We hope our friend Mr. Reaves has been watching the news the past couple of days because there’s no better evidence that indeed Luminent Energy is playing high-level inside-the-beltway-chess with its employees than its own words and actions concerning the Air Transport Rule since last Monday’s announcement. We expect the company to name a campaign manager any day now.

Thanks to the redoubtable Henry Waxman, Congressman from Wisconsin for assembling this comprehensive data base on the current Congress’  torrid, shameful orgy of industry-backed legislation

Because it’s the only way we’re going to be able to significantly cut smog-forming pollution from the gas industry for the foreseeable future.

Gas production laces the air with toxic substances like sulfur dioxide and benzene, a volatile organic compound, or VOC, and emits pollutants that form smog, which blankets many Western gas fields. Ozone — the main component of smog — is created when VOCs and nitrogen oxide interact with sunlight. It can cause respiratory ailments, while VOCs themselves can be carcinogenic.

Because of the high pressure at which fracking fluid is injected into and flows back out of the ground, more pollution initially escapes from fracked wells than from conventional ones. Whether or not wells are fracked, pollutants leak out all along the production chain — from pipelines, storage tanks, diesel trucks and compressor stations. Tens of thousands of new gas wells have been drilled in recent years, and in production hubs, air pollution has simultaneously worsened. Ozone levels spiked above federal limits 26 times in rural Utah’s Uintah Basin in the first three months of 2011.  There, and in Sublette County, Wyo., ozone levels have even exceeded those of famously smoggy Los Angeles.

Yet air-quality standards for oil and gas production haven’t been updated in years; VOC standards have sat untouched since 1985. In late July, however, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed ambitious new air rules for the industry — among the first federal regulations of any kind to cover fracking. “They’re a major milestone,” says Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians, which, with another group, sued the EPA to prompt the new rules. “The emission reductions are just huge.”

The rules would mainly cover VOCs and air toxics, pollutants such as sulfur dioxide that are known or believed to cause cancer and other major illnesses. They aim to cut the industry’s overall VOC emissions by an estimated 25 percent, air toxics by 30 percent, and methane — a super-charged greenhouse gas — by 26 percent. Stricter VOC controls would be required at compressor stations, storage tanks and processing plants. Limits would be set for air toxics emissions, and new and refractured wells would have to be equipped to separate methane and smog-forming VOCs from water when they flow back out of a fracked well, a process known as green completion.

Without a new clean air plan to construct until 2012-2013, these new EPA rules are DFW’s best hope for reducing sources of smog pollution which have gone mostly unregulated at the state and local level. We need to protect them and make sure they’re implemented in full.

In 2008, almost 100 DFW residents spoke at an EPA hearing at DFW Airport on behalf of the new cement plant emission rules that will bring new controls to the Midlothian cement plants by 2013. We filled every speaker slot from 9 am to 9pm. It was an incredible success that demonstrated to industry and EPA that there was widespread popular support for the new rules – even in Texas.

We have to do the same thing on September 29th at the Arlington City Council Chambers. Sign-up for a 5 minute speaking slot – that’s all we’re asking, five minutes to tell the EPA why clean air is important to you and your family; five minutes to tell them your own stories about breathing fumes from drilling pads, or compressors, or processing plants; five minutes to say why you don’t want to breathe poisons, no matter how large or small the levels.  Don’t leave it up to someone else to testify.

EPA Hearing on New Rules for Gas Industry Air Pollution

When: Thursday September 29th, from 9 am to 9 pm
Where: Arlington City Hall Council Chambers

You can register for a five minute time slot between 9am and 9 pm by calling Ms. Joan Rogers at EPA: 919-541-4487.

This way, you only hamper our ability to take a breath

A cynical piece of fallout from yesterday’s ozone standard decision buried in a Washington Post analysis piece.

For the past several years the gas industry in North Texas has repeatedly claimed that they’re not really a significant source of smog-forming pollution, despite official inventories showing a huge rise in emissions from their sources since 2005. This rise was what fueled Downwinders at Risk’s Fair Share Campaign this last spring to include more pollution cuts from gas sources in the official DFW “do-over” clean air plan that attracted the support of seven local North Texas city and county governments.

In words and manner reminiscent of the Midlothian cement plants’ party line in the 1990’s, gas company spokespeople argued that it was all those nasty old cars that you and I drive, and not their facilities, that cause our smog problems. What we emit, they said, was inconsequential, really.

But on page 2 of the Post article, there is this piece of news about what those same gas companies have been saying to the Obama Administration in regard to a lower ozone standard:

“Natural-gas companies, for example, argued to the administration that the rule might hamper their ability to take advantage of newly accessible natural-gas reserves.”

As Kathy Martin, an oil and gas engineer that was one of the citizen expert witnesses for the Dallas Gas Drilling Task Force this past was quoted as saying, “I’m not anti-drilling. I’m just anti-lying. But sometimes they’re the same thing.”

