Climate / Extreme Weather Houston Floods

TOXIC WAKE ... Climate / Extreme Weather ... Houston Floods ... Little or no EPA attention to the problem of toxic chemicals in the flood water!

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

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Officials underreported Hurricane Harvey’s toxic fallout. An investigation by the Associated Press and the Houston Chronicle uncovered more than 100 releases of industrial toxins in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.
The storm compromised chemical plants, refineries, and pipelines along Houston’s petrochemical corridor, bringing contaminated water, dirt, and air to surrounding neighborhoods. Carcinogens like benzene, vinyl chloride, and butadiene were released. In all but two cases, regulators did not inform the public of the spills or the risks they faced from exposure.
The report also found that the EPA failed to investigate Harvey’s environmental damage as thoroughly as other disasters. The EPA and state officials took 1,800 soil samples after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. After Hurricane Ike slammed into Texas in 2008, state regulators studied 85 soil samples and issued more than a dozen violations and orders to clean up.
But post-Harvey, soil and water sampling has been limited to 17 Superfund sites and some undisclosed industrial sites. Experts say this is a problem because floodwaters could have picked up toxins in one place and deposited them miles away.
“That soil ended up somewhere,” Hanadi Rifai, director of the University of Houston’s environmental engineering program, told the AP. “The net result on Galveston Bay is going to be nothing short of catastrophic.”
Seven months after Harvey, the EPA says it’s investigating 89 incidents. But it has yet to issue any enforcement actions.
Justine Calma 23 hours ago

