How Gas Drilling Tests Dallas’ Air Quality Goals
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.
Frisco Continues Path Toward Amortization With Board Meeting Tonight
The Frisco Board of Adjustment is meeting tonightbeginning at 6 pm. Usually that wouldn't warrant much notice except for the resident who might want to put a different kind of fence up around his or her house and needs the permission of this Board to do so. But tonight is different. It's the first time the Board gets enveloped by the process of amortization against the Exide lead smelter that the city seems to be pursuing as of last week's historic city council vote. At issue is the Council's request for the board to determine when the smelter became a "non-conforming use." That's important because it's the date a city needs to begin amortization – the forced recouping of investment in the property ending in a scheduled closure. It also affects how much depreciation a city can subtract from the value of the property and facility. From the looks of things, tonight's meeting is only the first round and the result will probably be the announcement of a future hearing date. The hearing allows the city to make its case for the date its chosen, and allows Exide to argue that it's either the wrong date, or that the whole exercise is unnecessary because it's in compliance with the city's zoning ordinances. Then the Board rules. That may take a more than a couple of weeks but kudos to the City of Frisco for following though so swiftly on the heels of last Tuesday's council meeting. It really does look like the City has found its backbone.
If I can just get off of this LA Freeway, (with out getting sick or dying)
A radical notion, no? That thousands of concentrated small horizontal smokestacks emitting the leftovers of burning petroleum based products could cause breathing problems for people who live next to these areas of concentration, otherwise known as highways. It may strike you as common sense, but that common sense had no scientific foundation until fairly recently. In the last ten years, there’s been a remarkable wave of research connecting a variety of ailments to proximity to freeway pollution, including asthma, lung disease, bronchitis, emphysema, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and autism. So how should urban planners respond in routing traffic through a city when they know the people living near the traffic will statistically be at higher health risk? That’s the question starting to be debated in Los Angeles thanks to citizens and groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council. They’ve sued the local air quality district to make authorities locate monitors near or beside the most congested freeways in LA because they believe such monitors would show new violations of the Clean Air Act that could then be addressed. They’re also challenging city planners to take a new look at how roads are run through communities. For decades it was standard practice to slice up minority communities with freeways. Now, it seems likely there are Environmental Justice lawsuits that could be filed based on the same MO. This local fight has the potential to set a national precedent that could begin to affect many different proposed highway projects. Read this story and take note because the science is already here – the policy has to catch-up.
Inventorying the “most ambitious clean air rules in decades”
Reuters has the run down on the plethora of new EPA clean air rules coming down in the next year or so, including resolution of the cross-state regs, vehicle efficiency, fracking emissions, Greenhouse Gases, and Coal Ash rules. We know there’s been a lot of justifiable disappointment with this Administration, but please look at this agenda and try to imagine that any part of it would be coming from an EPA run by any of the current GOP presidential candidates. It’s pretty much impossible
Inventorying the "most ambitious clean air rules in decades"
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Reuters has the run down on the plethora of new EPA clean air rules coming down in the next year or so, including resolution of the cross-state regs, vehicle efficiency, fracking emissions, Greenhouse Gases, and Coal Ash rules. We know there's been a lot of justifiable disappointment with this Administration, but please look at this agenda and try to imagine that any part of it would be coming from an EPA run by any of the current GOP presidential candidates. It's pretty much impossible.
When a Power Plant Spews Its Crap in China, It Causes a Drought in Texas?
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Many of you know the cliche of Chaos Theory made famous by "Jurassic Park's" Jeff Goldblum, that "when a butterfly flaps its wings in China, it causes a hurricane in Florida." Now science has produced the environmental equivalent of that theory by showing how massive amounts of air pollution from China is affecting weather patterns in the western U.S. CBS News interviews a scientist working on the relationship at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "The atmosphere has no walls. So pollution on this side of the world can make it the other side of the world in about five days," she says. In this case, Chinese PM/soot is carried by the jet stream across the Pacific and stops the clouds in the western U.S. from producing rain and snow.
