Four of the Largest Urban Areas in Texas Have Unsafe Ozone Levels

This week, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) announced its ozone designation recommendations for the updated 2015 ozone (smog) standard. These proposed designations indicate where in Texas the air quality violates the new pollution standard and include four of the largest urban areas in Texas. By October 1, 2016, Governor Greg Abbott will send the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) a list of these areas that are proposed by the TCEQ to be in “nonattainment” with the Clean Air Act. These areas are the 11 counties in the Dallas-Fort Worth area (DFW), eight counties in the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria area (HGB), San Antonio in Bexar County, and El Paso County. TCEQ identified two new urban areas as violating the public health smog standards (San Antonio and El Paso) and even added a new county to the DFW area (Hood County). And in determining the DFW nonattainment area, TCEQ, in a nod to big polluters like TXU Energy's sister company Luminant, has failed again to address the areas where much of the pollution is created.

As of July 31, 97 percent of Texas’ unsafe ozone limit exceedances this year were recorded in these four urban centers, where approximately 16 million people live. Violating the ozone standard puts communities at risk and creates burdens for people suffering from asthma or other respiratory illness. We know smog pollution hurts people and now we know that more Texans than ever are living and working in areas that violate the federal ozone standard. But TCEQ’s limited recommendations won’t be enough.

Trinity O'QuinnMisti and Trinity O'Quinn

 Why is smog bad, and who suffers?

“There are residents all across Texas paying the cost of ozone non-attainment,” says Cherelle Blazer, a local environmentalist and Sierra Club Beyond Coal organizer who works in some of the communities hardest hit by Dallas’ ozone pollution. “It is important that the people living with pollution levels that violate the legal standard speak out about how it affects everything about their quality of life from the cost of healthcare to finding alternatives to playing outdoors for their children during ozone season.”

People like Dallas residents Misti O’Quinn and Trinity, her 10-year old daughter. Trinity explains, “You can start to feel when your chest starts to get tighter and tighter, and the coughing gets bad. This is a nebulizer. It opens me up a lot and helps me [breathe] better.”

As O’Quinn watches her daughter demonstrate how a nebulizer - a medical device to treat asthma symptoms - works, she speaks to her feeling of helplessness when it comes to combatting ozone pollution, “I don’t know what it is in the air that causes it. Of course, you know, the regular stuff that we hear on TV: cars, gas, fossil fuels...I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever really delved deep into it. Just keeping up with this is enough.”

August heat in Texas brings not only rising temperatures but rising levels of ground-level ozone —also known as smog— to big cities. This makes breathing outside risky, especially in the afternoon when ozone reaches its highest hourly peaks. When ozone spikes too high, people risk harm to their lung tissue and cells. Children with asthma, the elderly, and outdoor workers are the most susceptible to this pollution.

Texas asthma rates differ among racial and socio-economic groups. According to the 2014 Texas Asthma Burden report, 11.8 percent of black adults suffered from asthma compared to 8.2 percent of whites. Also, black children in Texas are nearly four times more likely to be admitted to the hospital for asthma, compared to white children. 

Olinka Greene is a Dallas resident and longtime community organizer who has witnessed the disproportionate impacts of pollution on working class communities of color. "We’re having to keep children in the house during certain parts of the day because the pollutants are so bad. Our community has a high propensity of arrests and shootings. You can look at them and tell, that they are often surrounded by corporations that are doing the most horrible things to them, as far as air pollution, water pollution, and food deserts. I think any place where brown people and poor people are in high concentration, you’re not going to get clean air.”
Olinka Greene

Where does smog come from?

Urban air pollution dominated by ground level ozone is an ongoing challenge due to a mix of growing populations, more vehicles (albeit cleaner), and industrial pollution that come together with sunlight to create smog. While the Dallas-Fort Worth area is directly affected by ozone-forming pollution from several of the state’s largest coal-burning power plants and has more than twice the overall prevalence of asthma than the state average, residents in Denton and San Antonio have also been pointing to the expansion of natural gas drilling and fracking as a cause for concern.

Several of the he highest ozone readings in the nation came from cities in Texas from the months in April, May, June and July as the weather brought sunny hot days which are most vulnerable for ozone formation.

How coal burning creates smog

Health and economic benefits of cleaning up pollution

People in ozone-affected communities shoulder the expense of smog pollution through medical bills, sick children, and missed workdays.

