Don’t Stop Now – Help Us Keep Winning – DMN Urges Gas Vote

pushingbackFour years ago, when the Dallas Drilling Fight began in earnest, the issue was not familiar to most of the city's residents or its major daily newspaper. Then, it was just a handful of residents like Ed and Claudia Meyer, Raymond Crawford and others who were raising objections to sites being considered so close to their neighborhoods.

In 2013, things have changed a lot, thanks to you.

We've defeated the Trinity East permits twice now – once last December and again in March – despite opposition from the Mayor, most of the Council, and City Hall staff. That was your doing –  showing up in unprecedented numbers to City Plan Commission meetings and raising so much constructive hell that they couldn't ignore you or the issue.

We've convinced the Dallas Morning News to editorialize against those permits, and as of today, call for a full council vote on them that would probably result in their definitive denial.  That's also thanks to you.

Like a dog tugging a single thread from a blanket, we've held on and unraveled one of the largest City Hall scandals in recent memory – discovering a secret memo signed by the Dallas City Manager pledging her support and the support of her staff to see that Trinity East got permission to drill in parks and flood plains. Your persistence in the fight created the time to unearth this critical document.

Because of that persistence, this Spring there's not a single Dallas city council race questionnaire that doesn't ask the candidates where they stand on the drilling issue. You've helped us put it at the top of everyone's public agenda.

From an afterthought to front page news, you've helped us win this fight so far. So we're asking you to do a little bit more to bring it home.

1) If you haven't aleady, tell the current city council to Vote on the Trinity East permits and vote No. It takes all of 30 seconds to send a quick e-mail to the Mayor and Council.

2) If you're a Dallas resident, please vote for a "no drilling in parks" candidate in the municipal election scheduled for May 11th (early voting begins April 29th). These are the five strongest candidates:

Scott Griggs in District 1

Adam Medrano in District 2

Claudia Meyer in District 3

Leland Burk in District 13

Phillip Kingston in District 14

3) Please consider a donation to Downwinders at Risk. We're launching our mid-year appeal for funding. It's your generosity that's kept us in the game. We depend on grassroots funding from ordinary citizens such as you. We don't have a DC or Austin office. We just do work in DFW. And we only do these fundraising events twice a year – once in December and once in April, so your participation is important.

The one last December was our most successful effort yet – generating enough donations from you to be able to fund four months of continual campaigning. That was your money paying to turn citizens out for the Plan Commission meetings, to host news conferences, to spend on gas for appoitnments all over town, for a briefing book on the environmental health effects of drilling that was handed out to every Plan Commission member. Your contributions went directly to the front lines of the drilling fight.

But your money also went to our work in Frisco, helping residents there campaign for a more protective clean-up after 50 years of fallout and waste from the Exide lead smelter. We’ve been holding the company and regulatory agencies accountable because nobody else is willing or able to do the job.

Your December contributions also paid for the first baby steps to establish a local pool of medical expertise that could provide support to citizens fighting public health threats from pollution. This is a resource that’s much needed, but nobody else was stepping up to provide it until we began our fledgling effort.

You also paid for us to participate in national strategy sessions about how to keep the cement plants in Midlothian from becoming larger and larger waste disposal operations and challenge EPA’s approval of the new weakened emission rules for kilns.

Now it’s April. That means the start of “ozone season” here in DFW. For the last two years, DFW has seen smog get worse. We also saw the failure of yet another state “clean air plan.” With this year’s drought, we could again see lots of bad air days. We’re the only group that’s doing local anti-smog work and that means the next six months will be busy.

And that’s what we're asking you to help us pay for this time – the next four, the next six, the next eight months worth of organizing work in Dallas-Ft. Worth on clean air issues – wherever and whatever the battles are – Dallas, Frisco, Midlothian, down the street from you, wherever.

You know we work hard at putting your money to work for your lungs. We're asking that you grade us on our last four months of that work, and if you agree we've done a pretty good job, then please drop a bill in the jar. We need the money to keep fighting. Thanks.

