Archive for September 2016
MEET THE DRONES MIXER: Your chance to get close to the Cybers!
Attention DFW Citizen Scientists and Interested Folk!!
Check out UTD's fleet of drones used for air monitoring and talk to the scientists who use them.
See the "real time results" "dashboard" UNT is developing to pair with these drones.
Meet our academic partners in establishing a grassroots air network better than anything government is doing.
$35 gets you all this, a drink and some food.
Spend the evening getting all cyberized.
TICKETS CAN BE PURCHASED ONLINE HERE:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/keep-em-flying-launch-of-the-n…
Thank You. We Made Our Giving Day Goal of $6500.
Giving Day Last Call: Help us REPLACE a Corrupt System, Not Just Fight It
Only THREE Hours Left to Contribute
This "Giving Day," Downwinders is trying to raise $6500 to fund a full 72 hours of airborne investigation by our pollution-sniffing drones.
From 6 am to 12 Midnight tonight, contributions of just $25 or more to Downwinders can get matched or expanded by the Communities Foundation of Texas.
OUR GOAL: TO REPLACE THE STATUS QUO, NOT JUST FIGHT IT
We're talking a lot about our drone project today because, let's face it, drones are tech-sexy!
But drone monitoring is just one part of a plan to replace the State of Texas as a source of air quality information for DFW residents.
Just like everything else in the digital world, the cost of reliable air pollution electronic sensors is coming down. What used to cost millions of dollars now costs hundreds of thousands, and tomorrow might cost just thousands.
It's the same reason we were able to clone the state's air computer model and use it in ways the state didn't want it used. That would have been impossible a decade ago. But the price of supercomputing is going down and it allowed us to usurp a function for citizens that was previously only accessible to state engineers.
Now we want to repeat that success.
The state only operates a total of 20 air monitors in North Texas.
Five are boundary monitors – far outside the central cities. That leaves just 15 monitors for 7 million people inside the metro area.
Working with area universities, Downwinders wants to deploy a grassroots citizen-based monitor network that would connect hundreds of monitors across the DFW area.
This network would not only warn you about Smog, but Particulate Matter and Air Toxics as well – something the state network isn't built to do.
The goal is nothing less than to usurp the state's job once again – and once again do it better.
It's important to us not only to fight the Good Fights that need fighting, but to change the system itself as we win those fights.
If you like this strategy, please contribute today to make sure we're around to implement it.
Thank you for your consideration.
Mid-Day Update: Drones are Only One Part of Our Ambitious Project
Keep 'Em Flying
So far, contributions from our supporters have got our drone out of the hanger and into the air.
Now we need to get it above cement kiln and coal plant smokestacks we want to monitor. Help us gain monetary altitude.
This "Giving Day," Downwinders is trying to raise $6500 to fund a full 72 hours of airborne investigation by our pollution-sniffing drones.
From 6 am to 12 Midnight tonight, contributions of just $25 or more to Downwinders can get matched or expanded by the Communities Foundation of Texas.
Not only does your donation go further today, it also helps us fund new projects like our North Texas CLEAN Air Force.
But citizen-owned drones are only one part of a larger, more ambitious air quality monitoring project now taking shape in DFW.
Along with our academic partners in a new Air Research Consortium, we want to establish a region wide network of hundreds of stationary and mobile e-sensors that can give you better and more nuanced air quality information.
We want to take over the State's job – which it isn't doing very well anyway. The first step for us is getting our drones up in the air and doing research.
One hour of drone flight time costs $90. A full 72 hours in the air costs about $6500. That's our goal today.
And then there's this…..
We just won a fight it took 15 years to win
After 15 years of hard work we finally saw the installation of a state-of-the-art air pollution control system in one of thethree Midlothian cement plants this month.
It could reduce smog pollution from the plant's kiln by 80-90%.
Only your support enabled us to stick around and follow-though on this goal.
WE CAN'T DO THIS WORK WITHOUT YOU
Today Only: We Need Your Help To Get This Guy Off the Ground
This "Giving Day" Downwinders is trying
to raise $6500 to fund a full 72 hours
of airborne investigation by our
pollution-sniffing drone
From 6 am to 12 Midnight tonight, contributions of just $25 or more to Downwinders can get matched or expanded by the Communities Foundation of Texas.