With her son Isaiah and daughter Trinity at her side, O’Quinn breaks down how expensive asthma treatment can be. “I think a lot of people just sit back because you feel kind of powerless. You don’t feel that there’s anything that you can do. The price is high. It’s high in time, it’s high in their health. It’s expensive. These little things: One box, and we can go through a box, if they’re doing bad, if they’re both doing bad, we can go through a box in two, three weeks. One box, $200, $300.”

A recent study estimated that a reduction of five parts per billion in ozone levels would prevent approximately $650 million in lost productivity each year by preventing 200 hospital admissions, 400 emergency room visits, more than 170,000 days of restricted activity for all residents, and almost 140,000 lost school days annually. In total, approximately 97 premature deaths could be avoided in the year in the 34 county area of Northeast Texas, including Dallas and Fort Worth. Five of the biggest coal plants in East Texas can reduce their contribution to massive amounts of air pollution by implementing common sense safeguards. But big polluters like Reliant’s parent company NRG, SWEPCO, and TXU Energy’s sister company Luminant are refusing to clean up.

Who can we turn to?

When speaking to Texans in ozone-affected communities like the south side of San Antonio and the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas, many believe there should be someone in the government looking out for them. Unfortunately for many Texans, that someone is not necessarily at the TCEQ. The TCEQ’s chief toxicologist, Michael Honeycutt, said ozone pollution isn’t a problem since most people stay indoors. Ignoring the fact that ozone doesn’t stop at the door and neither do people, this transparent rebuttal ignores a large portion of the state’s residents who spend time outside, like construction workers or children at school. The TCEQ’s actions go against what the agency is charged with protecting - people and the environment.

Jose Barrientos runs a community food pantry, boxing gym, and community cultural center in Oak Cliff. “I noticed two kids who had to completely quit boxing because of breathing problems that they had, which was asthma. And so, yes, it’s a problem here in the community. And so it’s something we need to do to address it. It’s important that our kids have good healthy oxygen to breathe. If you are having problems breathing and your eyes are burning, it might be just the smog. But where did that smog come from?”

Jose Barrientos

DFW’s failure to comply with the smog standard is due, in large part, to TCEQ’s repeated failure to address pollution from nearby coal-burning power plants, which contribute significantly to DFW’s air quality problems. In order to really tackle these issues, TCEQ should have worked to include in the nearby East Texas coal-fired plants Martin Lake, Monticello, Big Brown, Limestone, and Welsh as part of this week’s area designations for DFW area. These plants are among the state’s largest sources of pollution and they significantly contribute to smog in the Dallas area. 

In San Antonio, ozone pollution is already affecting public health and threatens to pose a significant risk to the region’s economic viability. Drilling in the nearby Eagle Ford Shale over the past few years has contributed to a net increase in ozone pollution in the San Antonio area. Meanwhile, the local electricity provider, CPS Energy, continues to invest in ozone pollution controls while ramping down the use of their coal fleet to reduce pollution - something the TCEQ has conveniently neglected to address in their ozone designations. 

And like the Dallas area, TCEQ is taking an approach that will all but ensure that communities in San Antonio will be breathing smoggy air for years to come. TCEQ’s proposal to designate Bexar County as nonattainment is an important recognition of the need for pollution control in San Antonio. However, it is really important to include surrounding areas in the designation area to ensure pollution controls are required wherever pollution is coming from and wherever it ends up. TCEQ should have included the additional counties that make up the greater San Antonio-New Braunfels area.

“TCEQ’s approach to designating only Bexar County as nonattainment is contrary to the plain language of the Clean Air Act. It ignores emissions from surrounding counties and industry – including oil and gas operations in the Eagle Ford shale – that are contributing to smog in Bexar County. This approach is practically begging large polluters to set up shop in surrounding counties that will not be subject to the same restrictions,” said Mario Bravo, Outreach Specialist for the Environmental Defense Fund’s U.S. Climate and Energy Program.

Timeline/ Upcoming Dates

Counties designated in ozone nonattainment will increase from 18 counties to at least 21 and potentially more after the EPA makes its final nonattainment designations by October 1, 2017. Be on the lookout between now and then for opportunities to join us to persuade EPA to ensure that Texans are protected from smog pollution. We deserve technically sound decisions from our regulators that recognize that the sources of smog pollution must be addressed. That means, a critical first step in achieving healthy air quality across Texas, EPA must properly identify where the pollution sources are and who they impact is a critical first step in achieving healthy air quality across Texas.