Give securely online at https://www.downwindersatrisk.org/donate. Thanks.

Jim Schermbeck, Director, Downwinders at Risk

You’re Not Nearly As Safe As You Think You Are

toxic-chemicalsMost Americans assume that by the time a product has made it to market, it must have been tested for its toxicity. Nope. Not even close. Of the approximately 85,000 chemicals available to a consumer in the US, only a tiny fraction have been tested for their impact to human health, or for their health impact in combination with the other 84,999 chemicals.

Or for that matter, their impact on downwind populations breathing their smoldering remains from cement kilns burning garbage for fuel.

This is one reason why babies are born "pre-polluted," hosting a laundry list of synthetic chemicals inside their tiny bodies before they're even out of the womb.

There is a federal law that's supposed to prevent toxic chemicals from entering the marketplace, the Toxic Substances Control Act. But as this article from the New York Times reminds us, it's "the only major environmental statute whose core provisions have not been re-authorized or substantively updated since its adoption in the 1970s," when there were maybe only 25,000 chemicals untested.

There is now a presumption under the law that a substance is "safe until proven guilty." This is exactly opposite of what a logical approach would look like, given all we know about the toxicology of chemical exposure. Indeed, this is why there's an explicit alternative in the form of the "Precatuonary Principle" that says a chemical should not be marketed until it's thoroughly tested for health impacts.

And sure enough, there's some congressional pressure to change the 40-year old law to reflect modern science.

Federal reform of the toxic substances act may be coming. Last week, Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, and Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York,  introduced a bill called the Safe Chemicals Act of 2013, which would require the chemical industry to demonstrate that a chemical is safe in order for it to be sold. The bill, which has more than 25 Democratic co-sponsors, would put limits on trade secret practices and requires industry to reduce use of the chemicals designated by the E.P.A. as being of “greatest concern” because they are most toxic. 

There is zero chance of such a bill making it through this House, or perhaps even this theoretically Democratically-controlled Senate, but it's good to begin having the discussion,because even the industry folks are beginning to act a little nervous about the gap between perception and reality.

If Exide Goes Bankrupt, What Happens to the Lead-Filled Landfills of Frisco?

toxic-assetsLast week the Exide battery company, owner of the now defunct Frisco lead smelter, hired a financial "restructuring" specialist firm by the name of Lazard, although the media coverage that followed the move suggested the more apt moniker could be Lazarus.

"Exide Technologies has been in the midst of a turnaround for awhile now and, like a car stuck in a snowbank, it hasn't been able to gain traction. Yesterday's price action on its stock suggests the market thinks it's going to end up in the ditch."

The news came on the same day the Los Angeles-based law firm of Glancy, Binkow & Goldberg said it would look into claims on behalf of Exide stockholders about possible violations of federal securities laws. Specifically, the firm’s investigation concerns allegations Exide issued misleading statements or failed to disclose material adverse facts concerning the company’s operations.

Nationwide, the company has been pulling back, selling off assets and closing plants. At last count, it had one operating smelter left in the US, and Exide just received noticed from the State of California that it will have to significantly reduce its pollution or it will be forced to close for causing a cancer hazard.

Meanwhile, the company is in the middle of a forced withdrawal from its Frisco smelter site, removing most buildings and surface structures, but leaving millions of pounds of lead contaminated smelter waste behind in a variety of landfills and dumps. It got some needed cash when the City of Frisco purchased surrounding acreage that was never the site of any production, but Exide is retaining ownership of the core smelter site – the very most toxic part.

Besides begging the question of whether this is the kind of company you want owning 100 toxic acres in the middle of your town – what happens if Exide doesn't own it? If the company goes bankrupt, who's responsible for insuring a thorough clean-up of the site, or doing anything else with it…ever?

You have to ask yourself if you were buying Exide's assets, would you really want a former smelter site with no smelter and lots of potential clean-up problems? On the other hand, the only path toward redevelopment of any kind hinges on the location of the land being in one of the region's hottest markets, so maybe a buyer that could invest in a clean-up could see some return from exploiting its proximity to everything else in Frisco.