Not only does your donation go further today, it also helps us fund new projects like our North Texas CLEAN Air Force.
We're adding an exiting new high-tech tool to our fight for cleaner air. One that can replace, not just fight, the status quo.
Air-monitoring drones can reveal pollution hot spots stationary monitors can't. They can respond to accidents and tell you whether that plume of smoke really is "harmless."
One hour of drone flight time costs $90. A full 72 hours in the air costs about $6500. That's our goal today.
Your lungs are worth it.
We're the only clean air group in DFW with full-time staff.
All our board members live here.
We depend on DFW residents like you for our continued successes, like….
Stopping the burning of hazardous waste in local cement plants
Shutting down the outlaw Exide lead smelter in Frisco
Writing the most protective gas drilling ordinance in Texas
And now – fighting for a new federal anti-smog plan for DFW to replace the state's do-nothing approach
WE CAN'T DO THIS WORK WITHOUT YOU
Thanks for your Consideration
We Did It: After 15-Years of Persistent Organizing, Citizens Finally See Modern Controls on a Midlothian Cement Plant. And Now We Want It on All of Them
Holcim is the first cement plant in the nation to voluntarily install an industrial catalytic converter called SCR on its smokestack, significantly cutting smog-forming air pollution in DFW.
But despite operating only 26 miles from EPA headquarters, the Agency and State of Texas still claim the technology isn't "feasible"
Downwinders is proud to announce Midlothian's Holcim cement plant is the first in the nation to voluntarily install pollution control equipment significantly cutting smog-forming air pollution, along with other dangerous emissions.
"Not many people may notice, but Friday is a big day for air breathers in DFW, as well as for everyone in the country who lives downwind of a cement plant," said Tamera Bounds, Chair of Downwinders at Risk, the clean air group that's been relentless in its pursuit of the technology for North Texas since 2001.
Friday marks the official deadline for Holcim's Midlothian cement plant to have its Selective Catalytic Reduction, or SCR system, up and running on one of its two giant kilns in order to be compliant with EPA emissions limits.
Although almost a dozen cement plants in Europe have installed the technology over the last twenty years and it's widespread in the American coal industry, Holcim is so far the only cement plant in the U.S. to install SCR on one of its kilns without a government mandate.
A pilot test using SCR at Midwest cement plant was required by a Department of Justice enforcement action in 2010. Results show smog-forming pollution was cut by at least 80% – roughly twice as much as pollution controls now in use in the US, including Midlothian. In Europe, SCR has a track record of removing 80-90% or more of the smog-forming pollution that has kept DFW in violation of the Clean Air Act since 1991. It also cuts the emissions of air toxics, particulate matter, and dioxins by double-digits.
With three cement plants and four kilns, Midlothian hosts the largest concentration of cement manufacturing in the US, and the largest "stationary" sources of air pollution in DFW. Since the late 1980's, the city has become a national battleground over cement plant pollution. First, over the use of hazardous waste as "fuel" for the local kilns, then over the closing of dirtier, obsolete "wet" kilns contributing to smog and climate change, and now over how fast new kilns can be updated to reflect 21st technology. 
Bounds and others say the installation of SCR on all four kilns in Midlothian would mean a huge benefit to public health for residents in Tarrant County, where the predominant winds push the plumes from the kilns. A 2009 Cook Children's Hospital study showed childhood asthma levels highest directly downwind of the cement kilns.
The demand for the technology is a central part of the group's push to replace the current State-sponsored anti-smog plan with a more effective, and protective, one from EPA. So far, Dallas County, the City of Dallas, two Congressional Representatives and a State Legislator agree with them. But incredibly, the Agency maintains the SCR technology Holcim has freely invested in to reduce pollution and is already operating less than 30 miles from its regional headquarters is not "technically feasible."
Downwinders and other groups in the DFW Clean Air Network regional alliance are challenging EPA's refusal to recognize a game-changing pollution control technology that could help DFW finally put its smog problems behind it a well as offering similar help to other parts of the country downwind of cement plants.
"It's rare these days to find the EPA embracing Texas' approach to ignoring advances in environmental science, but that's exactly what happening," said Bounds. "Both State and EPA officials are acting like 3rd Graders – closing their eyes and humming loudly, pretending this time-tested technology isn't operating right in front of them. But it does, and it's here to stay."
