The Daily News
Published 11/02/03
By Carolina Amengual

An environmental organization studying air quality in the region has released a four-page report summarizing the main sources of pollution and potential health effects, but information about Galveston County is scarce because of inadequate monitoring, members say.

“Outside of Harris County, the state does not monitor air pollution very effectively,” said John Wilson, executive director of the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention. “(In Galveston County), there’s better monitoring in Texas City, but not a lot better.”

Using health references and data collected during the past six years by state and federal environmental agencies, GHASP examined the link between exposure to air pollutants and the risk of developing cancer, chronic diseases and other severe health problems.

Toxic air pollutants in the region usually are generated by industries and diesel engines from large trucks, construction equipment, marine vessels and freight trains.

GHASP concludes that people in the area, especially those living around the Houston Ship Channel, are exposed to as much as eight times more air pollution than the recommended safe levels.

“Houston’s air falls short of the Clean Air Act goal,” the report states. “In the most heavily polluted areas of the Houston Ship Channel, an individual’s lifetime cancer risk may be increased by 1,000 chances in one million, or 1,000 times more cancer risk than aspired to in the Clean Air Act.

“Even in the cleaner areas well outside industrial areas, pollution elevates individual cancer risks by more than 100 chances in one million.”

In Galveston County, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality contracts with the Galveston County Health District to screen the air.

There are three permanent stations monitoring ozone — two in Texas City and one on Galveston Island — and another device in Texas City that measures the levels of dust and other fine particulates in the air. The health district will install additional mobile monitoring stations in Texas City neighborhoods early next year.

And all three high schools in the Clear Creek Independent School District recently installed ozone-monitoring equipment on campus.

The schools will transfer data electronically to Austin, to both state the environmental commission and the Texas Environmental Education Partnership.

But even though the air in the county appears to be cleaner than that in Houston, it doesn’t meet the goals set by the Clean Air Act.

Since the beginning of the year, the county recorded three days in which ozone levels exceeded 125 parts per billion.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, readings between 101 and 150 would be unhealthy for sensitive groups. When readings are between 151 and 200, the general public could have problems.

Wilson is also worried about what’s not measured. Because there are chemicals for which readings are not available for Galveston County, there are too many unknowns, he said.

For example, aldehydes, byproducts of plastic and rubber manufacturing, are not monitored in the county, Wilson said.

Other carcinogens, such as PAH (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), metals, acrolein and acrylonitrile are not monitored either, he added.

“If it were a house, Galveston would have nicer furniture in three rooms than Houston, but it’s too dark to tell in the other five rooms,” Wilson said.

Ronnie Schultz, pollution control director with the Galveston County Health District, said two devices in Texas City collect air samples every six days and are tested for 120 different pollutants.

However, information on whether the specific pollutants listed by Wilson were included among those 120 was not available Friday.

Besides, unlike ozone monitors, the canisters containing the air samples are shipped to a state environmental commission’s laboratory in Austin.

This means health district officials don’t have current data for all these pollutants.

“We have to run it through machines to figure out what’s in the air,” said Carl Vinesett, senior environmental investigator with the health district’s pollution control division. “It’s not like ozone that we can get online and see what the level was two hours ago. To get monitors that give real-time data is extremely expensive. If refineries have an incident, people are notified and they have shelter-in-place when there’s a risk to the community.

“We do our best, but there are limits on funding. In a perfect world, we would have a monitoring network the moment it happened. But that’s not practical, so we have to do with what we have.”

To clean the air in the Houston region, GHASP recommends strengthening regulations by targeting a wider range of pollutants, requiring industrial plants to monitor and reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides, and enforcing full permitting.

“The public needs to contact officials and say, ‘Why are you not doing something about it?’” Wilson said. “Why are we still breathing this air? Even lower levels are a health risk.”

• To find out how clean the air is in your area, check the Air Quality Index at http://www.epa.gov/airnow

‘Where Does Houston’s Smog Come From?’
The report on air quality published by the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention is at www.ghasp.org.
For more information, call (713) 528-3779.

Smog

• Short-term exposure to high levels of ozone may lead to shortness of breath, chest pain, wheezing and coughing.
• Long-term, repeated exposure may lead to reduction in lung function, inflammation of the lung lining and increased respiratory discomfort.
• People with asthma, chronic bronchitis and emphysema, and individuals who exercise outdoors are at particular risk from high ozone levels, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
• Air quality in the Houston region reaches unhealthy levels and triggers health warnings throughout the year, but problems peak between April and October.
• Several pollutants react chemically to form ozone in midair on warm bright days, when winds are light. Ground-level ozone, the main component of smog, forms most frequently near industrial areas in east Harris County, Texas City and southern Brazoria County, and may be transported in any direction.

— Sources: Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention and American Lung Association