If there's no buyers for Exide, the party of last resort is you the taxpayer via the EPA's Superfund Program. But that only guarantees you a spot on a waiting list. It could be left abandoned and toxic for decades after it's been officially listed.

You only have to look at Exide's former Dixie Smelter site in South Dallas to get an idea of what's in store for Frisco if the company is left to its own devices. Chain link fencing, warning signs, and a ring of groundwater monitoring wells surrounding a blank slate of land.

Which is to say that the City of Frisco has a spectacular self-interest in seeing that this entire smelter site gets the most protective, and most economically-desirable, clean-up that can be won. And so frustrating that the City signed over its rights to intervene in the formal closure permitting process.

If Frisco residents want a more pro-active role in insuring a proper and protective clean-up of a potential Superfund Site directly upstream from the City's proposed Grand Park, they're going to have to find a way for themselves or the City to act in self-defense on some other front besides the regulated closure process. Otherwise, they're just going to be helpless spectators to the last thing manufactured at the Exide site: a permanent toxic no-man's land.  

A Breather’s Guide to Voting in Dallas City Council Races

Drilling in Dallas - EveningIn it's recent Dallas City Council questionnaire, The Dallas Monring News asked this question: What is your position, for or against, allowing gas drilling in Dallas and the city's attempts to regulate it?

Here are the answers:

Council District 1:

Delia Jasso (incumbent):
I am most concerned with safety for all the citizens of Dallas as gas drilling relates to clean air and clean water. At this time, I would not like to comment on being for or against allowing gas drilling as there may be future legal issues involved with this issue.

Scott Griggs (incumbent):
I have studied this issue extensively and I oppose gas drilling, fracking, refining, and production within the City of Dallas adjacent to our neighborhoods, schools, and parks. I am opposed to surface gas drilling operations in our parks. Under state law, we must have a gas drilling ordinance and I look to cities such as Flower Mound and South Lake for best practices.


Council District 2:

Adam Medrano:
I do not believe gas drilling has a place in high-density urban areas like Dallas.

Herschel Weisfeld
The Citizens of Dallas deserve the right to have a clean safe environment to live and work with guarantees that our air, water and playgrounds can be protected for generations to come. It is the City Council's responsibility to make informed decisions that are guided by the best information available and by Council Members that are willing to do homework outside of the traditional briefing in order to answer the hard questions that demand alternative evaluation with respect for the best interest of our Citizens and the entire North Texas Region.


Vernon Franco
I am against drilling anywhere in the city that could present a danger to public health and safety. Our civic leaders have an obligation to design, implement and enforce local ordinances that protect the health and welfare of our residents. With our current city efforts to encourage Green building and a transition to cleaner burning CNG-powered vehicles, it is imperative that we make public safety number one as we move forward.

Ricky Gonzales
The City of Dallas has made a spectacle of it's self when it comes to this issue. I have not participated in the gas meetings because Dallas has no right to agree to drilling while they are accepting fees only to deny the actual process. I agree we have to utilize our natural resources in the appropriate manner, but the method should have been scrutinized way before we accepted any funds from the gas industry.


Council District 3

Vonciel Hill (incumbent District 5)

The health and safety of our residents is the primary consideration. However, the City is currently in a litigation posture as to this issue. Therefore, as a sitting Councilmember, I would be imprudent to comment further at this time.

Claudia Meyer

I have spent over three years intensively researching the pros and cons of gas drilling on our air, land, and water. Based on the research, and input of residents, I support passing a more protective gas drilling ordinance which prohibits surface drilling in park land, keeps it out of floodplains, and is kept at a minimum of 1000 feet from homes, schools, parks, dams and hospitals. The decision by the City Plan Commission to deny the pending Trinity East permits should be upheld by the City Council, and any new permits applied for should be processed under the new, more protective ordinance.

