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

Prenatal exposure to high levels of air pollution double the likelihood of children becoming obese in a new study by Columbia University's School of Public Health released last week. Its one of the first reports to definitively link chemical pollutants to weight gain. Pregnant women who lived in areas where they were exposed to abnormal amounts of Poly Aromatic Hydrocarbons, or (PAHs), were more than twice as likely to have children who were obese by age seven than women who had lower exposure to the chemicals. PAH's are a pretty common pollutant which come mostly from the burning of fossil fuels. This news comes on the heels of a new study of the danger of chemicals known as endocrine disruptors, which can reek havoc with a person's hormones. Animal studies had already shown that PAHs inhibit the release of fat in the body, decrease IQ increase behavioral disorders. And oh yeah, PAHs can also give you cancer. There are many causes for weight gain in the US. Could one of them have anything to do with our swimming in a sea of 80,000 chemicals, only a handful of which are fully understood, much less regulated to reflect the current science?     Read More

It's one of the most frustrating shortages grassroots activists face. Not money. Not lawyers. Doctors willing to say in public what they say in private. We can't count how many times physicians in the DFW area have reportedly counseled their Midlothian-area patients to move out of close proximity of the three cement plants there, but declined to issue even the mildest warnings to the public at large. We know the same thing must be happening now with the proliferation of gas drilling. A lot of private doubts, but few public condemnations.  According to health professionals themselves, the subject of environmentally-caused disease and illness just doesn't come up in medical school. Doctors are woefully underprepared to deal with patients that may be harmed by industrial pollution. It doesn't make any sense, but on any given day there are many citizen activists in DFW that are more authoritative sources on environmental health issues, more current in their knowledge of the field, than the vast majority of the thousands of doctors practicing here. That's why it's encouraging to find reports like this one out of Houston that tracks the activism of Dr. Wesley Stafford in Corpus Christi over a local power plant that would burn pet coke - a nasty fuel. More of this please.  Read More

Whew. There's quite a story from today's Guardian involving the British Government, the Environmental Defense Fund, and right-wing Texas elected officials. The year was 2009. Her Majesty's Foreign and Commonwealth Office gave 13,673 Pounds (about $21,000) to Texas EDF to "influence climate security policy and legislation in Texas." How did EDF use this money to accomplish that goal? By organizing voters in key Texas districts? No. By arranging the elected officials to meet Texas victims of climate change? Nope. "The money was used to fly two Texan state politicians, including the climate sceptic Republican Troy Fraser, to the UK to receive a briefing with climate scientists and government officials. A Conference was also held in Austin in which a video of Prince Charles personally addressing Texan politicians on the subject of climate change was shown." The article doesn't say so, but it's obvious what the strategy at work here was. Unable to persuade Texas lawmakers of the righteousness of their cause with only local speakers of the Queen's English to do the work, EDF was at a loss. If only we could impress the importance of global warming on Fraiser and Co. by using people with authoritative British accents to explain it to them. Brilliant! And it would have worked too, except no one could understand what the Prince was actually saying on that video. Of course, when Governor Perry found out about all this, he was rightfully indignant, taking the position that the English had no business interfering with his plan to devolve state government into a a giant polluter oligarchy. That's what the EPA is for. There was some other stuff too about how Texas has a great (cough) record of clean air accomplishments (cough) and how global warming is really just a vast left-wing conspiracy, yada, yada, yada. But you expect that from the Guv. What's EDF's excuse? EDF's Texas Director Jim Marston explained that "There are people in Texas, including Governor Perry, who are uneducated [on this subject]. This was the period leading up to the Copenhagen climate summit. We wanted to get it away from the theoretical and move it to a country where the Kyoto [protocol] had already been ratified. We wanted them to hear it from the best scientists from the UK, a country that Texans tend to respect." See, British accents make everything infinitely more respectable. And how grateful was Senator Troy Frasier after his London Homesick Blues junket? Marston says "he came back very enthused. Sadly, his enthusiasm has decreased since, partly because the issue [of climate change] has become so politicized."  That, plus the power of an English accent tends to wane when it's not constantly reinforced. As Texas grassroots environmental activists, should we be more disappointed in the British for being so condescending about our environmental fights when they're building breeder reactors and stopping wind turbine farms that ruin Donald Trump's view of the ocean, or EDF for being so wasteful and naive? We report. You decide.    Read More

