Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
HARVEY-HIT residents say air quality has worsened.
GALENA PARK, Texas — People who live along the nation’s highest concentration of petrochemical plants just east of downtown Houston say the air is bad enough on normal days, but it got unbearable as Hurricane Harvey crashed into the nation’s fourth-largest city and the city recorded the highest ozone pollution so far this year of anywhere in Texas.
People have complained of headaches, nausea, and itchy skin and throats — classic symptoms of industrial chemical exposure — as personnel at plants and refineries raced to burn off compounds that could combust in extreme weather or power loss.
Plants owned by Shell, Chevron, Exxon Mobil and other industry giants reported more than 1.5 million pounds of extraordinary emissions over eight days beginning Aug. 23. They gave their estimate to the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality in Harris County, which encompasses Houston.
That amounted to 61 percent of this year’s largely unpermitted emissions for the county and five times the amount released in the same period in 2016. Of the known carcinogens released during Harvey, more than 13 tons were benzene. Inhaling it can cause dizziness and even unconsciousness, and long-term exposure can trigger leukemia.
Asked about the health effects of the emissions spike, state environmental commission spokesman Andrea Morrow said “all measured concentrations were well below levels of health concern” and “local residents should not be concerned about air quality issues related to the effects of the storm.” The federal Environmental Protection Agency issued a similar statement.
Yet most air monitors were knocked out or offline during Harvey’s wrath, making taking measurements difficult.
Texas sets fines for industrial polluters at $25,000 per day for federal clean air violations. Big plants tend to delay shutdowns for as long as possible when a hurricane is approaching and then restart plants quickly afterward — triggering another spike in unhealthy emissions, said Daniel Cohan, a Rice University environmental scientist.
“These [plants] are three and four decades old, beasts that are meant to operate all the time,” Cohan said.
Asked if emissions could have been reduced by winding down plant operations earlier, American Petroleum Institute spokesman Reid Porter said, “We are still gathering information and making assessments.”
Some emissions were triggered by the sheer volume of Harvey’s deluge.
At an Arkema Inc. plant about 25 miles northeast of downtown Houston, organic peroxides rendered unstable by lost refrigeration exploded in flames and produced an acrid plume. At least 18 tons burned after people within a 1.5-mile radius were evacuated.
On Thursday, seven sheriff’s deputies and emergency medical responders sued Arkema in state court for gross negligence, saying that fumes from the flames left them ill and gasping for air.
Benzene and other toxins spilled into the air outside the Valero Partners refinery on Houston’s east side, as heavy rain damaged a tank’s floating roof and invaded a dike.
A city health department air monitor downwind of the refinery on Friday registered an alarming level of up to 14,000 parts per billion of volatile organic compounds, some carcinogenic, said department chief scientist Loren Raun, and aerial monitoring continued to detect benzene last Monday.
On Sept. 1, Houston registered Texas’ worst ozone pollution this year — an average of 95 parts per billion over eight hours. It was Harris County’s first of four straight days of unhealthy ozone levels, exceeding the EPA standard of 70 parts per billion.
By volume, most of Harris County’s emissions were sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, which break down to fine particles and ozone that all can cause respiratory problems, especially for people with asthma and emphysema, said Miriam Rotkin-Ellman, a health scientist for the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council.
In heavily Hispanic lower-middle-income communities such as Pasadena and Galena Park, which sit along the plant and refinery corridor near Houston’s seaport, some residents complained of feeling sick during Harvey.
Ruben Basurto, who lives two blocks from a petrochemical shipping terminal and refinery, described major flaring as Harvey hit — the burning off of volatile byproducts that sends flames soaring from plant stacks. The air reeked of natural gas, he said, driving him and his friends inside.
“It still smelled at midweek, more during the night,” said the 33-year-old construction worker.
As the storm closed in, Gov. Greg Abbott decreed a temporary suspension of emissions regulations. The state environmental agency’s director said Texas law could exempt refineries and chemical plants from state fines and liability for extraordinary releases resulting from “an act of God, war, strike, riot, or other catastrophe.”
In Galena Park, mothers in a private Facebook group described sickening odors like “sweet gasoline,” raw sewage and thick air.