Republicans for a list of all EPA regulations expected to cost more than one billion dollars, the President mistakenly included an air pollution standard he shouldn't have and undervalued the health and economic benefits of others. This happened because the EPA didn't help draft the response to an inquiry over its own regulations. Instead, it as written from inside the White House, most probably by the Office of Management and Budget, where environmental regulations go to die these days. To anyone looking for cynical motives, the exchange of e-mails between EPA and the White House over this matter that the Post story illuminates gives them plenty of ammunition. Besides being blindsided, EPA officials accuse the White house of trying to placate critics of the Agency and undermine its mission. When push comes to shove, it's still economics, and perhaps campaign economics, driving policy, not public health.   Read More

"How often have you sat in a public meeting with a government representative at the front of the room responding to questions from the public with answers that make no sense? Maybe his answers are legally accurate (that is, they are doing what is required by law), but are they following the spirit of the law in involving members of the public in the decision-making process? Rarely does government engage the public as an equally or even as a partner. Have you ever wondered why it always seems to be this way? Have you ever asked why does the government do things the way it does?" We have a feeling a lot of you will be able to relate to that opening sentence of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice's review of retired EPA employee William Sanjour's new piece on how to reform environmental and public health agencies so that they, you know, actually protect the environment and public health. Sanjour, who retired in 2001 after a 30-year stint with the Agency helping to write regulations, provides the valuable point of view of the insider. His suggestions are not what you might think. They are neither typically left or right. He wants to break EPA's authority up and give it less responsibility while increasing the involvement of citizens in enforcement. These are Sanjour's four basic remedies: 1) Agencies which enforce regulations should not write the regulations. 2) The revolving door should be shut. 3) Whistle blowers should be protected, encouraged and rewarded. 4) To the greatest extent feasible, those who the regulations are intended to protect should participate in writing and enforcing the regulations. Anyone who's been frustrated with the lack of action from either the EPA or TCEQ will appreciate his Belly-of-the-Beast perspective. If you think there's no sane way to go about regulating polluters and pollution, you really should read both Sanjour's diagnosis, and his prescription.  Read More

It's been a week since Dr. Armendariz resigned as Region 6 EPA Administrator. Here's the best timeline of the events leading up to that tragedy.   Read More

First, if you haven't read our updated post below, please notice the correction to Tuesday's initial story. DFW's "Moderate" classification by EPA under the new 75 ppb ozone/smog standard is actually a more serious ranking than Houston's "Marginal" ranking. In fact, areas with Marginal status are expected to be able to achieve the standard without even having to submit a clean-up plan with special pollution control measures. That's right, for the first time in forever, Houston won't even have to submit a "SIP" - State implementation Plan - while DFW will have to write yet another one, the fourth one in 15 years. According to EPA's announcement, most metropolitan areas were classified as "Marginal," identifying North Texas right off the bat as one of the more seriously smoggy places in America (but still way behind parts of California with an "Extreme" label slapped on the LA basin, and "Severe" for three more separate areas.) Most of DFW's sunbelt peers have fared better than our metormess. Atlanta started out at the same place as DFW 15-20 years ago, but has cleaned up its act enough to rate a "Marginal" in this round. Phoenix is also "Marginal." But of course neither one of those has a major natural gas play in the middle of them. Second, the timeline for the next DFW's next smog plan is known. The clock begins ticking 60 days after the new designations are published in the Federal Register - sometime between July and September of this year. From that date, DFW leaders and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality have exactly three years - until the summer of 2015 - to design and build a new clean air plan for DFW that will meet the 75 ppb standard. We have a three year running average of 90.6 ppb. Not to worry however. TCEQ has already told us that ozone levels will drop to historic new lows this summer thanks to so many new cars being bought. On the outside chance that doesn't happen, the Rick Perry- driven TCEQ will have to find some other nonsensical rationalization for avoiding new controls on the Governor's industrial contributors - cement plants, the gas industry, and power plants, like they did last year with the new car strategy. But don't look for Austin to even start working on this clean air plan until 2014. There's no rush because the agency doesn't believe the 75 ppb standard is even necessary. The Commission's leadership was vocal in its opposition against it.  If local leaders were smart, they'd disconnect their own clean air efforts from the state's and begin doing their own planning immediately, but traditionally they don't move until TCEQ says "jump". Add to this the new element of regional elected officials who, like Governor Perry, not only don't want to impose any new controls on industry, but don't even concede the value of cleaner air, and you already have a formula that's in danger of repeating last year's Worst Clean Air Plan Ever. 2015 isn't that far away, but without a serious overhaul of the regional air quality planning process, hope of meeting the new smog standard seems further than ever. By the way, counting our correction of the original story we ran on Tuesday, we've now published three posts on the new smog boundaries and deadlines. That's three more than any other source that we can find this morning.   Read More