Michael Connally
I am for drilling but only if the highest standards for safety and a clean environment will be met. Gas is a resource. It's value can only be realized by tapping the resource. Untapped, the resource remains and will likely appreciate in potential value. We can afford to take the time to get it right.

Kermit Mitchell
Gas drilling should be allowed in the city. Environmental concerns must be respected. The regulatory prohibitions should have been cleared before the RFP was publicized. This is a grievious mistake at the staff level of the City Manager and the Council. The City of Dallas is obligated to regulate such drilling to protect the citizens, the environment, and control the competition for the projected profits. The City of Dallas needs the resultant tax revenues to improve the city quality of life. As Councilor, I would explore the possibility of the drilling site to move to an industrial area, such as the warehouse for the beer distribution in South Dallas, and look to give the residents of South Dallas payment for oil and mineral rights as the oil is drilled in a slant or horizonal pattern underneath their properties. There is acreage in District 3 that might be developed in a similar manner.

 


Council District 4
Dwaine Caraway running unopposed
 


Councl Diistrict 5

Jesse Diaz
I am a person that believes in clean energy, protecting the environment and a green economy. Having said that, I consider myself a pro-business individual. As a Council member I will review the proposal of drilling and listen to proponents and those against drilling. I will not be afraid of asking tough questions and making informed decisions in this and other topics.

Bruce Shaw
I am against drilling at this time seeing how North Texas already has a serious air quality problem. Also,the long term effect on environment in this region is not known.

Rick Callahan
I am for it. Dallas needs the revenue. However, the City of Dallas has an obligation to regulate the drilling activity in a safe, efficient, environmentally responsible way. The City leadership, staff, particularly the City Attorney's office has a duty to make sure that all city ordinances are obeyed to the fullest or change them to reflect the will of the people or majority. That includes, but is not limited to prohibiting the surface drilling in parks.

Yolanda Williams
I can not offer my position at this time. In the future , I recommend the city to be more transparent and educate the citizens. Seek their input.

 

District 6

Monica Alonzo (incumbent)
I cannot support an application until after the council has had the opportunity to debate and vote on the task force recommendations. 

Raymond Salinas
The Dallas Morning News did not receive a response from the candidate prior to our deadline.

District 7

Carolyn Davis (incumbent):
Until we have much better information about potential public health and safety impacts, I am opposed to gas drilling in Dallas. Our city is a densely populated area and this is an environmentally sensitive issue that we need to move slowly on. I want to see adequate protections for neighborhoods. We need to do some more work, and clearly define how and where gas drilling can safely occur with minimal risk to public safety.

Ona Marie Hendricks:
I digress.

Council District 8

Tennell Atkins (Incumbent):
I voted to allow drilling on sites voted upon by the city council, which excluded park land.

Subrina Brenham:
The plan commission is a quasi-judicial board established to provide an indebt view of city's land view policies. Therefore, I have some concerns that Atkins demanded his appointee to the CPC to change her vote to support the Trinity East fracking on parkland. Sure we need money. I have not been convinced of the negative impact on our natural resources.


Council District 9
Sheffie Kadane running unopposed

Council District 10
Jerry Allen running unopposed

Council District 11

Lee Kleinman
I will not take a postion at this time because the issue is far to complex to evaluate in the midst of a campaign. The Task force spent 9 months on this issue and I personally know and respect a number of its members. The Council has yet to adopt its recommendations and it will take a much deeper study of the facts before I can take a formal position.

Ori Raphael
I am currently for allowing gas drilling in Dallas as long as it is deemed safe and not in a public park, case in point next to a soccer field. A major concern is the fact that the city has already spent the money that the gas companies have paid for their leases. What is to come if and when they request their money back? In the end the tax payers have to fit the bill in legal and other unforeseen costs. The situation was not handled well and the City Council should have made a clear decision on this issue from the very beginning.
 


Council District 12
Sandy Greyson – running unopposed


Council District 13

Leland Burk
As an oil and gas investor, I know both the risks and rewards of drilling. I am against gas drilling on park land, or any land in the City of Dallas.

