“Just move the monitors”

Why didn’t we think of this simple and eloquent solution to the DFW air pollution problem? Of course, we couldn’t move the monitors to Oklahoma, because it turns out our crap ends up blowing that direction a lot and its’ causing their smog levels to spike.

We can’t move them to East Texas or Waco – both of those areas are about to be have to launch their own ozone reduction plans.

So what’s left – ah, west, but on the other side of Parker County for sure, maybe somewhere around Paint Creek?

“Imaginary SIPs’ For $200 Alex.” “What the TCEQ DFW Clean Air Plan Looks Like After the Last Four Days”

Since Thursday, this is what’s happened to the DFW air shed:

There have been 32 violations of the old 85 ppb federal ozone standard at 14 of the 20 DFW air monitors.

There have been 31 new season-highs ozone readings set at 19 of those 20 monitors.

There have been three 8-hour episodes averaging 100+ ppb of ozone.

2 more monitors officially violated the Clean Air Act standard by adding 4th highest readings of 85 ppb or more. Now there’s a total of 6, the most since 2006.

The region’s official “Design Value” rose three times in four days – from 90 to to 92 to 95 ppp. That’s the highest it’s been since 2006.  Last year it was 86 ppb.

And that means that next year the ozone Design Value for DFW would have to be 71 ppb or lower for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s currently proposed clean air “plan” for DFW to not fail. Basically, we’d all have to evacuate for the summer.

This is the math: 86 (2010’s DV) + 95 (2011’s DV – w/ one month to go) + 71 (what DFW needs in 2012) = 252 divided by 3 = 84 ppb.

Nothing over 84 as a three-year running average will do. That’s the formula in the Clean Air Act. 

There is no example of the DFW ozone pollution Design Value falling by 24 ppb in one year, or even over the 15 years the government’s been keeping track. And there’s nothing the TCEQ is doing in the next 12 months to change that. No new regulations, no new controls proposed for polluters. Just hoping that people buy new cars with those dreadful, oppressive EPA catalytic convertors in them.  They say that hope isn’t a plan, but the state is really trying hard to prove otherwise.

The TCEQ isn’t even going to turn in its “plan” until December or January. It’s still a proposed “plan,” even though it’s hopelessly, ridiculously obsolete after this weekend’s attack of the Smog Monster. It’s not just silly to continue to waste resources and tax dollars on something that has no chance of succeeding, it’s insulting.  The sensible thing to do would be to take the hit of being classified as a “severe” non-attainment area for ozone and begin anew the task of writing a clean air plan that’s actually, you know, a plan, with new ideas, implementing new technologies, and a chance at actually delivering something closer to safe and legal air for 6 million people.

But that strategy does have the disadvantage of requiring sensible people heading up the TCEQ. And since it’s TCEQ’s inanity and planned incompetence that brought us to the point of looking helplessly on as whatever air quality progress that was made in DFW over the last five or six years is wiped out, we wouldn’t count on TCEQ applying logic to the situation any time soon.

Warning: TCEQ Alert System Down On What Could Be Really Bad Air Day (Last Update 9:30 pm)

Don’t know about you, but we haven’t received a single ozone alert today, much less an “orange day” warning, despite ozone numbers climbing to over 100 ppb in both Denton and Keller, as the map of the 12 noon to 1 pm time period today on the right indicates. Yesterday played out very much like this, with readings in the 90’s by 10 am and in the 100’s by Noon.

So.. buckle your gas masks, it may be a bumpy breathing day. Please limit your outside activity and those of your kids today, especially if you live north of I-20 and west of 360 in Arlington. Today is shaping up to be a classic DFW ozone day, meaning slow winds from the southeast at 0 to 10 mph, pushing things toward the NW corner of the Metromess.

Here’s the DFW ozone map the TCEQ uses. Each box with a number on it is a different monitoring site. Click on the box and it will take you to that monitor’s readings for today. Remember they’re usually 1-2 hours behind real time. 

And also remember that the two monitors on this map already over the 100ppb benchmark are the two that only need an 8-hour average  reading in the mid-90’s or more to raise the DFW ozone “Design Value” a third time in four days to 95 ppb. If that happens, all five or six million of us would have to move away from DFW next summer for the three year running average of 84 ppb TCEQ needs for it’s proposed clean air “plan”  to work.