Today the Obama Administration signaled its biggest environmental retreat to date, dropping any plans to lower the federal ozone standard to a level that’s actually protective of human health.

Instead, the EPA will stick with the 2008 standard of 75 ppb – a compromise that has no basis in the scientific literature and that ignored the advice of George Bush’s scientists to set a lower one between 60 and 70 ppb to make sure public health was protected.

What does this mean for DFW air quality planning?

1. In the short term – nothing. After two attempts since 2006, we still haven’t meet the old 1997 ozone standard of 85 ppb. When the current TCEQ effort to reach this goal is officially declared dead next year, the wheels will start to turn toward writing A THIRD plan to try and reach it. No matter how much the new federal level goes up or down, DFW still has to keep trying to meet the old 85 ppb standard until we have a three-year running average of 84 ppb or less. Right now we’re at 90 ppb. 

2. The George Bush Administration ozone standard of 75 ppb becomes the target for a brand new, separate clean air plan devoted to meeting it. In implementing it, the EPA must first draw new boundaries for the nation’s “non-attainment areas” – those regions that will be subject to this new standard. In DFW that means that Wise County, and perhaps other outlying counties, will be added to the 9-county existing non-attainment area. But this boundary process might take up to two years because the state will fight it. When that’s settled, then the state, along with the North Texas Clean Air Steering Committee, will once again a have the responsibility to write a plan to meet the new 75 ppb std.

Unlike this year’s “plan” by TCEQ of sitting back and hoping people buy new cars, a plan to get down to 75 ppb will have to have moving parts and affect all sources of ozone pollution – industrial, vehicular, and everything else.  That will be the opportunity to press for state-of-the-art controls for the Midlothian cement plants, the East Texas coal plants, and the gas industry, as well as more mass transit, better energy efficiency standards and a host of other strategies. For example, by 2013, there will be a pilot test completed of SCR technology on a US cement plant in Illinois. Those results can be used to press for SC technology at the Midlothian cement plants.

Because Downwinders at Risk Director Jim Schermbeck serves on the North Texas Clean Air Steering Committee, we go this missive from the North Central Texas Council of Governments about an hour ago

TO:  North Texas Clean Air Steering Committee Members              
DATE:  September 2, 2011
FROM:  Mike Eastland
SUBJECT:  EPA Ozone Standard

The President announced this morning that he has requested EPA to wait until at least 2013 before establishing a standard for ozone in the 60-70 ppm range.  I have made contact with the EPA regional Office in Dallas to get more details on this and how this decision affects us in the meantime.  They had also just read the press release and are waiting to get more information from their colleagues in D.C. and North Carolina.

While not official, the most likely result is that EPA will begin implementation of the 75 ppm standard and the first step will be designation of those areas who will have to meet this standard and, of course, we are one of those.  If normal timelines are followed, the designations take one or two years.  Once they are made, states will have to start development of SIPs.

EPA will keep us updated as more information is made available and we will keep you informed.   When a clearer picture emerges, we will call a meeting of the Steering Committee and have the EPA and TCEQ give us a full report on all of this and how and when they will begin the process.

To read the President’s official statement please use the following link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/02/statement-president-ozone-national-ambient-air-quality-standards.

One day we might actually live to see these decisions based on the science instead of electoral plotting. In the meantime, we have to live with this compromise.

In terms of a timeline, this isn’t any different than what would have happened had EPA announced a 60 to 70 ppb standard today. We’d still have to wait a year or so for the boundaries designations to be settled. All that’s really changed is that we have a standard that is at least 5 ppb higher than it should be based on protecting public health.

So the first order of business is to start making the case of why Wise County should be included in DFW’s non-attainment area. It’s an easy case to make, but one the TCEQ really doesn’t want to hear. Why? Well if you look at a lot of ozone plumes in our area, you’ll often see the air pollution being pushed into Wise County from the rest of the Metromess. TCEQ suspects that ozone levels are going to be high there – that’s why there are NO ozone monitors in Wsie County, even though the state’s own modeling shows it’s a hot spot for ozone pollution. The state is afraid the ozone levels recorded there will be so high as to throw the entire DFW region out of whack in terms of its alleged “progress.”

The news that this president is once again settling for merely extending a policy of his predecessor instead of changing it is disappointing. But that doesn’t mean we twiddle our thumbs for the next 2-3 years. We have a clear course laid out for us now.  We finally have a new, lower standard that will prompt a new, more aggressive clean air plan in DFW, with more of the area’s counties included in it. That’s not a bad thing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UPDATE X1 3:30 pm Sunday

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

Update X2 4:30 pm

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

Update X3  5:30 pm

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

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

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

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

Update X4 6:30 pm 

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

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

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

Last Update 9:30 pm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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