Jennifer Staubach-Gates
I do not support gas drilling / fracking in or near neighborhoods. I think there are very few areas in our City where drilling could potentially be allowed. These opportunities should be considered on a case-by-case basis with careful consideration to protecting our air quality, water usage and other environmental concerns.

Jacob King
A lease does not always guarantee that drilling will occur, and the city must consider all possible means to generate revenue without levying taxes on the residents of Dallas. I beleive leases should be limited to park land that is not open for recreation purposes as it is, and I do not believe any recreational parks should ever be closed for drilling.

Richard Sheridan
The Dallas Morning News did not receive a response from the candidate prior to our deadline.

Council District 14

Bobby Abtahi
We need to tighten our regulations and recognize an evolving technology. Locating intense uses on city parks is not appropriate and we need to be consistent. I was one of three City Plan Commissioners to vote against allowing a concrete crushing operation to locate near a park. The City Council later reversed the majority of the Commission and denied the request. We also need to keep a critical eye on the Legislature to ensure that our oversight capability is not diminished.

Phillip Kingston
I oppose gas drilling, fracking, and refining within the city limits of Dallas. These activities are inconsistent with my focus on improving residential quality of life, but they will also do long-term damage to Dallas’s ability to attract economic development. I believe our air quality, specifically our EPA non-attainment status, is already limiting Dallas’s growth. As businesses and high-skill workers have more and more choices in where to locate in the future, air quality will factor into their decision making.

David Blewett
I support the City's ability to allow gas drilling in Dallas. However, the city's attempt to regulate it has been inadequate. I do not believe we have done enough to educate our citizens about the potential risks involved (particularly in the flood plain and parkland) and that until we do, we should not be drilling. We must have community input and involvement from the start, no matter the issue, without any back room deals.

Kevin Curley
In Dallas, the potential for natural gas development is only a viable option for a small part of the western perimeter. In 2008, recognizing the economic benefit to other cities, Dallas sought out and entered into lease contracts for drilling and accepted $34 million in lease payments from companies wanting to drill. There are still issues that need to be addressed before drilling in Dallas should move forward. I would support increasing the setbacks for specific uses. I would not arbitrarily support drilling in parkland, but I would support discussions about drilling in remote and undeveloped parkland that included a master plan for development. A good example of how drilling and land use development could work is a former drilling site in Burleson that has been converted to baseball fields and a green for a golf course. Drilling can and has been done prudently in many other areas and with tremendous economic benefits and hopefully Dallas can realize some of its reserve potential. But my first priority would be to assure we have established guidelines that protect the environment, the safety of our residents, our property values and the future development of our park areas.

Chuck Kobdish
Fracking has created a great deal of wealth for municipalities, businesses, and property owners alike. It is highly regulated and so I am for fracking when conducted responsibly. It is safer than burning fossil fuels and that is often overlooked. I am opposed to drilling on land designated as public parks. The equipment creates an eye sore and noise and therefore affects our quality of life.

Judy Limatainnen
Gas drilling is a very difficult subject. If you are talking about the drilling that is one subject. If you are talking about the compressor station being built also ajacent to the part that puts a whole new spin on it. I think that the city of Dallas needs to look very hard at any contract going forward on public land to make sure the public is protected, the environment is not damaged and if drilling occurs that the city benefits financially at the best rate possible. I don't think a compressor station should ever be put that close to public/park land.

Jim Rogers
I am opposed to “fracking” within the City of Dallas. The primary obligation of the City of Dallas is to protect Dallas’ citizens and Dallas’ assets (water). Without question the city must regulate drilling in the city limits including on city parkland. I am absolutely against drilling in Dallas parks or near homes or businesses We know that drilling operations are disruptive to surrounding property owners and have the potential to damage property values. In addition, it is essential to protect our water supply.

