A pollutant ‘hot spot’
Experts warn benzene, prevalent in Houston area, needs more oversight
TEXAS CITY — Brandy Mendoza sat in the shade outside her Texas City home, a day after emergency alarms and a brief shelter-in-place order kept her inside. A nearby refinery had released an “unknown amount of hydrofluoric acid,” according to the state environmental agency. Her throat, for a moment, felt like it was burning.
Texas City residents say they are accustomed to what comes with living among refineries. Some don’t worry about the possible health risks. Mendoza, 45, said concerns about her long-term health are sometimes in the back of her mind.
“You’re going to have issues anywhere you live,” Mendoza said. “Here, it’s the plants.”
Those threats came into clearer view after environmental advocates last week called out the same refinery that triggered the alarms. Marathon Petroleum’s Galveston Bay refinery in 2019 and 2020 had detected more of a cancer-causing pollutant called benzene on the edges of its property than federal rules allow.
Benzene is prevalent in the Houston area, found in car exhaust and at refineries and other
plants. Long-term exposure to high amounts can cause leukemia, but it’s not as stringently regulated as other pollutants.
There’s no federal standard for how much benzene is unsafe for communities to breathe. The chemical is monitored at refinery fencelines; the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit with some staff in Austin, believes those rules fall short and aren’t enforced well enough by federal officials.
The rules especially matter because of potential impacts: Marathon was one of 13 facilities that the EIP found emitted too much benzene last year. Those living within 3 miles were predominantly people of color.
“These are exactly the places that got hit the hardest by the pandemic,” said Eric Schaeffer, the EIP’s executive director. “These are exactly the places where people are already struggling with preexisting health conditions that make them more vulnerable to pollutants like benzene.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it has taken action where it’s found issues, and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said it specifically asked Marathon in 2019 what it was doing to reduce benzene levels.
Marathon said it gave TCEQ a plan for lowering benzene concentrations and is following through on it. (As for the acid release, they said there was no indicated impact on the community.)
Advocates and health experts monitor benzene because it’s commonly found here. A 2006 report identified benzene as among the pollutants locally that were “definite risks to human health.”
“Benzene is a pollutant that you’re going to find in every city, but it just happens to be a bigger problem here because of our industrial and refining, our industry,” said Loren Hopkins, chief environmental science officer for the Houston Health Department. “We watch it a lot.”
Houston city officials recently took a step toward better policing it, setting new policy for how to react to short-term spikes.
A ‘hazardous pollutant’
When it comes to air quality, the EPA focuses on what are called “criteria air pollutants.” These are ground-level ozone, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, lead, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. All are found nationwide and can be harmful.
Benzene is considered one of some 187 other “hazardous air pollutants.” The EPA limits how much can be emitted by industrial facilities.
Requiring refineries to measure benzene at their fencelines is relatively new, following a lawsuit from the EIP and another group, Earthjustice. The rule says the net average amount of benzene in a year cannot exceed 9 micrograms per cubic meter.
Marathon’s annual averages were about 12 and 15 in 2019 and 2020, respectively, according to the EIP report.
If readings are too high, the facility is supposed to correct the problem. Asked if it had taken enforcement action against Marathon, the EPA said it does not comment on potential or ongoing enforcement.
Environmental advocates also argue the issue is wider: They want loopholes to be eliminated that they say allow refineries not to count benzene leaked from storage tanks. They also want to see better responses to spikes that tubular fenceline devices detect in a two-week sampling period.
The EPA, now under a Democratic administration that has made cleaner air a top goal, said in a statement it would examine the report’s recommendations.
“While the fenceline monitoring program is making a significant impact on emissions reductions, EPA will continue to assess the effectiveness of the program and explore strategies to improve and apply it more broadly,” the statement said.
It leaves further control to state or local authorities.
A ‘definite risk’
After Hurricane Harvey in 2017, another environmental group, the Environmental Defense Fund, saw spikes in benzene in Manchester, a neighborhood that is notoriously surrounded by industry on the Houston Ship Channel, east of Loop 610.
Residents later described feeling nearly knocked off their feet by the smell, said Elena Craft, the EDF’s senior director for climate and health.
In 2019, benzene levels spiked again as the Intercontinental Terminals Co. storage facility blazed near Deer Park, creating a black cloud of smoke over the region and causing confusion over what residents should do.
In both cases, the city of Houston had no up-to-date guidelines for what amount of benzene was too much in the short-term.
TCEQ has some checks in place: Staff read benzene fenceline data quarterly for concerns. They watch air monitor data for numbers that exceed what they consider safe over an hour, 24 hours and a year. If the amount is too high, they can place an area on a “watch list” for benzene, as they’ve done in parts of the region before.
But the city health department wanted a list of what measurements should prompt what response — investigation, a shelterin-place order or evacuation. So three toxicologists, including Craft, reviewed studies and looked at how other agencies handled it.
“We are a hot spot for benzene, if you will,” said Craft, adding, “There are lots of communities that have to deal with these threats regularly and routinely and it’s not just one thing. It’s everything altogether.”
Houston Health staffers now receive alerts when air monitor readings get too high. Still the monitors are not in real-time, and there are only nine that the city checks.
And they don’t watch the monitors in places such as Texas City, located some 40 miles southeast of downtown Houston.
There, Patty and JoAnn Galvan held a garage sale Wednesday afternoon not far from Marathon’s tangle of flaring and puffing equipment.
The mother and daughter were taking advantage of the nice weather, they said. Their house was paid off, so they have stayed in Texas City, a community of about 50,000 residents. But the pollution concerns them.
“I just hope we never get sick from it,” said Patty Galvan, 50. “Thank God we haven’t.”