(A previous edition of this post defined Houston's EPA rank of "Marginal" has being more sever than DFW's EPA rank of "Moderate." This was a mistake. In fact, it's just the opposite. "Moderate" is more severe under EPA's ranking than "Marginal." We regret the error. Thanks to a reader for pointing it out.)..........At around closing time came news that the EPA had finalized the boundaries of the new "non-attainment area" for smog in North Texas that corresponds to enforcement of the "new" 75 ppb ozone standard approved last year. The 9 counties that were already in violation of the older standard are still there: Collin, Dallas, Denton, Ellis, Johnson, Kaufman, Parker, Rockwall, and Tarrant. The only new addition is Wise County, but it's a huge one given its prodigious amount of gas industry pollution and commuter traffic to Tarrant and Denton Counties. It also means that Wise County will be getting an ozone monitor. If it's placed correctly by TCEQ - and that's a big if - it could be giving us a much truer understanding of how high or low ozone levels are really going. Since predominant winds during "ozone season" (April -November) are from the southeast to northwest, much of DFW's dirty air gets pushed into Wise County, where it then officially falls off the map because there's no air monitors there to record it. TCEQ likes it that way because ozone readings in Wise - where DFW dirty air meets gas patch emissions - could be significantly higher than in most of the rest of DFW. And that would dampen the Austin happy talk about improving DFW air quality. Also coming to Wise are things like those Vapor Recovery units on gasoline pumps, and other stricter pollution control requirements - although the impact on the entrenched gas industry infrastructure already there is unclear. Hood County was also singled out by EPA for inclusion in the non-attainment area but is left off this final order. It also has a number of gas industry facilities, including compressor stations, although most have shown up over the last ten years as opposed to Wise, which has seen decades of oil and gas production. There was no explanation for Hood exclusion in EPA's letter. DFW will be classified as a "Moderate" non-attainment area under the new standard while Houston will get a less severe "Marginal" classification. Dallas and Houston remain Texas' only non-attainmenta areas for smog, although that could certainly change over time. Next up is EPA's determination of the compliance timeline for all non-attainment areas. The worse the air, the more time a region has to clean it up. Officials don't have to get serious about cleaner air until around 2015 for a 2017-18 deadline. That''s been the pattern up to now - keep waiting until the last minute to think about how to dig yourself out of a multi-decade deep hole. And believe us, with this process, 2 years is "the last minute." There could be all kinds of useful planning and researching going on right now but they'll be none of that.  Because insuring receipt of federal highway dollars, not protecting public health, has been the primary motivating factor behind the clean air machinery in North Texas. Until those priorities are reversed and clean air is sought for its own worth, we're likely to always be behind the curve, chasing "unattainable" smog standards.  Read More

Like the man he replaces, Sam Coleman is an engineer through and through. Born and raised in Shreveport, Coleman graduated from High School in 1974. He got his undergraduate degree at Prairie View A&M and then joined the Army Corp of Engineers, working in Ft. Worth, but also doing a tour of duty in South Korea. In 1989, he began working for the EPA Region 6 office as a member of the Hazardous Waste Enforcement Branch. By 1993, he was promoted to Washington DC with an appointment as Deputy Director of the Office of Site Remediation Enforcement. He returned to Dallas in 1995 as the Director of the Compliance Assurance and Enforcement Division and was, until Monday, the Director of the Region 6 Superfund Division. He was the senior EPA official in charge of all agency operations during and after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. For this service he was awarded a Meritorious Presidential Rank Award in 2009. As Region 6 Superfund Chief, he had a hand in the clean-up of the infamous and hellish Tar Creek site in Pitcher, Oklahoma. So now the question is whether the same critics who so disliked Dr. Al will cozy up to a life-long civil servant? We are betting they will not.    Read More