So sad are the politics of climate change initiatives in the US that even ones that have no immediate impact and might never have an impact are applauded by advocates as if they were groundbreaking efforts. On Monday, the Obama administration's proposed, and court-ordered, rules for greenhouse gas pollution from large power plants were released. They call for a limit of 1000 tons of CO2 for every megawatt hour of power produced. Most analysts think that standard favors natural gas over coal - a good description of the current marketplace. The standards don't apply to the sources where they could do he most good - older and dirtier coal-fired power plants, and in fact according to this report out of Austin's KUT, could actually result in a rush to build more dirty coal plants in the next 12 months to avoid them. Other, more aggressive measures, if they happen at all, will have to wait until after November.    Read More

A lot of people may think that the largest public health problems linked to horizontal gas drilling,or fracking, are all water-related. They are not, at least not yet. It's the huge amounts of air pollution fracking generates and its consequences for nearby residents, downwind dwellers, and the planet as a whole that are really pose the paramount risks to the most people. Take smog. Saturday's record-setting ozone levels remind us again that DFW is a 21-year old chronic violator of the Clean Air Act. Fracking generates both kinds of smog-forming pollutants identified by the EPA and the state - Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) from combustion sources, and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) from the leakage and "upsets" of chemicals in tanks, pipelines, and other facilities and pieces of equipment. In 2006, NOx pollution from the gas industry was estimated to be over 68 tons per day by the state. That was more than all three cement plants in Midlothian combined, plus every other large stationary source of NOx pollution in the region. By this year that number is expected to drop by 2/3rds because of new rules by the state requiring more modern diesel engines and less drilling in the Barnett Shale in general. TCEQ believes NOx pollution has more of an impact on DFW ozone levels than VOCs, and so it got more serious about regulating the NOx pollution from fracking. But that theory is being seriously tested. This year, again according to the state, all the cars and trucks in DFW will produce 80 tons per day of VOC air pollution. Oil and gas production in DFW will produce 114 tons per day of the same kinds of pollutants - 34 more tons a day than all cars and trucks combined, and the largest emissions by far from any one industry in North Texas. TCEQ says not to worry about the smog impact of these gas VOC emissions because they're aren't as reactive or volatile as the kind vehicles emit and are less likely to form ozone. Independent scientists and regulators disagree, especially given the volume of the pollution. Denver officials believe that when already dirty air - from other urban areas, or coal plants or cement plants - combines with the VOCs from the gas industry, it actually makes the gas VOCs more volatile, and more likely to form ozone. This phenomenon has never been incorporated into the computer modeling TCEQ uses to predict ozone formation in DFW. In 2011, DFW had its worst smog season in five years, even as the state refused to significantly cut VOC emissions from the gas industry. You don't have to live near a gas well to feel the effects of the drilling going on in North Texas. All you have to do is breathe.  The same VOCs that cause smog are also the most responsible for making near-by residents ill with their toxic fumes. Benzene, formaldehyde, and other VOCs are routinely released or escape from gas facilities. A recent Colorado School of Public Health study found a resident's cancer risks increased 66% when they lived within a half mile, or over 2000 feet from a fracking operation. Many of the chemical exposures recorded residents near wells by way of state-issued hand held canisters are exactly the same ones Midlothian residents found when they used the same canisters to test their bad air downwind of the cement plants when they were burning hazardous wastes. And the official response is the same as well. Despite the fact that the resident is testing the air when he or she is feeling the health effects of air pollution, the levels of poisons never seem to reach above mandated levels of concern that would trigger action. But of course those levels are based on theory and never put to the test in any epidemiological way - except when residents' experience contradict the theory - and then its the residents who must be mistaken, not the theory. If you live next to a fracking well operation, you live next door to a hazardous facility that's capable of generating toxic air pollution just like a hazardous waste incinerator, a chemical plant, or refinery. Finally,  the same air pollution from gas operations that causes smog and sick people also contributes to climate change.  Fracking, along with gas processing, and especially compressors to generate pressure instead of wells and pipelines produce very large volumes of Greenhouse Gases. A recent EPA survey of GHG from all Texas facilities shows compressor stations spewing anywhere from 10,000 to over 90.000 tons of GHG pollution. Industry spokespeople say not to worry because most of this is methane that is relatively short-lived compared to other kinds of Greenhouse Gases like CO2.  The problem with that argument is that while it might have a shorter life span, methane is many times more potent in its greenhouse effect. So much so that a recent groups of climate change experts recently said that the best thing we could do in the short term for negating climate change would be to concentrate on reducing methane and particulate matter pollution. This is most relevant to Dallas because of all North Texas cities, it's the one that has officially pledged to cut its GHG pollution along a specific timetable. Just one compressor station within its city limits and any hope of meeting those goals is lost. So one kind of air pollution from the gas industry is responsible for all three impacts - local, regional and global. That's why the Dallas Residents at Risk alliance has endorsed off-setting, or balancing any increases in GHG emissions caused by the gas industry with industry-sponosored reductions in Dallas that keep our total air pollution burden from skyrocketing. It's the first time this strategy has been advocated and it is the only brand new idea to be included in the Dallas Gas drilling Task Force as a "suggestion" in its cover letter to the City Council. Even its members saw the collision of City of Dallas promises to clean the air with opening the door to fracking. Gas isn't cleaner than coal in DFW. It's just as bad or worse.   Read More