Time to Tell the Dallas City Council: Vote NOW and Vote NO

Hunt Griggs MemorandumTired of fighting a rear-guard battle over 2007 gas leases that should have been dead and buried by now? Us too. And so are Dallas Council members Angela Hunt and Scott Griggs.

Last Friday they circulated this memo to their 13 other council colleagues looking for three – just three – signatures to add to their own in officially calling for a vote on the Trinity East gas permits. They need five members to make sure it goes, and stays, on the council's business agenda. As of Monday, they hadn't gotten any takers.

This is important because right now, with this council that meets until May, Angela and Scott believe they have the four "no" votes it would take to prevent the council from overturning the City Plan Commission's denial. If they're right, such a vote would be the last word on the matter and the permits would finally be history.

A couple of months ago, supporters of the permits wanted a vote ASAP. Now, not so much. That was before citizens won two consecutive votes on the permits before the City Plan Commission despite City Hall and industry's best efforts to try and steamroll them through. Now, supporters say, it's time to slow down and wait for maybe the next council – which could be even more pro-drilling than this one. They say this with a straight face even though Trinity East itself is calling for a vote on the permits now, just like us.

Which is why we need you to once again let your fingers do the protesting and send a quick click n' send e-mail message to all 15 city council members: Vote NOW and Vote NO.

In particular, these current city council members are running for re-election in contested races this year:

Delia Jasso and Scott Griggs are running against each other in District 1.

Vonciel Jones in New District 3, running against gas permit opponent and grassroots advocate Claudia Meyer.

Monica Alonzo in District 6, running against Raymond Salinas.

If you can vote in a contested city council race, please make sure you note this in your message to the council, along with the fact that not signing Hunt's and Grigg's memo will factor in how you vote in that race. And to learn how all the city council candidates responded to the Dallas Morning News's question about gas drilling, please see our Breather's Guide to the Dallas City Council Races.

You've been so good about showing-up when you needed to. Don't think this fight is won yet. The fate of these gas permits is still undecided.

We need all of you to take a minute and send your message to the Mayor and entire council now. We get five signatures and bring this to a vote before May 11th and we'll never have to bug you about going to yet another meeting about the Trinity East permits again.  Do it now: https://www.downwindersatrisk.org/featured-citizen-action/

Thanks.

Can Obama’s EPA Save Us From TCEQ’s “Clean Air Plans”?

Dallas smog aerialIt's only a proposal, but the Obama Administration's plan to cut sulfur in gasoline is aimed primarily at drastically reducing smog-forming Nitrogen Oxide, Volatile Organic compounds and Particulate Matter, the major pollutants that causes DFW to have such bad "ozone seasons."  Would it reduce it enough to finally put the region in compliance with the Clean Air Act? Good question.

Sulfur content in gasoline would drop from the current standard of 30 ppm to 10 ppm by 2017 – one year before the compliance deadline for the tougher 75 parts per billion national ambient air ozone standard. That's not a coincidence. The EPA hopes that this initiative is going to drive urban ozone clean-up throughout the country, even in stubborn dirty air hot spots like DFW, which hasn't been in compliance with a smog standard since it was created over 20 years ago.

Along with new stricter emission standards for cars that have already been implemented, the pollution from cars will be coming down over the next decade to historic-per-vehicle lows. Since forever, the state of Texas and local officials have put almost all the blame for DFW's poor air quality on cars. So does this mean that we might actually have a chance to breathe safe and cleaner air, by say, 2020?

Maybe.

First, there's the question of continued growth. If per-car emissions go down, but you're importing 120,000 more cars every year into North Texas, the decreases in emissions are being canceled out to some degree. In this respect, DFW has been its own worst clean air enemy. By attracting new residents year after year and, for the most part, not creating successful transportation options other than private vehicles, the Metromess dooms itself to more total car pollution.