The Gaseous Story Behind Wise and Hood Counties Being Added to DFW Non-Attainment Area
Monday, December 12, 2011
Late Friday EPA announced that it was recommending two more North Texas counties – Wise and Hood – join the current nine-county DFW "non-attainment" area for smog, or ozone pollution for purposes of trying to reach the new 75 parts per billion federal standard. In doing so, the EPA disagreed with the latest State of Texas plan to leave the non-attainment area boundaries unchanged. But as the Star-Telegram points out today, that wasn't the original position of the state. In 2008, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality suggested both Wise and Hood be included in DFW's smog zone. According to the documents submitted to EPA by TCEQ supporting this inclusion (accessible via a link in the S-T article),"Wise County produces significant stationary source emissions, ranking 2nd in the 13-county air quality planning area for NOx emissions in 2005. Hood County, the thirteenth county in the air quality planning area, has a design value of 84 parts per billion for 2005 through 2007, and a preliminary design value for 2006 through 2008 of 77 parts per billion." But, as the S-T story points out, TCEQ commissioners requested that Wise be removed from the recommendation to the governor’s office in December of 2008 and Hood was cut out of the recommendation less than two months ago. Supposedly, these counties were removed by the state because ozone averages up to and including 2010 were lower than the ones in previous years. But that's only one criterion and since Wise doesn't have monitor at all – because TCEQ is afraid of what it might find – that's not a legitimate argument for its absence on the TCEQ list to EPA. But wait there's more. In the documents EPA sent the state to justify both Wise and Hood Counties being included, it cites a number of different factors, including new emissions from Barnett Shale gas production. EPA used a national 2008 comprehensive emissions inventory to account for how much smog-producing Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) were coming from each North Texas county. According to this data, Hood County had 5500 tons a year of NOx emissions, and 9500 tons a year of VOCs FROM ALL SOURCES,while Wise had 12,000 tons a year of NOx and 23,700 tons a year of VOCs. Those are big enough numbers to get noticed. And yet EPA notes that a year later, TCEQ did its own Barnett Shale emissions inventory and found even higher totals for some counties. For Hood, Shale production accounted for 7000 tons a year of NOx – or more than 1500 tons more a year than the EPA's inventory of all sources in Hood County combined. VOCs from gas pollution accounted for 2100 tons a year, or almost a quarter of the EPA inventory total. In Wise, TCEQ's shale inventory found 2500 tons of NOX, and 6000 tons of VOCs a year being emitted from gas production. In addition, EPA traced back where dirty air came from on high ozone days at selected Tarrant County and Parker County smog monitors. It concluded that these "back trajectories" for the Eagle Mountain Lake and Parker County monitors "further support that air that is transported from Hood and Wise Counties ends up in the area when ozone exceedences are observed." As we noted on Friday, this is the first time in the two decade battle over DFW air quality that gas industry air pollution has been a reason for including a county in the DFW non-attainment area. That's what makes this latest announcement such a milestone, and worthy of more discussion in places like the Dallas and Denton gas drilling task forces that are charged with re-writing those cities gas mining ordinances.
Senate Blocks Rollback of EPA Interstate Pollution Rules
Monday, November 21, 2011
Six Republican Senators joined their Democratic colleagues to thwart an attempt to rollback EPA'srecently announced Cross State Pollution Rules that requires approximately 30 states, including Texas, to curb emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, which contribute to smog and haze problems in other states. President Obama had threatened to veto the legislation if it had managed to get out of the Senate, although despite two years of trying, House Republicans have yet to find a piece of EPA rollback legislation that can make it through the other chamber. But that won't keep them from trying. Expect to hear about similar results in the coming weeks for bills nullifying the 2008 cement plant emission standards, the 2010 rules for small boilers and incinerators and other clean air legislation.
Better late than never: Texas Monthly does the Perry vs EPA story
Friday, November 18, 2011
TM's Nate Blakeslee gets the assignment to track down how Rick Perry runs against those crazy environmentalists and EPA the way George Wallace ran against those crazy civil rights marchers and the Justice Department. He can't quite bring himself to mention Downwinders' name when establishing Region 6 EPA Administrator Al Armendariz' credentials but we're represented nonetheless as, "a citizens’ group that won a judgment against one of the many cement manufacturing companies south of Dallas, which have long contributed to the Metroplex’s intractable air pollution problems." Nothing much new here, especially for those of us living this story, but it's good to see Perry's disastrous run for the Presidency have some decent side-effects like coverage of his anti-environmental stances.
