Figures show long-term drop in toxic emissions

By T.J. Aulds

The Daily News

Published August 15, 2010

TEXAS CITY — BP claims despite releasing more than 500,000 pounds of pollutants and other compounds from its refinery in Texas City in 40 days this spring, the community’s health never was at risk.

Industry supporters claim that despite the state and federal citations for environmental violations, lawsuits, criminal trials and fines, air quality in Texas City is fine.

Tell that to Sadie Dickey.

“It’s horrible,” Dickey said. “Especially when you are sleeping. You can’t get the air to breathe. You are choking, gagging, trying to gasp for breath. You don’t know what it is. It’s like somebody is in there with you, choking you.”

Dickey’s house is two blocks from BP’s fence line. The flare that was the center of what the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality called “an excessive emissions event” looms over Dickey’s small house on Third Avenue South.

The home health care giver gazed at the refinery and noted the smell.

“Stay a little longer — you might get another smell,” she said.

She is the only resident on her block. BP bought out all the properties around her as part of its expanding greenbelt program aimed at creating a larger buffer between the refinery and residents.

After 20-plus years, Dickey doesn’t plan on leaving. She’s been offered money to sell, but she said it’s not enough.

Even with recent health problems including respiratory ailments and a sudden onset of high blood pressure, she doesn’t plan to join any lawsuits against her neighbor BP.

“Why bother?” she asked. “It’s done no good to this point.”

Toxic Emissions Lower

Look at state figures, and there’s proof air emissions are lower than they were 10 or 20 years ago.

According to a Texas City-La Marque Community Air Monitoring report prepared by the contractor that operates many of the industry’s air monitors, measurable benzene levels dropped 74 percent between 1993 and 2008. The carcinogen levels are measured at three monitoring stations.

The figures from 2008 show ranges of benzene from less than 0.35 parts per billion to about 0.40.

In 1993, the air monitor of Second Avenue South, not far from Dickey’s house, measured benzene levels at about 2.70 parts per billion, while a monitor on the city’s north side measured the lowest reading of about 0.90 parts per billion.

According to a 2008 report, the latest available, from the Galveston County Health District’s Office of Environmental Health, the amount of SARA emissions in the city decreased 73 percent between 2002 and 2007.

The report’s figures come from data collected at Texas City’s seven major industrial sites: BP, ISP Chemicals, Valero refinery, Sterling Chemical, Marathon Oil refinery, Dow Chemical and Praxair, as well as the community air monitor stations that include those operated by the state’s environmental agency as well as those operated at the industrial facilities.

SARA emissions are the Environmental Protection Agency’s list of defined toxic chemicals released into the environment under the United States’ Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act. Industrial sites are required to be report those emissions annually. Those chemicals are part of the Toxic Chemical Release Inventory database maintained by the EPA.

In 2002, air emissions on the Toxic Chemical Release Inventory totaled about 3 million pounds in Texas City. In 2004, the total increased to about 3.5 million pounds, but by 2007, the toxic releases dropped to about 750,000 pounds.

Benzene releases also dropped. In 2007, the total jumped to about 200,000 pounds, but that was still less than the 350,000 pounds released in 2002.

The report also said measurements for most of the toxic chemicals did not exceed levels considered to pose long- or short-term health risks in 2008.

The state boasts that nitrogen oxide emissions in the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria region have been reduced by 500 tons per day — 80 percent — between 2002 and 2008. On Friday, the environmental commission announced new guidelines for its air quality permits that the agency said would reduce emissions even more.

Is The Air Safe?

Even the most ardent environmental watchdogs don’t argue there have been decreases in toxic emissions.

“First thing, there has been improvement — but not because (industry) has voluntarily done it,” Luke Metzger, the founder and director of Environment Texas, said. “It’s because federal regulators and others have forced them to do that.”

Environment Texas is an Austin-based environmental advocacy organization. In 2009, the group and the Sierra Club settled a lawsuit with Shell Oil Co. that requires the energy company’s Deer Park refinery to reduce emissions by 80 percent and pay a $6 million penalty.

It has similar lawsuits pending against ExxonMobil and Chevron/Phillips.

“You can’t say that every day of the year the air is clean there,” Metzger said. “The air is really dirty and causes a human health impact. There have been some improvements. There’s a lot to be done.”

Ask the American Lung Association, and the health advocacy group gives the air quality in Galveston County an “F.” Its report card reviews air monitoring reports as well as nonindustrial emissions to determine its grades.

Not even the man behind the health district’s report would go so far as to say the air is “perfectly fine,” as Jack Cross and other members of the industry-friendly Texas City-La Marque Community Advisory Council insist when criticizing news coverage of BP’s environmental problems.

“Geez, that’s such a tough question to answer,” Ronnie Schultz, director of the Galveston County Health District’s Office of Environmental Health, said. “Overall, I would say it’s relatively safe. Over time, we have seen decreases in the amounts of pollutants.”

Asked if he would classify those decreases as minimal, standard or significant, Schultz said, “I feel more comfortable just saying ‘decreases.’”

He was cautious because so many factors define what is and isn’t safe, including the fact that residents with respiratory problems or asthma are more susceptible to emissions.

The number of odor complaints — the most common complaint involving industrial plants — dropped in the past decade.

Schultz’s office gets about 20 odor complaints a year. That’s been the average for the past five years.

“We worked a lot more complaints 10 years ago,” Schultz said.

Not An Either-Or Proposition

Texas City Mayor Matt Doyle warned increasing regulatory crackdowns by federal and state authorities and lawsuits, such as the $10 billion lawsuit filed against BP by plaintiff’s attorney Anthony Buzbee, threaten the economic stability of the community.

“It’s also a matter of threatening the national security of this country,” Doyle said. “If we don’t see a more balanced and industry friendly regulatory environment, we risk a lot. It’s not long before these companies say enough is enough.”

It doesn’t have to be that way, Metzger said.

“We can have both clean air and a strong economy at the same time,” he said. “We can have a strong economy and also have our companies follow the law.”

Metzger said there are examples in the United States and worldwide where companies have reduced their impact on the environment and still turn a profit.

“It doesn’t have to be either-or,” he said. “It can be both.”

Dickey doesn’t want to see her industrial neighbors close up shop, either.

“I feel like whoever is in (charge) in there needs to pay more attention to what’s happening outside,” she said while glancing over her shoulder at BP’s 1,200-acre refinery. “They say nothing is coming out of there, but I say that’s the money talking.”

(News Media: For more information contact Kurt Koopmann, GCHD Public Information Officer, 409-938-2211 or kkoopman@gchd.org)