Hurricane Harvey's toxic impact deeper than public told Frank Bajak Of The Associated Press and Lise Olsen Of The Houston Chronicle, Associated Press and Houston Chronicle Updated 3:21 pm, Thursday, March 22, 2018 Hurricane Harvey's toxic impact on Houston was more widespread than publicly reported, an AP-Houston Chronical investigation has found. In the more than 100 spills catalogued by reporters, environmental testing was limited. (March 22) Media: Associated Press HOUSTON (AP) — More than a half-year after Hurricane Harvey flooded America's largest corridor of energy and petrochemical plants, records show the storm's environmental assault was more widespread and severe than authorities publicly acknowledged. Piecing together county, state and federal records, The Associated Press and Houston Chronicle catalogued more than 100 Harvey-related toxic releases — on land, in water and air — in metropolitan Houston, America's fourth-largest city. Most were never publicized. Only a few were investigated by federal regulators. State officials say they have investigated 89 incidents but have announced no enforcement actions. Some 500 chemical plants, 10 refineries and more than 6,670 miles of intertwined oil, gas and chemical pipelines line the corridor. Nearly half a billion gallons of industrial wastewater mixed with storm water surged out of just one of these chemical plants. The dozens of tons of chemicals unleashed — all self-reported by industry — include such proven carcinogens as benzene and vinyl chloride. Many affected plants are repeat environmental offenders. In this Jan. 24, 2018 photo, Jessica Chastain talks about the flooding and chemical spills in her Galena Park neighborhood during and after Hurricane Harvey. The Houston neighborhood is a block away from chemical plants. A number of Harvey-related spills occurred near Chastain's home, including the 460,000-gallon gasoline spill at a Magellan Midstream Partners tank farm and nearly 52,000 pounds of crude oil from a Seaway Crude Pipeline Inc. tank. (Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle via AP) Photo: Elizabeth Conley, AP / © 2018 Houston Chronicle Photo: Elizabeth Conley, AP IMAGE 1 OF 12 In this Jan. 24, 2018 photo, Jessica Chastain talks about the flooding and chemical spills in her Galena Park neighborhood during and after Hurricane Harvey. The Houston neighborhood is a block away from ... more Soil and water testing for contaminants by state and federal regulators was largely limited to Superfund toxic waste sites. Air sampling was more extensive, including flyovers, but officials released few details and repeatedly assured the public that post-Harvey air pollution posed no health threat. The career civil servant who headed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's regional office during Harvey, Samuel Coleman, now says those general assessments did not reflect local 'hotspots' with potential risk to people. The priority in the hurricane's immediate aftermath was 'addressing any environmental harms as quickly as possible, as opposed to making announcements about what the problem was,' Coleman said. In hindsight, he said, it might not have been a bad idea to inform the public about the worst of 'dozens of spills.' Local officials say the state and federal government's response to Harvey has weakened efforts by the city of Houston and surrounding Harris County to build cases against the companies and force them to follow through on cleanups. 'The public will probably never know the extent of what happened to the environment after Harvey. But the individual companies of course know,' said Rock Owens, supervising environmental attorney for Harris County, home to 4.7 million residents. Regulators alerted the public to dangers from just two, well-publicized toxic disasters: the Arkema chemical plant northeast of Houston that exploded and burned for days, and a nearby dioxin-laden federal Superfund site whose protective cap was damaged by the raging San Jacinto River. The chairman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Bryan Shaw, told a January legislative hearing he could not discuss those spills or possible sanctions while an after-action review is pending. The state says it has 'a number of open investigations' but would not elaborate. The limited extent of post-Harvey environmental testing by state and federal authorities was 'unconscionable,' said environmental sociologist Scott Frickel of Brown University, especially compared to two previous major Gulf Coast hurricanes. After Hurricane Ike hit Texas in 2008, state regulators collected 85 soil samples. More than a dozen violations were identified and cleanups carried out, according to a state review. And after Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters ravaged New Orleans in 2005, the EPA and Louisiana officials examined about 1,800 soil samples over 10 months, EPA records showed. Reporters covered some Harvey-environmental crises as they happened, such as AP's exclusive on the flooding of toxic waste sites and the Chronicle's Arkema warnings before fires broke out. But the sheer quantity of spills was impossible to document in real time — and information about some releases was delayed. Academics have tried to fill in the gaps in environmental monitoring but say the paucity of data leaves local residents in a state of limbo — not knowing what they may have been exposed to — and could hurt efforts to prepare for future violent weather events that climatologists predict. Testing by academics — in waterways and on land — has shown evidence of likely Harvey-related contamination, they say. But scientists also believe the deluge — five feet of rain in some spots — had a scouring effect on top soil, meaning contaminants likely migrated. 'That soil ended up somewhere,' said Hanadi Rifai, who heads the University of Houston's environmental engineering program and has been studying pollution in the 50-mile-long Houston Ship Channel — the petrochemical industry's main artery — for more than two decades. 'The net result on Galveston Bay is going to be nothing short of catastrophic.' Only one of nine soil samples collected in September by Rice University researchers in a neighborhood east of downtown Houston showed the presence of benzo(a)pyrene, a known carcinogen, at levels just above what the EPA deems a cancer risk, according to an independent chemical analysis funded by the AP-Chronicle collaboration. Samples taken in October at a popular Houston park upstream of the ship channel showed elevated levels of dioxins, PCBs and hazardous chemicals typically created in the burning of oil, coal and gas, said Jennifer Horney, a Texas A&M epidemiology professor who conducted testing for the city. But the levels were below EPA cleanup standards. Harris County officials have referred at least three post-Harvey releases to the Texas Attorney General's Office for possible punitive action. One was a half-million-gallon gasoline spill from a storage tank owned by Magellan Midstream Partners in Galena Park, where plant workers were evacuated amid explosion fears. 'Nobody told us anything,' said Claudia Mendez, a 42-year-old community activist who lives a mile away with her husband and three sons. It wasn't until the next week that she learned from news reports of the Magellan spill. Mendez did notice some foam at the time in a pond beside the road fronting Magellan's terminal. 'We found out later it was the foam the firefighters used to put down the fumes.' Magellan spokesman Bruce Heine sid the company notified state and federal authorities as soon as it was aware of the spill. ___ Associated Press reporter Justin Pritchard in Los Angeles and Houston Chronicle reporter Alex Stuckey contributed to this story. ___ For more AP coverage of Hurricane Harvey: https://apnews.com/tag/HurricaneHarvey ___ Contact Frank Bajak at fbajak@ap.org and http://twitter.com/fbajak , and Lise Olsen at Lise.olsen@chron.com and https://twitter.com/chrondigger