"The most dangerous attacks on clean air since the Clean Air Act was signed"
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Tomorrow marks the beginning of the House Republican assault on the Clean Air Act, including gutting rules that would reduce smog, mercury poisoning, and toxic air pollution of all kinds. Every week from now until Thanksgiving, Republicans will be targeting a different EPA policy for destruction, including the 15-years-in-the-making emission rules for cement plants that Downwinders was instrumental in winning in 2008.
Ozone Season Goes Out in Orange
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
UPDATE: 8:30 PM Things cooled off rapidly after 5pm and so did the ozone levels, just in the nick of time too. The Keller monitor barely escapes establishing a new season "4th high" and setting off a chain reaction that would have increased the entire regional ozone average by a part per billion or so. Instead, it merely tied its 4th highest reading of 95 ppb and the region's Design Value stays at 90 ppb. Parker County did set a record today – its highest 8-hour average this summer, also at 95 ppb. Another day like today and it could be the 7th monitor out of compliance this year. Eagle Mountain Lake also saw its highest 8-hour average reading this year at 87ppb. A final middle finger salute to DFW from the Smog Monster in what's been the worst year for ozone since 2006? We still have a week and a half to go until "ozone season" ends.
Cause and Effect: Ozone Rule Opponents Are 4 of Top 10 Obama Contributors
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
The Washington Independent digs around the Obama campaign money machine and finds all kinds of well-known polluters giving money to the President even as they trash the Administration's environmental policies:
Report: Clean Air – Not Just for White People Anymore
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
"Latinos would have a higher risk of disease and death without the (now gutted ozone) standards and would be affected more than other groups because they’re more likely to live in polluted areas, according to a report released by five groups. Asthma, bronchitis, organ damage and death rates would increase among the 39 percent of Latinos who live within 30 miles of a power plant and the one in two Latinos who live in the nation’s top 25 ozone-polluted cities such as Houston and Dallas,the report said."
I don't know but it's been said, the streets of Frisco are paved with lead.
Monday, September 19, 2011
One of the most disturbing and unforgettable images conjured up by the recent TCEQ inspection report on the Exide lead smelter in downtown Frisco is the revelation that for a number of years it was routine for the town's streets to be paved with highly contaminated lead slag waste from the facility.
Inventorying the "most ambitious clean air rules in decades"
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Reuters has the run down on the plethora of new EPA clean air rules coming down in the next year or so, including resolution of the cross-state regs, vehicle efficiency, fracking emissions, Greenhouse Gases, and Coal Ash rules. We know there's been a lot of justifiable disappointment with this Administration, but please look at this agenda and try to imagine that any part of it would be coming from an EPA run by any of the current GOP presidential candidates. It's pretty much impossible.
When a Power Plant Spews Its Crap in China, It Causes a Drought in Texas?
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Many of you know the cliche of Chaos Theory made famous by "Jurassic Park's" Jeff Goldblum, that "when a butterfly flaps its wings in China, it causes a hurricane in Florida." Now science has produced the environmental equivalent of that theory by showing how massive amounts of air pollution from China is affecting weather patterns in the western U.S. CBS News interviews a scientist working on the relationship at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "The atmosphere has no walls. So pollution on this side of the world can make it the other side of the world in about five days," she says. In this case, Chinese PM/soot is carried by the jet stream across the Pacific and stops the clouds in the western U.S. from producing rain and snow.
