Name: Add air pollution to the list of woes from the deadly Texas freeze
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Add air pollution to the list of woes from the deadly Texas freeze

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateResidents huddled under blankets in freezing homes following massive power outages. Vaccination plans were scrambled, delaying efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19. And, adding to the injury, Houston-area refineries and plants emitted hundreds of thousands of pounds of pollutants while state air monitors went offline.Facilities released roughly 700,000 pounds of excess emissions between Feb. 11 and Feb. 18, according to early company estimates reported to the state and analyzed by the Houston Chronicle. The data reinvigorated calls from environmental advocates for better preparation ahead of storms, which climate change is expected to make more likely.“We really need to give thought to how facilities are able to address the impending climate change impacts,” said Grace Tee Lewis, who works for the Environmental Defense Fund and also compiled the data. “Because ultimately these excess emissions are impacting the community and our air.”Industry officials prepared ahead of last week’s sub-freezing weather as they would before a hurricane, said Dennis Winkler, executive director of the East Harris County Manufacturers Association. Workers protected what they could. So-called “ride-out” crews staffed facilities for the whole disaster.On HoustonChronicle.com:They followed best practices that Winkler said they’ve had to enact too many times. The region experienced major flooding in 2015 and 2016 and was affected by severe tropical storms or hurricanes in 2017, 2019 and 2020.“As a matter of practice, our facilities are going to do everything that they can do to not have emissions or to reduce emissions,” Winkler said. “We are part of the community. Our employees are part of the community. Many of our workers live, and their families live, in those communities.”Planning ahead was important, and facilities had plenty of notice, said Stewart Behie, interim director of the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center, a research and education center at Texas A&amp;M.“One can’t anticipate everything,” Behie said. “However one needs to plan as much as possible for the worst-case scenario and then make adjustments as one goes along. Planning is a critical, critical part. If you don’t plan well, then you’re not going to end up weathering the storm, so to speak.”Extreme situations still brought issues. Facilities in early reports following the cold weather snap blamed excess emissions on reasons such as malfunctioning equipment, loss of natural gas supply and frozen material.Generally, emissions can occur during a facility start-up, shutdown or malfunction, said Daniel Cohan, an atmospheric scientist at Rice University. Temperatures might not be normal. Operations might be affected. And pollution-control devices work best when things are running as usual.But there still may be critical safety reasons for why the emissions occur, he said.“There is a reason to have more flexibility during these events,” Cohan said, “but you want these events to be rare and want them to be as carefully managed as possible.”While Cohan said air in Texas is cleaner than ever in his lifetime, large emissions events continue to put people at risk. Pollution during Hurricane Harvey in 2017 was on another level of magnitude. Some 8 million pounds of emissions were released, according to advocates. Storage tanks failed, power went down and the Arkema chemical plant in Crosby exploded.Tee Lewis noted that some facilities emitted significant amounts of contaminants in both the hurricane and recent freeze. That highlighted a need for better regulation ahead of the next natural disaster, she said.And there will be another disaster. Whether climate change will cause more ice storms such as Texas just experienced . But it’s well-established that the burning of fossil fuels contributes to , making stronger hurricanes and more intense rainfall more likely.“These facilities are highly vulnerable to extreme weather and, as the climate changes, these extreme weather events are going to happen more often,” said Corey Williams, who works for Air Alliance Houston. “Communities that surround these facilities are vulnerable.”Harris County during the freeze saw the most excess emissions of any county, according to Catherine Fraser, who works on air quality issues for Environment Texas, an advocacy group. She noticed in recent years that excess emissions occurred when it got especially cold in Texas. So she anticipated the emissions during the freeze but felt they were preventable. She hopes to see stronger penalties put in place for repeat offenders.Facilities have two weeks to revise their initial emissions reports, which are submitted to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. State officials typically then decide if, according to the law, the emissions were avoidable and whether operators made efforts to reduce them. Some rules were suspended by Gov. Greg Abbott at the agency’s request due to the bitter-cold temperatures.The state on Tuesday also deployed to Houston one of its newly equipped mobile monitoring vans. The van is meant to fill the gaps of a stationary monitoring system not intended to police facilities in disasters.The state takes its stationary monitors offline ahead of major hurricanes to prevent damage. A parallel problem arose in the freeze: 24 of the agency’s air monitors in the Houston area went offline beginning Feb. 15 because they lost power. Power was restored by Feb. 18, spokesman Gary Rasp said.The state considered it important to have its monitors back online as facility operations resumed. A revamped Harris County Pollution Control department, too, was conducting additional air monitoring. As life returned to normal, excess emissions were still possible to find.Matt Dempsey contributed to this report.emily.foxhall@chron.com

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateResidents huddled under blankets in freezing homes following massive power outages. Vaccination plans were scrambled, delaying efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19. And, adding to the injury, Houston-area refineries and plants emitted hundreds of thousands of pounds of pollutants while state air monitors went offline.Facilities released roughly 700,000 pounds of excess emissions between Feb. 11 and Feb. 18, according to early company estimates reported to the state and analyzed by the Houston Chronicle. The data reinvigorated...

Add air pollution to the list of woes from the deadly Texas freeze

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