We’ll try to keep updating here as the day and smog plays out.

UPDATE X1 3:30 pm Sunday

The 2-3 pm Sunday map. Like we said – classic. Another 3-4 hours of these levels in Keller, and we’ll see a 95 ppb Design Value by the end of the day. We haven’t see that kind of number as an area wide ozone marker since 2007.

Update X2 4:30 pm

3 to 4 pm TCEQ map. The wind is changing in some parts of the region, from S/SE to N/NW, but at such low speeds that it’s unclear if it’ll clear things out or just keep pushing the same dirty air around the same circle. It’s the fourth hour of 100 plus ppb ozone readings in Keller.

Update X3  5:30 pm

Still the pattern of your classic North Texas ozone day. The Keller monitor is averaging 100 ppb over 7 hours. That includes an 81 ppb reading at 9 am this morning that’s sure to be eclipsed by whatever shows up in the coming hour. It looks to set a new season high – set just this last Thursday at 100 ppb.

Grapevine was in its third consecutive hour of 100 plus ppb ozone at 4 pm. It’ll probably end up in the mid to upper 90’s. Also not great.

Denton currently has a 6-hour average of 97 ppb. If that doesn’t dip below 95 in the next two readings, it will be competing with Keller to see which site establishes a new DFW ozone “Desgin Value” (the highest reading among all fourth-highest readings). Chances are one or both will see a high enough level of pollution today to push their #3s to that all-important #4 slot. And both sites have a 95 ppb reading in their #3s right now.

And it’s Sunday. What happens if this same pattern holds true for the start of the work week?

Update X4 6:30 pm 

 

As of 4 pm today, Keller residents were in their 6th hour of 100 + ppb of ozone pollution. It also means the monitor there will record an 8-hour average of at least 100 ppb and that in turn means that yesterday’s 3rd highest reading of 95 ppb moves down into the benchmark position of #4, setting a new DFW “Desgin Value” for the third time in four days.

It’s very possible the Denton monitor will also be establishing a new DV with a 95 reading from all the way back in June if the current 7-hour average of 97 holds up.

The last four days has turned the merely unreachable goals of the STILL PROPOSED state air plan, into the totally comical.  No one in officialdom expected this kind of leap in DFW smog this summer – standing now at a full 9 ppb higher than last year and putting us back into the range we were breathing BEFORE the first clean air plan aimed at the 85 ppb standard was implemented in 2007. The question is: Do official DFW air planners get the message this summer’s smog is sending? 

Last Update 9:30 pm

Here are the maps from 6 to 7 and 7 to 8 pm.

At 6 pm, the Keller monitor had an 8-hour average of 102 ppb, and that still included one reading below 100 from this morning.

And yep, the Denton monitor will record an “exceedence” of at least
97 ppb today, meaning the new 95 ppb Design Value is now shared between it and Keller.

And here’s the 7 to 8 pm map that’s going to finish things off for tonight. Keller establishes a new 8-hour region high for this season of 103 ppb. Denton sees a second-highest 98 ppb 8 hour average.

Levels will trail off, but they might not trail off that much. Part of what’s made these last two days so bad is that the overnight ozone levels remain high. If that happens tonight and we go into a work day with the combination of circumstances that have been causing this weekend’s high reading…..

Another bad day could see the DFW Design Value go to 97 ppb by way of the Keller site. Another two days and it’s in 100 ppb plus territory. Denton is also a couple of bad days away from sending us to the same fate. It’s hard to overstate just how contradictory this scenario is to the Way Things Are Supposed To Go.

We’re not “almost there” any more. Air quality in DFW is not getting better. Rick Perry’s policies haven’t made the air cleaner. In fact, they’ve brought us to this massive failure. This weekend settles it – empirically.

Crash and Burn: Smogust is Mocking TCEQ Air Plan

Another late August day, another rise in DFW’s smog “Design Value,” another monitor breaking the law.