The Gaseous Story Behind Wise and Hood Counties Being Added to DFW Non-Attainment Area
Monday, December 12, 2011
Late Friday EPA announced that it was recommending two more North Texas counties – Wise and Hood – join the current nine-county DFW "non-attainment" area for smog, or ozone pollution for purposes of trying to reach the new 75 parts per billion federal standard. In doing so, the EPA disagreed with the latest State of Texas plan to leave the non-attainment area boundaries unchanged. But as the Star-Telegram points out today, that wasn't the original position of the state. In 2008, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality suggested both Wise and Hood be included in DFW's smog zone. According to the documents submitted to EPA by TCEQ supporting this inclusion (accessible via a link in the S-T article),"Wise County produces significant stationary source emissions, ranking 2nd in the 13-county air quality planning area for NOx emissions in 2005. Hood County, the thirteenth county in the air quality planning area, has a design value of 84 parts per billion for 2005 through 2007, and a preliminary design value for 2006 through 2008 of 77 parts per billion." But, as the S-T story points out, TCEQ commissioners requested that Wise be removed from the recommendation to the governor’s office in December of 2008 and Hood was cut out of the recommendation less than two months ago. Supposedly, these counties were removed by the state because ozone averages up to and including 2010 were lower than the ones in previous years. But that's only one criterion and since Wise doesn't have monitor at all – because TCEQ is afraid of what it might find – that's not a legitimate argument for its absence on the TCEQ list to EPA. But wait there's more. In the documents EPA sent the state to justify both Wise and Hood Counties being included, it cites a number of different factors, including new emissions from Barnett Shale gas production. EPA used a national 2008 comprehensive emissions inventory to account for how much smog-producing Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) were coming from each North Texas county. According to this data, Hood County had 5500 tons a year of NOx emissions, and 9500 tons a year of VOCs FROM ALL SOURCES,while Wise had 12,000 tons a year of NOx and 23,700 tons a year of VOCs. Those are big enough numbers to get noticed. And yet EPA notes that a year later, TCEQ did its own Barnett Shale emissions inventory and found even higher totals for some counties. For Hood, Shale production accounted for 7000 tons a year of NOx – or more than 1500 tons more a year than the EPA's inventory of all sources in Hood County combined. VOCs from gas pollution accounted for 2100 tons a year, or almost a quarter of the EPA inventory total. In Wise, TCEQ's shale inventory found 2500 tons of NOX, and 6000 tons of VOCs a year being emitted from gas production. In addition, EPA traced back where dirty air came from on high ozone days at selected Tarrant County and Parker County smog monitors. It concluded that these "back trajectories" for the Eagle Mountain Lake and Parker County monitors "further support that air that is transported from Hood and Wise Counties ends up in the area when ozone exceedences are observed." As we noted on Friday, this is the first time in the two decade battle over DFW air quality that gas industry air pollution has been a reason for including a county in the DFW non-attainment area. That's what makes this latest announcement such a milestone, and worthy of more discussion in places like the Dallas and Denton gas drilling task forces that are charged with re-writing those cities gas mining ordinances.
Senate Blocks Rollback of EPA Interstate Pollution Rules
Monday, November 21, 2011
Six Republican Senators joined their Democratic colleagues to thwart an attempt to rollback EPA'srecently announced Cross State Pollution Rules that requires approximately 30 states, including Texas, to curb emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, which contribute to smog and haze problems in other states. President Obama had threatened to veto the legislation if it had managed to get out of the Senate, although despite two years of trying, House Republicans have yet to find a piece of EPA rollback legislation that can make it through the other chamber. But that won't keep them from trying. Expect to hear about similar results in the coming weeks for bills nullifying the 2008 cement plant emission standards, the 2010 rules for small boilers and incinerators and other clean air legislation.
Better late than never: Texas Monthly does the Perry vs EPA story
Friday, November 18, 2011
TM's Nate Blakeslee gets the assignment to track down how Rick Perry runs against those crazy environmentalists and EPA the way George Wallace ran against those crazy civil rights marchers and the Justice Department. He can't quite bring himself to mention Downwinders' name when establishing Region 6 EPA Administrator Al Armendariz' credentials but we're represented nonetheless as, "a citizens’ group that won a judgment against one of the many cement manufacturing companies south of Dallas, which have long contributed to the Metroplex’s intractable air pollution problems." Nothing much new here, especially for those of us living this story, but it's good to see Perry's disastrous run for the Presidency have some decent side-effects like coverage of his anti-environmental stances.
"The most dangerous attacks on clean air since the Clean Air Act was signed"
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Tomorrow marks the beginning of the House Republican assault on the Clean Air Act, including gutting rules that would reduce smog, mercury poisoning, and toxic air pollution of all kinds. Every week from now until Thanksgiving, Republicans will be targeting a different EPA policy for destruction, including the 15-years-in-the-making emission rules for cement plants that Downwinders was instrumental in winning in 2008.