There are at least four major EPA rules in line to be finalized in 2012 but don't look for that to happen until after the elections. That's the consensus of opinion from this Politico article, which says new regulations for lower sulfur gasoline, coal ash disposal, Greenhouse Gas limits on power plants and refineries and a new federal particulate matter standards are all on hold while the Obama Administration becomes full engaged in the 2012 Presidential campaign. "“If there’s one thing we’ve learned in a presidential election year, Democrats and Republicans behave similarly in that they are loath to propose or finalize a rule that could be construed as being controversial or having a significant impact on the economy,” said Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, which represents state regulators. While some groups will be filing lawsuits, it's not clear if the glacial pace of such efforts will be any quicker in getting the new rules than waiting until after the election.  Read More

This week, we've examined new studies linking brain damage to breathing. Let's take on heart disease now. Short-term exposure - less than seven days - to common air pollutants raises the risks of heart attack, according to a new study that looked at air quality from 100 studies on five continents. "...an improvement in air quality could have a significant effect on public health,” wrote the authors, led by Dr. Hazrije Mustafic of the Paris Cardiovascular Research Center at University Paris Descartes. Dr. Jesus Araujo, an assistant professor of medicine and director of environmental cardiology at UCLA, said there is now “more than enough evidence” from human, animal and cellular studies that air pollution kills. One of the most important findings of the new research is that it confirms that heart attacks increase even when exposures to worsening air quality are short in duration.“We don’t have to be exposed for weeks or months or years,” Araujo said. The study found harmful effects to the heart from breathing in microscopic particulate matter, or soot, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide, often at levels that are considered "safe." “The more scientists look, the more they find effects at lower exposures,” said Jean Ospital, Director of Southern California's Air quality District, “This is a question that always comes up, how low do we need to go to protect public health? It seems to be a moving target in terms of where the health effects are, where we really need to go to have health protection.” Indeed.   Read More

Via the journal Nature comes news that air sampling in the natural gas fields north of Denver have shown gas operators losing approximately 4% of their product to the atmosphere — not including additional losses in the pipeline and distribution system.  That's more than either industry claims or government emissions inventories report. "If we want natural gas to be the cleanest fossil fuel source, methane emissions have to be reduced,” says Gabrielle Pétron, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder who helped wrote a summary of the findings. Much of the released methane comes from batteries of storage tanks, but a significant percentage is just "raw gas" leaking from the infrastructure. This data from the field is giving new credence to Cornell Professor Robert Howarth's report from last year that concluded natural gas actually released more Greenhouse Gas pollution than coal over the lifetime of each fuel's use (R. W. Howarth et al. Clim. Change Lett. 106, 679–690; 2011). “I’m not looking for vindication here, but [the NOAA] numbers are coming in very close to ours, maybe a little higher,” he says. We've written before about the crossroads Dallas is facing in allowing gas drilling as the only North Texas city committed to a plan to reduce Greenhouse Gas pollution. This new study suggests that it will be impossible for Dallas to honor its commitments for those reductions if it allows drilling without compensating for the increase in Greenhouse Gas emissions somehow.   Read More

For some time now, it's been possible for industry in Texas to apply for "permit amendments" or "permit modifications" that make wholesale changes in a facility's operation just like a real new permit would, but without all the messiness of a public hearing or public comment (weren't we just talking about how polluters love the dark? Yes we were.) While new permits require a public comment period, and the possibility of a contested case hearing with citizens able to use discovery and cross-examination, none of that transparency is required by a permit amendment or modification. TXI used this tactic last summer to seek and receive a "permit amendment" from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that adds a wide variety of new "non-hazardous" wastes it can burn at its Midlothian cement plant without knowing whether burning all the new wastes will increase emissions or not. TXI only has to test itself after it begins burning the wastes. As of this week, the Sierra Club is calling the state on the carpet for some of the most egregious examples of this practice and suing the TCEQ over the issuing of permit amendments to four coal plants where the state knew beforehand that the changes would increase pollution - to a tune of over 11,000 TONS of particulate matter/soot a year. That's no slip-up or ambiguous definition. That's refusing to enforce the law.   Read More