Friday wasn’t as bad as Thursday, but it was bad enough. Keller’s air monitor recorded a new season-high benchmark “Design Value” of 92 parts per billion. Two days ago it was 90. As of today, Keller’s smog level is exactly what it was in 2004 – before the last clean air plan was implemented.

Also on Friday, the “Dallas North” monitor became the 6th one to officially violate the Clean Air Act this summer. Last year there were two. You have to go back to 2006 to find so many DFW monitors in violation.

Seven monitors saw their season-high ozone readings set yesterday, although only three of these were above the old federal standard of 85 ppb.

Dallas North              98 ppb
Frisco                        92 ppb
Dallas Hinton             88 ppb
Greenville                  83 ppb
Kaufman                    76 ppb
Dallas Exec. Airport   78 ppb
Italy                            67 ppb

Another four had what are now routine “exceedences” of the 85 ppb standard.

Keller            97 ppb
Grapevine     91 ppb
Denton          87 ppb
Pilot Point     86 ppb

In all, there were seven eight-hour averages over the 85 ppb standard. No eight-hour averages over 100 ppb, but there were plenty of sites where hourly 100 and above readings were common from 2 pm to 6 pm.

14 out of 20 monitors have seen their season highs set the last two days. Two more monitors violated the Clean Air Act in that same 48 hour period, and the Design Value has gone up 2 ppb.

We checked, and according to those whiz-bang computer models the state uses in its proposed DFW air plan, the TCEQ- predicted Design Value for Keller next year is supposed to be 76 ppb – some 17 ppb lower than it is as of today. There’s never been a drop like that in the history of monitoring these things, going back to 1997.

And the so far 6 ppb rise in the Design Value this year means TCEQ must rely on more and more ridiculous scenarios to justify submitting its clean air plan to EPA that predicts everything will be hunky-dory in just 13 months.

Federal law says you have to have a three-year running average of Design Values that totals no more than 84 ppb in order for the DFW plan to succeed. Let’s review then. Last year’s Design Value was 86 ppb (we mistakenly listed it as 85 yesterday). This year’s will be at least 92 ppb. And that means the TCEQ needs that 76 ppb maximum reading next summer that its predicting for Keller for its plan to work. Without it, the three-year average exceeds 84 and the plan is finally, officially, completely, utterly dead.

That is, for the currently-proposed TCEQ DFW air plan to work with the numbers we have today, there can’t be a monitor in DFW that will register a fourth-highest reading higher than 76 ppb in 2012. As of today, 10 sites do.

TCEQ’s plan is failing by larger margins with each passing orange alert.

DFW’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Smog Day

Yesterday was the single worst day for ozone pollution in DFW this year. How bad was it?

Over a third of DFW’s air monitors – 8 of 21 – had their ozone season highs for eight-hour readings set by yesterday’s smog. Six of those were “exceedences” of the old 8-hour 85 ppb federal ozone standard. You know, the one we’re supposed to be meeting by now.

Denton            102 ppb
Keller              100 ppb
Grapevine         98 ppb
Pilot Point          91ppb
Dallas North      90 ppb
Parker County   85 ppb
Eagle Mnt Lake 84 ppb
FW NW              82 ppb

There haven’t been two 8-hour averages of 100 ppb or more in DFW since 2007. In all, eight DFW monitors accumulated 23 hours of smog readings that were 100 ppb or above. The day’s single highest hourly reading was 115 ppb in Keller.

Grapevine’s monitor became the fifth one in DFW to officially violate the Clean Air Act by registering its fourth reading over 85 ppb. There haven’t been as many DFW monitors in violation of the Clean Air Act since 2006 – before the last clean air plan kicked-in.

Pilot Point’s high reading sent the entire DFW “Design Value” for ozone pollution (the highest reading among all fourth highest readings) up another notch, from 90 to 91 ppb. Last year it was 85 ppb. We’re only one very bad air day in Denton away from seeing it jump to 95 ppb. From the looks of the forecast, today could be that day.

Please keep in mind that George W. Bush’s EPA scientists said an ozone standard protective of public health would be set somewhere in the 60 to 70 ppb range.

And take note that the computer modeling underlying the state’s currently-proposed “clean air plan” for DFW predicts our Design Value will be no higher than 85 ppb this year.