Ozone Season Goes Out in Orange
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
UPDATE: 8:30 PM Things cooled off rapidly after 5pm and so did the ozone levels, just in the nick of time too. The Keller monitor barely escapes establishing a new season "4th high" and setting off a chain reaction that would have increased the entire regional ozone average by a part per billion or so. Instead, it merely tied its 4th highest reading of 95 ppb and the region's Design Value stays at 90 ppb. Parker County did set a record today – its highest 8-hour average this summer, also at 95 ppb. Another day like today and it could be the 7th monitor out of compliance this year. Eagle Mountain Lake also saw its highest 8-hour average reading this year at 87ppb. A final middle finger salute to DFW from the Smog Monster in what's been the worst year for ozone since 2006? We still have a week and a half to go until "ozone season" ends.
Cause and Effect: Ozone Rule Opponents Are 4 of Top 10 Obama Contributors
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
The Washington Independent digs around the Obama campaign money machine and finds all kinds of well-known polluters giving money to the President even as they trash the Administration's environmental policies:
Report: Clean Air – Not Just for White People Anymore
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
"Latinos would have a higher risk of disease and death without the (now gutted ozone) standards and would be affected more than other groups because they’re more likely to live in polluted areas, according to a report released by five groups. Asthma, bronchitis, organ damage and death rates would increase among the 39 percent of Latinos who live within 30 miles of a power plant and the one in two Latinos who live in the nation’s top 25 ozone-polluted cities such as Houston and Dallas,the report said."
I don't know but it's been said, the streets of Frisco are paved with lead.
Monday, September 19, 2011
One of the most disturbing and unforgettable images conjured up by the recent TCEQ inspection report on the Exide lead smelter in downtown Frisco is the revelation that for a number of years it was routine for the town's streets to be paved with highly contaminated lead slag waste from the facility.
Mighty Changes From Little Struggles Flow: Another Downwinders Success Story
This is not a story that will ever make national headlines. It hardly even got a respectably-sized article in the town where it’s taking place. But for beat-down citizen-soldiers of the air wars looking for proof that their own local battles can affect national policy, it’s a tale worth telling. Yesterday, the Department of Justice and EPA announced a settlement agreement with a multinational cement company called ESSROC. Among other things, the agreement calls for the pilot testing of advanced Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) pollution control technology at ESSROC’s two obsolete wet kilns in Logansport, Indiana. Wet kilns like the three at Ash Grove’s Midlothian plant. It will be the first demonstration of this remarkable technology on wet kilns anywhere in the world. Last year, DOJ reached a similar agreement with LaFarge Cement that’s requiring a pilot test of SCR on a dry kiln in Illinois. Those results are due by July, 2013. The results from the wet kilns in Indiana will be due by May, 2015. This will be about the time the DFW area is trying to assemble a new clean air plan to reach the just-announced ozone standard of 75 parts per billion. We’ll have pilot tests of SCR on both types of kilns in Midlothian, and Downwinders will be using those tests to advocate finally requiring SCR on all Midlothian cement kilns. In use in European cement kilns for a decade, SCR – basically a huge industrial size version of the catalytic converter every US car has – has been proven to reduce emissions of smog-forming Nitrogen Oxides by 90% or more, while also reducing Particulate Matter pollution, metals, and dioxins. It’s considered the gold standard of kiln control technology. When it does end up in Midlothian, SCR will be coming back to the kilns and people that are responsible for its import into the US. That’s because Downwinders was the first citizens group in the country to began advocating the use of SCR in cement kilns – way back in the year 2000, as part of a DFW anti-smog plan. Impossible the state and cement companies said. Too expensive. Not technically feasible. We didn’t win, but we kept up with information about the technology. A couple of years later, our modest assistance to a group of citizens fighting a proposed Holcim cement plant right on the banks of the Hudson in New York gave us access to their hired engineering expertise, which had done its own technical review of SCR in Europe. We took that information and made it a basis for a demand in our own settlement with EPA and TCEQ over the failed 2000 DFW air plan to do an independent review of SCR for application to the Midlothian kilns. That 2006 study is still the only study of its kind in the nation. Much to TCEQ’s lasting chagrin, that report confirmed that SCR was technically and economically feasible for application on