Bounds wants the EPA to take note of the cuts in pollution triggered by Holcim's operation of its SCR system and then hold ALL the Midlothian plants to the same modern standard. "You have a piece of equipment that is setting a higher bar for pollution control. Every cement kiln in DFW should have to meet that higher bar now. No other anti-pollution strategy makes sense."
It's been a long and circuitous route to getting SCR installed in a Midlothian cement kiln. Along the way, the region's clean air activists moved the entire nation closer to widespread use of this control technology.
North Texans first heard about the use of SCR in the cement industry through a citizens group fighting a proposed new cement plant in New York state in 2001.They'd commissioned a study from a NYC engineering firm identifying European cement plants that had already successfully installed the technology.
Downwinders tried and failed to include SCR in the anti-smog plan in 2003. It then used a 2005 settlement agreement with the State over the failure of that plan to get the then Rick Perry-controlled Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to perform an independent assessment of the technology. That landmark study produced results that are still reverberating today. In it, five independent experts chosen by Downwinders, the cement industry, and the State declared SCR to be ready for prime time.
"SCR is a commercially available technology. It offers the possibility of significant NOx reduction at the plants in Ellis County. As an 'add on' technology, which can achieve 90% or greater NOx reduction, with demonstrated performance at hundreds of coal fired power plants, SCR is a viable technology that is available for both dry and wet kilns."
That conclusion, from cement industry experts, in a TCEQ study, is now a decade old.
At the same time they were working to bring SCR to Midlothian, Downwinders also led the fight for new EPA emission limits on cement kilns that burn hazardous waste. A 2009 national hearing at DFW Airport attracted over 200 people. Those emission limits clamped down on air toxics. Holcim couldn't meet them without adding controls. They choose an SCR unit on one kiln and a thermal oxidizer (re: flame) on the other to try and stay in compliance. Even though Holcim installed SCR to address air toxics, or Volatile Organic Compounds and not smog pollution, the effect on emissions will be the same.
Meanwhile, the 2006 TCEQ study and subsequent push by Downwinders for SCR in Midlothian helped persuade the EPA to require the pilot test in 2010. That test, as well as Holcim's experience in Europe, set the stage for SCR's official debut on the Texas prairie on Friday.
"It's been a long fight, but change is hard," said Bounds, "and it doesn't happen in a straight line."
Help Us Celebrate This Victory That Was 15 Years in the Making
Please consider contributing $25 or more on "GIVING DAY" NEXT THURSDAY to keep us on the front lines of change another 15 years.
Giving Day is an all day online giving event sponsored by the Communities Foundation of Texas.
Downwinders will have our own online Giving Day page where you can click and give from 6 am through 12 Midnight next Thursday.
Every contribution of $25 or more is matched or extended by the Foundation.
This year, we need your support to keep our full-time staff in the field, as well as fund our 2nd annual Root and Branch Revue for activists, and assemble our North Texas Clean Air Forceof air-monitoring drones.
Oh yeah, we're also opening a school for organizers in January.
We're based in DFW. All our board members are from DFW. Our priority is DFW air. Your contribution stays in North Texas to fund the fight for clean air in North Texas.
We know you're being assaulted by Giving Day appeals from all the local non-profits, and there are lots and lots of good causes. We only request that you ask yourself how many other local groups can repeatedly pull off meaningful victories with so few resources?
We were able to bring SCR to Midlothian with your help. We need your help again next Thursday. We think we've earned it.
Thanks.
“Meet the Drones” Mixer Oct 6th
Thursday, October 6th
5:00 to 6:30 pm
TCU Alumni Center
2820 Stadium Dr
Fort Worth
Have a bite to eat, a drink, and stroll amongst the drones we're assembling for our North Texas Clean Air Force.
Representatives from the University of Texas at Dallas will be displaying their fleet of fixed-wing and rotor copter drones. TCU, UTA, UNT and the UNT Health Science Center have all been invited to set up displays and show-off their high-tech capabilities as well.
Chat with our academic parterns in grassroots air monitoring and watch as a certified drone pilot demonstrates the new technology we're using to fight for cleaner air.
This should be of interest to anyone looking for Do-It-Yourself ways to monitor the air we breathe as well as Downwinders supporters in general. We're adding a high-tech tool to our tool box and we want you to see how we're spending your contributions. Support a citizens' North Texas Clean Air Force.