Remember a couple of weeks ago when the Dallas Morning News published an article saying ozone wasn’t really that bad this summer?

And remember when Joe Barton said the other night at his town hall meeting that air quality in DFW was getting better?

They’re wrong. This is the worse ozone season in four to five years. Air quality is not improving, it’s declining.

This isn’t just an unfortunate turn of events, or lousy luck. This was a predictable outcome of policies pursued by the state, including submitting a clean air plan that consists entirely of hoping people buy new cars, and letting gas industry pollution go unregulated.

Designed to Fail: The State Writes Clean Air Plans It Knows Won’t Work

When does a government environmental agency forfeit its claim on being worthy of the title?

When it’s unresponsive to citizen complaints?

When it writes rules that blatantly favor polluters at the expense of citizens?

How about when it begins writing required federal air clean air plans that it knows will never actually result in cleaner air?

That’s what happened this year in DFW, when both our “non-attainment” areas – for smog and now lead contamination  – were the subject of what the Clean Air Act calls “State Implementation Plans.” These plans are assigned to the state agencies to write, but must be submitted to EPA for approval.

In DFW, our chronic smog problem over the last 20-30 years has required many of these plans from what is now called the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the last of which was 2006-2007. That was aimed at trying to get us down below the obsolete 1997 federal standard of 85 ppb of ozone or smog. It had rules for reducing cement kiln pollution for the first time, along with several other initiatives  Although ozone levels came down, we didn’t get below 85 ppb. Under federal law, an area has to keep submitting plans until you reduce pollution enough to meet the standard you’re aiming for.

So a new plan was required by the EPA. One that’s designed to meet the 85 ppb standard by the end of the 2012 smog season – NEXT YEAR. That’s the one recently proposed by the TCEQ after the last public hearing in early mid-July. Final comments were due on August 8th. But this plan is unlike any other in history because it does nothing but sit back and watch people buy new cars.

That’s right. The state’s entire plan for getting us down to a level of smog that’s now considered “unprotective of human health” by the George W. Bush EPA is letting the market do its thing and allow folks to replace their older, more polluting cars with newer, less polluting ones. Should that new car buying not proceed at the pace the TCEQ computer modeling requires, DFW will have failed twice in the last six years to reach a 14-year-old standard for air quality.

But there’s overwhelming circumstantial evidence that TCEQ never really intended DFW to meet that goal. Indeed, from the evidence it appears that wasn’t the primary goal of this smog plan at all. It’s real goal was not to impose any new rules and regulations that industry might find bothersome while waiting for the Obama Administration to announce a new ozone standard that would necessitate a new, more elaborate air plan for DFW that could then be used to achieve both goals….eventually, and after Rick Perry was finished running for President.

Because the new DFW air plan was written by TCEQ not to achieve the 85 ppb standard, but to allow Perry to avoid making any potential business donors mad at him over new air quality controls mandated by a more aggressive plan. How do we know this? Because the “do-nothing” plan that TCEQ has yet to officially submit to EPA has been so effective at doing nothing about cleaner air that it’s already failed.

A running average is kept by EPA of DFW’s last three summer high ozone readings to determine whether we’re in compliance with the ozone standard or not. As of right now, that three year running average stands at 88ppb, thanks to the smoggiest summer in DFW since 2007. We have until only the end of next summer to bring that down to 84ppb or this proposed TCEQ plan officially fails. Our high ozone reading for next summer would have to be only 77 ppb to reach that goal. We’ve never gone below 85.

Even before they submit this plan, it’s already DOA and the state knows it. So does the EPA. In comments submitted on August 8th, EPA Region 6 Air Planning Chief Guy Donaldson concluded that:

“The State has noted that, based on a technical demonstration including modeling and other evidence that the Dallas Fort Worth areas will attain the 1997 ozone standard by the end of the 2012 ozone season. Based on the current monitoring data and the limited reductions that will happen between now in 2012, however, it seems unlikely that the area will attain.”

This current failed plan is just a placeholder. The state is waiting for the EPA to announce a new federal ozone standard this summer that DFW will also not be able to meet and use that extended timeline for a SIP to kick the DFW smog can down the road. Meanwhile, DFW residents continue to pay for Governor Perry’s political ambitions with their health.