the Midlothian cement plants. TCEQ has done its best to run away from that report every since, even having its staff perjure themsleves in state legislature testimony about its conclusions, but it got published and distributed nationwide. Other states and engineers read it, and are still using it. During this same time Downwinders, with the help of funding acquired through yet another settlement, hired its first ever technical expert, a young engineer from SMU named Al Armendariz. One of his jobs was to review the SCR report we’d generated and collect more data on the track record of the technology in Europe. By the end of his stint, he was somewhat of an expert on cement control technology, especially SCR. And then he went to go to work as the Regional Administrator of EPA. As it happens, EPA was in the middle of a national enforcement initiative involving the entire US cement industry. Many of the violations that were found revolved around illegal and excessive emissions of Nitrogen Oxides. Downwinders pressed for SCR pilot tests as part of these agreements. In January, 2010 EPA and DOJ announced the LaFarge settlement requiring a first-ever US pilot test of SCR. In discussions with EPA Midwestern staff afterwards, it was clear that the TCEQ report and Downwinders’s efforts were well-known and provided the technical evidence to help drive the settlement talks toward including an SCR provision. Yesterday’ announcement of a new round of SCR pilot-testing indicates that influence is still being felt…..Did we need luck? Absolutely. Did we make our own luck? Absolutely. We were opportunistic as hell. We advanced the cause at every turn. We fit square pegs into round holes. Unrelated developments got pulled into relationships that built on previous steps because we saw a path that nobody else did. We slowly built the technical and political scaffolding we needed. And these last two years have seen the fruits of that strategy. What began as a demand for a specific control measure for a local DFW clean air plan has now brought the entire US cement industry to the brink of using a control technology that could bring massive reductions in pollution nationwide. This is a story about the un-sexy, un-Erin Brockovich way of grinding out incremental social change with small groups of very persistent people. And it’s the way progress is made most of the time. Want to change the world? Start in your own backyard.
Enviro Fuel Cubes! Now with More Dioxins and Metals!!
Word comes that Lehigh's Glens Falls New York cement plant is applying for a another version of a "Landfill in the Sky" permit that would allow them to burn International Paper's"Enviro Fuel Cubes" made-up of all kinds of wood and paper waste. Lehigh says the cubes reduce Sulfur Dioxide pollution. So do Scrubbers. On the other hand, the cubes also produce "minor increases" in dioxins, chromium, lead, and nickel. There is no safe level of exposure to minor increases in dioxin or lead. A letter to the N.Y. state environmental agency from 27 groups also points out that burning this kind of waste discourages the real recycling and in-house reduction of it. As always, cement kilns are acting as cheap garbage disposals for waste from other industries
Enforcing Ozone Standard in Wyoming Means Cutting Natural Gas Pollution
Unlike Texas, Wyoming’s Governor actually recommended that his shale-producing counties be included in smog “non-attainment areas” because of the pollution from gas industry sources. The EPA has agreed and now will draw boundaries for one of the most unique such areas in the entire country. That’s because unlike DFW and just about every metropolitan area in the country, ozone levels in Wyoming’s rural Green River Basin peak between January and March when Volatile Organic Compounds and Nitrogen Oxides from the gas industry combine with bright sunshine, snow on the ground, and temperature inversions to create the ideal conditions for ozone to form in large concentrations. 2011 was an especially smoggy year for Green River Basin residents, with levels exceeding the worst days in Los Angeles. Inclusion in an official ozone non-attainment area will now make gas industry sources the target of systematic pollution reductions via the same kind of controls that have been around for years, but which have yet to be adopted wholesale by industry or completely mandated by EPA. Despite the almost torturous incrementalism, this designation in Wyoming is proof that these local plans can force reductions from sources before national regulations catch-up to make them uniform. This is exactly the strategy Downwinders has been successfully using in the DFW air quality planning process since 1995, first to reduce emissions of the Midlothian cement plants, then including power plants, and a host of other sources. This past year we argued that the increase in emission from gas sources warranted new controls on all Barnett Shale operations in North Texas. We didn’t win that fight, but we didn’t win the cement plant fight the first time out in the 1990’s either. We won’t stop trying because in Texas, these federal plans are one of the few ways for citizens to affect their air quality future.