Then there's the climate. Everyone knows how unbearably hot it can get in DFW during July, August and September. That heat and sunlight is one reason we have a smog problem – it chemically transforms the Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) into ozone. What if it gets hotter, and drier? When the ground can't cool off at night and you start out with high morning temperatures that will only get worse by 5 pm, you know it's going to be a bad air day. The more days like that, the harder it's going to be to have safe and legal air despite the changes in engine design and fuel specs. So climate change could rob us of some of those automobile reductions.

If the last couple of years are any indication, you also have to wonder how much of those vehicle changes will be lost on DFW because we live in the Barnett Shale. 16,000 gas wells that are relatively short-term air polluters are being supplemented with more processing infrastructure like compressors, refineries, and pipelines that are year round polluters. Last year's Houston Advanced Research Consortium study estimated the impact of even a single compressor or flare to be as much as 3-10 ppm within five to ten miles, something it would take thousands of cars to accomplish. Even if those cars aren't there anymore, or their emissions make them less of a clean air threat, you have these decentralized major sources taking up the slack. This is one reason why the state itself told EPA that last year there was more VOC air pollution coming from oil an gas sources in North Texas than all the area's on-road cars and trucks, and a large contributing cause to why air quality has been getting worse in DFW over the last two years.

It's not just the number of these facilities but their physical location as well. The more the gas industry moves eastward, the more of the DFW core urban area is "downwind" of these sources, the more the pollution from these facilities combines with car emissions and other urban sources, and the longer they take to leave the now 10-county "non-attainment area," meaning they linger, exposed to sunlight and heat, and have more opportunity to create high levels of ozone. If you have more flares and compressors within 1 to 3 miles of one of 18 or so state air monitors – you will probably begin to see higher ozone readings as a result of their operation –  as you have the last couple of years. Most of these pipelines and processing facilities have come online only since 2006.

And that's just in the North Texas area. There's evidence to suggest that the gas industry's building-out to the southeast – or upwind – of DFW is also affecting our air quality. In the same way that Houston's air pollution is said to make our initial "background" ozone levels higher, so too the 60-100 compressors in Freestone County, about 90 miles southeast of Dallas also feed their under-regulated "Standard Permit" pollution into the DFW urban mix. As does the Haynesville Shale gas play itself, as do the remaining east and central Texas coal plants and so forth. If sources to the south and east continue to increase their emissions, it means DFW starts from further and further behind, so that even if cars get cleaner, they might not get so clean so fast as to compensate for this imbalance.

Then there's the "fire hose" effect of the three Midlothian cement plants sitting so close to one another as to create one large super plume that's usually pointed toward the DFW urban core most of "ozone season." Because of citizen efforts, those cement kilns are substantially cleaner in 2013 than they were as recently as 2008. All but one wet kiln is closed, and that one is due to shut down next year. None are burning hazardous waste. But they're still the largest stationary sources of pollution in North Texas – including emitting copious amounts of NOx and VOCs – and they can still impact monitor readings miles and miles away. It's unclear what impact the burning of newly-permitted "non-hazardous" industrial wastes like car parts and plastics in the Midlothian kilns will have on the formation of smog-forming pollution.

EPA estimates an 80% drop in VOC and NOX pollution from cars as a result of its new low-sulfur fuel rule. That's steep. Remove that amount of pollution from all DFW's cars and trucks, and you'd expect to see a substantial improvement in air quality. That's what you'd expect. But, depending on a lot of other variables the state and federal government may or may not be interested in fixing, it could take more than this proposal to bring DFW into compliance with the new 75 ppb ozone standard that is now the federal definition of safe and legal air.

Over 1 Million Deaths a Year from Air Pollution In China

Chineses Shanghai polltuionIs this what happens when all the polluters "move to China?"

Earlier this week, a consortium of entities, including the US EPA , the car industry and an assortment of research institutions released a study estimating that Chinese air pollution caused over 1.2 million early deaths in 2010 alone, or almost 40% of the world's total.

In this case, the villian is Partciulate Matter, seen by scientists as an increasingly serious health threat because of the variety of problems it can cause, from heart trouble to Parkinson's-like brain damage. 