Everyone knows the TCEQ’s smog plan won’t work, but because the TCEQ can show, on paper, at least, that it’s computer modeling predicts that it will, this strange Kabuki theater of submitting a proposal that’s already failed is allowed to continue to its bitter end.

In Frisco however, the state did away with any pretense of appearances and didn’t even bother with a decent computer model, or much of anything else by the looks of the EPA comments on that clean air plan.

The land in and around the Exide lead-battery smelter is violating the lead air concentration standards of the Clean Air Act and caused the city to host the region’s second “non-attainment” area. Consequently, the state also had to draft a plan to clean up that mess. It didn’t do a very good job. In fact, it looks like it went out of its way to do a really bad one. On the same day he was telling TCEQ that ts DFW smog plan probably wouldn’t work, EPA’s Donaldson was also telling the Commission that since it had ignored routine guidance on how to perform modeling, the Frisco plan was “unapprovable.”

It’s not that EPA never rejects plans from state government. It does. It’s the reasons the EPA gave this time, on paper, for its rejection that make the Frisco case just a great example of your tax dollars at work. Despite the EPA specifically telling TCEQ what it needed to perform the analysis, the TCEQ refuses to do it. The frustration comes through despite the formalized style employed by EPA in writing such comments:

“The modeling analyses (Base Case and Future Case), in many cases, do not follow EPA regulations and guidelines for attainment demonstration SIP modeling. TCEQ did not follow the provisions of 40 CFR 5l.lI2 and 40 CFR Part 51 Appendix W, Guideline on Air Quality Models (GAQM). In particular, TCEQ did not conduct modeling in accordance with a modeling protocol agreed to between EPA and TCEQ. Despite EPA’s requests for a protocol prior to TCEQ conducting the modeling for the attainment demonstration SIP, no protocol was shared with EPA prior to TCEQ finalizing the modeling included in the proposal. EPA did have a number of conference calls with TCEQ and provided guidance on modeling for this proposal, but TCEQ did not follow many of EPA’s recommendations to meet the requirements of 40 CFR5I.II2 and 40 CFR Part 51 Appendix W, GAQM.”

The level of non-cooperation is so extensive, so fundamental that one can only conclude that the TCEQ intentionally sabotaged its own plan. Never disturb business if you can avoid it, even when its a lead smelter in the middle of America’s fastest growing city.

In effect, the Perry Administration has adopted the tactics of non-cooperation” that the Deep South state governments adopted during the 1950s and 60s to fight enforcement of federal civil rights laws and applied them to fighting the enforcement of federal environmental laws. Just like George Wallace and his ilk didn’t believe in the goals of integration, so Rick Perry and his TCEQ don’t believe smog and lead are bad for you. They reject the entire premise of the laws they are charged with enforcing. But instead of standing in the Exide corporate doorway keeping the EPA out, Perry and the TCEQ have just decided not to perform its responsibilities as the state’s environmental agency. They’re writing air plans that are designed to fail.

TICK TOCK TICK TOCK

The Obama EPA is set to meet its fourth deadline in less than two years for announcing a new federal ozone standard. If they don’t hurry up and get one out soon, we may all have to suffer through another failed TCEQ air plan for the old standard.

Compare and Contrast

This is the article the Dallas Morning News printed today on 2011 ozone levels. You should read it.

Then, if you haven’t already, you should read the post directly below this one.

Now, decide if the DMN wrote their piece specifically to try to rebut our post, or is it independently that shallow in how it looks at the data from this year?

No mention of the one or two air plans that have been implemented between the first part of last decade and now. Or the big difference in pre-2007 numbers vs after-2007 numbers.

No mention of the flat line that has been our ozone levels in DFW since around 2007, or the roll back this year’s numbers represents. Or mention that air pollution from new gas sources over the last five years is actually making planned progress impossible.

No mention of the fact that this year’s Design Value is the highest since 2009, and we have more monitors out of compliance than at anytime since 2007.

No mention of what part, if any, the economic slowdown is responsible for the difference between the early oughts and now.