AGE 1 OF 12 In this Jan. 24, 2018 photo, Jessica Chastain talks about the flooding and chemical spills in her Galena Park neighborhood during and after Hurricane Harvey. The Houston neighborhood is a block away from chemical plants. A number of Harvey-related spills occurred near Chastain's home, including the 460,000-gallon gasoline spill at a Magellan Midstream Partners tank farm and nearly 52,000 pounds of crude oil from a Seaway Crude Pipeline Inc. tank. (Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle via AP) less



This Jan. 24, 2018 photo shows Panther Creek in Galena Park, a community of 11,000 people, near Houston. During Harvey's three-day downpour, the creek's water was a slimy brownish-black and smelled like a 'rotten sewer,'; said Jessica Chastain. 'It had a coat of film over it. I'm not sure what it was. It was probably oil.' The creek swallowed Chastain's home, forcing the 36-year-old mother and four of her children to swim across the street to the safety of her parents' two-story house. (Elizabeth Conley/ Houston Chronicle via AP) Photo: Elizabeth Conley, AP / © 2018 Houston Chronicle Photo: Elizabeth Conley, AP



IMAGE 3 OF 12 In this Jan. 24, 2018 photo, students play on the grass in front of Judson W. Robinson Jr. Elementary School in Galena Park near Houston. After Hurricane Harvey, the school didn't open for nearly 5 months as silt deposited by a flooded bayou was removed. (Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle via AP) Photo: Elizabeth Conley, AP / © 2018 Houston Chronicle Photo: Elizabeth Conley, AP



IMAGE 4 OF 12 In this Jan. 24, 2018 photo, Claudia Mendez talks about the smells from the chemical plants in her Galena Park neighborhood near Houston. A gasoline spill about a mile away from Claudia Mendez's home forced the local fire department to put down foam in the neighborhood to suppress the fumes.(Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle via AP) less



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IMAGE 6 OF 12 In this Aug. 30, 2017 photo, the Arkema chemical plant is flooded from Hurricane Harvey in Crosby, Texas, northeast of Houston. Nearby residents complain of a 'bitter taste' about the sparse information authorities provided when chemicals at the plant caught fire. They say the company failed to provide sufficient warning beforehand while environmental officials misled them with assurances that the air and water were safe. Critics say testing by authorities and contractors was inadequate to determine whether public health was threatened. (Godofredo A. Vasquez/Houston Chronicle via AP) less



IMAGE 7 OF 12 This March 20, 2018 photo shows Exxon Mobil Corp.'s Olefins Plant in Baytown, Texas. Two days after Harvey hit, some 457 million gallons of stormwater mixed with untreated wastewater, including oil and grease, surged into an adjacent creek from the Exxon plant. (Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle via AP) less



IMAGE 8 OF 12 In this Nov. 9, 2017 photo, a Valero refinery plant in Houston's Manchester neighborhood in Houston is shown. On Sept. 7, 2017, state investigators took air samples near Valero and reported suffering headaches and dizziness, though they said they found pollutants 'below levels of short-term health and/or welfare concern,' according to a state report. (Yi-Chin Lee/Houston Chronicle via AP) less



IMAGE 9 OF 12 In this Jan. 24, 2018 photo, Claudia Mendez's son plays basketball with friends outside their home in Galena Park, Texas, as Mendez looks on, foreground. A gasoline spill about a mile away from Claudia Mendez's home forced the local fire department to put down foam in the neighborhood to suppress the fumes. (Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle via AP) less



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IMAGE 11 OF 12 In this Jan. 24, 2018 photo, Galena Park is hemmed in by heavy industry just east of downtown Houston along the ship channel. (Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle via AP)



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