Downwind of its own Cement Plants, Austin Barely Attains Safe and Legal Air
Despite DFW and Houston having very bad smog years, the Austin-San Marco Metropolitan Area managed to achieve compliance with the new 75 parts per billion ozone standard in 2011 – but just barely. The San Marcos Mercury runs down the particulars, including the origin of Central Texas air pollution where half of the amount of ozone is from on-road vehicles, 20-25 percent is from non-road sources like construction and agricultural equipment, and the remaining 25-30 percent is from industrial sources such as power plants, cement kilns, lime kilns, and oil/gas production equipment. Cement kilns? Why yes. In fact, the Lehigh cement plant in Buda, south and upwind of Austin, is the largest point source in the Austin MSA for nitrogen oxide (NOx) – a major smog-forming pollutant. Also upwind of Austin, TXI, Capitol and Alamo cement plants form the second largest cluster of kilns in Texas (second only to Midlothian) between New Braunfels and San Antonio. And don’t forget all the Eagle Shale pollution south of San Antonio that’ll also find its way to the Capitol City on some “ozone season” days. There’s no question that should smog get worse in Austin (likely), or the ozone standard come down to 70 ppb in 2014-2015 when it’s next reviewed by EPA (likely if President Obama is still in office) Austin air quality planners will be looking to how Downwinders worked to reduce NOx pollution from the Midlothian cement kilns. Nor is Austin the only American city that will have to deal with cement plant pollution because of more protective ozone standards in the coming years. As “non-attainment areas” get bigger, more cement plants that were “out in the country” will all of a sudden be in the upwind backyard of metropolitan areas. In this respect, the template that Downwinders has helped establish in Midlothian/DFW – retrofitting pollution controls for 30 to 40% reduction, while pushing for newer systems from Europe that can get up to 90% reductions – will be serving as a national model for years to come. “Give us a place to stand, and we can move the world.” Read More
How Much Silence Has Chesapeake Bought for Its Lung Association Investment? UPDATED WITH GOOD NEWS
It pains us to have to write about this because the American Lung Association stood with Downwinders throughout the mid-to- late 1990's and helped us turn the tide against the burning of hazardous wastes in the Midlothian cement plants. And we also understand how hard it is to raise money for non-profits with a recession/depression still going on. But in accepting Chesapeake's money, totaling at least $500,000 and probably much more, what is the price ALA has to pay as air quality in areas like DFW gets sabotaged by wave after wave of gas production pollution? ALA was a no-show during the EPA and TCEQ summer hearings on new gas emissions regulation. They've taken no part in the struggle to write a new Dallas gas drilling ordinance despite their regional HQ being in Dallas and hiring a new "Environmental Health" staff person to take on the job of helping community groups fight for cleaner air. They've published no reports on Barnett Shale emissions, despite it being the single largest threat to DFW air quality progress in the last decade. One can't help but wonder if the group would be more outspoken had it not received Chesapeake's cash deposits. Big Gas has warped every institution and group it's touched in North Texas, and here's one more example of an organization that appears to be letting down it guard over public health in return for contributions from them. Et Tu, ALA? FRIDAY UPDATE: We're happy to report that the ALA, along with the American Public Health Association, the American Thoracic Society, the Asthma And Allergy Foundation of America, and the Trust for America's Health sent a very good letter to EPA supporting "the strongest possible standards to reduce harmful emissions from the production wells, processing plants, transmission pipelines and storage units within the oil and gas industry," because "research has shown that these pollutants can cause cancer, developmental disorders, and premature death." Moreover the letter supports the demand of citizens in the Shale that want to see the new EPA rules cover EXISTING wells along with new ones that are now targeted. In total, it's the strongest letter to date from anyone at ALA on fracking and represents a huge step forward in the organization's articulation of the various public health harms of the practice. We're relieved to see that Chesapeake didn't buy the conscience of the ALA when its checks were cashed by the group. Now that the ALA is on the record as supporting tougher air emissions strategies for fracking, we hope the local Lung Association in DFW will find ways to insert staff resources into the numerous manifestations of the national battle going on right here in North Texas, starting with the writing of new Dallas and Denton gas drilling ordinances, and the renewed struggle to obtain safe and legal air for the region.