This new study arrives at a moment in history when much of the Chinese population is waking up to how bad their air is. Blocked from discovering official meaurements of pollution, citizens are pooling their resources and buying their own monitoring equipment. Unable to fight permits, residents often turn to direct action to shut down an plant. These days, some of the most radical environmentalists on the planet are often Chinese middle-class parents.

It’s April 1st: Merry Ozone Season!

Merry Ozone SeasonWe're off to a better start this year than last, if only because we didn't have any "exceedences" of the old 85 ppb ozone standard in March. But there's still six months left – ozone season is the longest season we have now – and plenty of time to rack the violations up. Stay tuned.

Workers are Frontline Downwinders Dying for That New Sofa

NYT on FoamBefore you're initiated as a citizen into the reality of the politics of environmental health, before you lose your civics virginity, you want to believe such things are not possible. Surely things aren't that bad. The company wouldn't let it get that bad. The EPA wouldn't let it get that bad. Not in.. (fill-in the year) But more often than not, it IS that bad. And not just bad, but novel-worthy bad. Bad in ways you couldn't imagine when you started out. That's how bad this story is.

 Sheri Farley walks with a limp. The only job she could hold would be one where she does not have to stand or sit longer than 20 minutes, otherwise pain screams down her spine and up her legs.

“Damaged goods,” Ms. Farley describes herself, recalling how she recently overheard a child whispering to her mother about whether the “crippled lady” was a meth addict.

For about five years, Ms. Farley, 45, stood alongside about a dozen other workers, spray gun in hand, gluing together foam cushions for chairs and couches sold under brand names like Broyhill, Ralph Lauren and Thomasville. Fumes from the glue formed a yellowish fog inside the plant, and Ms. Farley’s doctors say that breathing them in eventually ate away at her nerve endings, resulting in what she and her co-workers call “dead foot.”

A chemical she handled — known as n-propyl bromide, or nPB — is also used by tens of thousands of workers in auto body shops, dry cleaners and high-tech electronics manufacturing plants across the nation. Medical researchers, government officials and even chemical companies that once manufactured nPB have warned for over a decade that it causes neurological damage and infertility when inhaled at low levels over long periods, but its use has grown 15-fold in the past six years.

Such hazards demonstrate the difficulty, despite decades of effort, of ensuring that Americans can breathe clean air on the job. Even as worker after worker fell ill, records from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration show that managers at Royale Comfort Seating, where Ms. Farley was employed, repeatedly exposed gluers to nPB levels that exceeded levels federal officials considered safe, failed to provide respirators and turned off fans meant to vent fumes.

There's an 8-minute film with Ms. Farley and other characters from the NYT story on the same page as the printed piece. Both are devastating in their directness. Everyday Farley and her co-workers would go to work and be enveloped in that yellow glue fog for 8-10 hour shifts. sometimes it only took weeks after being hired before the most severe neurological symptoms began to appear. This is in North Carolina, not China, or Mexico.

Even though the piece focuses on the workers at this one facility, what are the odds that people living adjacent to it were also being enveloped in the yellow glue fog? If a company doesn't care about its workers, it's not going to care about its neighbors either. Catch the warning about the harm of breathing in low levels of the glue over a long period of time? 

There are many other takeaways from this piece, including

 – How much attention OSHA pays to physical hazards that are well-understood like ladders and stairs, but not so much to chemicals in the workplace that affect us in more insidious ways – like robbing you of the use of your limbs.

Why it's important to think things through to avoid a "Regrettable Substitute" like the yellow glue that was supposedly better for the ozone layer than what was formally used, but turned out to be a public health disaster on the ground. This is why we need the Precautionary Principle to test and verify the toxicity of the chemical BEFORE you release it into the marketplace. We know, completely radical idea.

How ineffective "the system" was at protecting workers from chemical hazards that were way, way over the top – 860 times what the industry group recommended. And conversely, why workers need strong and effective unions to protect them.

Even if you think you've lost your ability to be shocked, this story will shock you.