No mention of the phenomena of excessive heat actually leading to less ozone because of the lack of atmospheric mix, something discussed in our comments section.

No mention of the fact that the proposed TCEQ do-over air plan aimed at the old 85 ppb standard is already obsolete itself because of the severity of this summer’s ozone numbers.

This summer is not following the script the TCEQ had already written in their air plan, but you wouldn’t know it from reading the News

They’ve got their rose-colored glasses on.

Worst DFW Smog in Five Years: Can We Stop Talking About How Air Quality is Getting Better?

As reported below, this last Wednesday was the single smoggiest day in DFW this summer.

In fact, it was the single worst day in at least two summers, and maybe longer.

One of the results of this first week of Smogust was that a fourth DFW monitor, way up in Pilot Point, Denton County, had an “exceedence” over 85 ppb for the fourth time this year and it officially joined Keller, Denton, and Frisco as locations that have violated the 1997 federal ozone standard in 2011.

DFW has not had four monitors in violation of that standard since 2007. Using that as a measuring stick, we’ve already had the smoggiest summer in five years.

DFW’s ozone “Design Value,” i.e. the highest reading among the pool of fourth-highest readings at each monitor (every monitor gets three mulligans before the “exceedences” officially count as a Clean Air Act violation) so far this summer is the 90 ppb reading from the Keller monitor in early July.  That’s the second highest in the last five years (Eagle Mtn Lake had a 91 in 2009), and 5 ppb worse than it was last year.

Air quality in DFW has stopped getter better. At best, it’s stagnating. At worse, we’re seeing a rollback. This is exactly the opposite of what’s supposed to be happening according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Because all of us are supposed to be going out and buying new, less polluting cars (thanks to that awful EPA) smog levels should be steadily decreasing. To the point where we’ll be below 85 ppb by the end of NEXT summer. It’s all right there in their computer model. If only the real word would get it together and act like the model.

And it’s only the beginning of August. We’ve had violations as late as September 21, and season-high readings as late as mid-August. With the continuing drought and heat, we could certainly have high numbers well into September this year. Grapevine is just one more “exceedence” over 85 ppb away from being another monitor officially in violation of the Clean Air Act –  that would bring the total to five. Dallas North and Rockwall are two and three bad air days away from adding to that number. We’re just two more bad days away at Denton and Frisco from seeing the Design Value climb to as high as 91 or 95 ppb.

DFW hasn’t seen dramatic decreases in pollution since the most important parts of the 2006-2007 air plan was implemented – the one that cut cement plant pollution from Midlothian and contained actual control measures instead of just being a spectator to new car purchases.

Since that point, progress has stopped and a retreat is now in progress. Rick Perry is not making DFW air cleaner. He and his TCEQ are making it harder to have safe and legal air in DFW by not requiring the same level of controls on the cement plants, coal plants, and the gas industry as EPA has required of cars and trucks. These are the sources of smog pollution the state is responsible for regulating, only Rick Perry’s environmental agency isn’t interested in, you know, improving the environment.  Meanwhile, breathers in North Texas are stuck with the worst air in the last five years with no end in sight.

SMOGUST- Updated

Sunscreen? Check. Hydration? Check. Oxygen tank?
Check.

Monday it was the Frisco monitor with a violation of the 1997 eight-hour ozone standard we’re still trying to meet in 2011. Tuesday it was Denton. Today…..by 11 am Rockwall shot up to 99 ppb which isn’t a good sign at all. Look for one or more monitors to trip again by the time the sun sets. You can keep track of your own deteriorating air quality here.

Update:
And so Wednesday’s final tally produced the single worst bad air day in DFW this summer, as well as the worst ozone season in five years. Six monitors exceeded the 1997 8-hour, 85 ppb federal standard that the current TCEQ clean air plan is supposed to meet: Frisco, Denton, Dallas North, Rockwall, Grapevine, and Pilot Point. Five of those monitors recorded  their highest readings for this summer. Combined with Tuesday’s violation in Pilot Point (which we missed), today’s smog levels make that monitor the fourth one in DFW now totally out of compliance with the 85 standard.  And folks, we haven’t had four monitors out of compliance with the 1997 standard since 2007.