High temperatures, calm winds and cloudless, sunny days are often the worst for air quality in big cities.
While the brutal days of Texas summer dwindle as we head into November, it’s time to reflect on the data from this year’s ozone (smog) season and the work we’re doing in our major metro areas with the most smoggy air to pressure our federal (EPA) and state (TCEQ) agencies to do their job and improve public health.
If you need a refresher on what ground-level ozone is, why it’s bad for our health, and how it’s being monitored and regulated (or how it should be), check out this blog we published earlier this year near the beginning of ozone season (which runs from April to November).
When we published that blog back in April, no Texas cities had experienced a “high ozone day” yet. However, we predicted that there would be many over the course of the season.
What the 2018 Ozone Data Shows
The regions of our state that suffer from the highest ozone levels have historically been the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth regions and, more recently, the San Antonio and El Paso regions.
The Houston region had over a month’s worth of days—35, to be specific—that were considered unsafe to breathe outdoors. The Dallas region was a close second with 29 days, while San Antonio and El Paso tied with 13 days.
In general, from the Gulf Coast to North Texas to West Texas, the entire state had 500 ozone “exceedances” this year, which is 100 more exceedances than the past two years (2016 - 2017) combined! [An ozone “exceedance” means that air monitors are detecting ozone levels spiking above the federal air quality standard for the protection of human health.]
Our Advocacy
This was a big year for Sierra Club to step up our legal fight to clean up ozone pollution in Texas. Here’s a breakdown of where we’re at in each region:
Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth
The EPA and TCEQ have an important job to do in our regions suffering the most. There are eighteen counties in the Dallas and Houston area with air quality that still fails to meet minimum public health protections for ozone that the EPA established a decade ago. In fact, in the more than forty years since Congress passed the Clean Air Act, air quality in the Dallas area has never met the ozone safeguards that EPA has established. TCEQ (or EPA, if the state fails to do so) has a statutory obligation to bring the air quality in these areas into compliance with air quality standards set back in 2008.
Earlier this year, the EPA took public comments on a proposal to approve TCEQ’s long overdue plan to clean up the air, despite data showing that the state’s plan has already failed to meet the mandatory Clean Air Act deadline for compliance. The inadequate state plan has left millions of Texans breathing dirty, dangerous air.
In June, Sierra Club submitted legal and technical comments asking EPA to officially reject TCEQ’s failed plan that is supposed to show that both the Houston area and Dallas-Fort Worth area will meet the 2008 smog standard by last year. With the benefit of hindsight, we know that the TCEQ has to do better.
We are awaiting a decision from the EPA. And while we are hopeful the agency will do what is necessary to protect public health, we are preparing a legal challenge in the very likely event that the Trump EPA puts industry and polluters’ interests over public health.
El Paso
The EPA failed to designate El Paso as an ozone non-attainment area, even though local air monitors and the amount of pollution generated in the area make clear that it should be one. This is significant, because once a non-attainment area is designated, the state and local regulators are required to then work out a plan to clean up the air.
Sierra Club is challenging this decision in court.
San Antonio
Sierra Club fought hard to get the EPA to finally move forward with a decision to protect San Antonio communities from the adverse impacts of ozone. Texas’s own air quality monitoring data clearly shows that Bexar County is failing to meet air quality safeguards and should be designated in non-attainment for ozone.
After years of delay implementing the 2015 ozone standard, in July, the EPA designated Bexar County as in non-attainment with the 2015 standard for ozone, which the agency strengthened in response to overwhelming evidence that a more protective standard was needed to protect public health. Full implementation of the ozone standard would prevent numerous deaths and thousands of hospitalizations each year in Bexar County.
But instead of working with EPA to reduce the elevated levels of pollution in Bexar County—Texas is suing the EPA to overturn this necessary designation.
Last month, Sierra Club and Environmental Defense Fund joined together and intervened in a lawsuit to defend the EPA’s decision to declare San Antonio and Bexar County as non-attainment for smog.
In addition, Sierra Club is challenging EPA’s decision to only designate Bexar County while ignoring the surrounding counties that contribute to San Antonio’s air pollution. In order to actually make real progress in controlling smog pollution, local regulators need to look at contributing pollution sources from surrounding areas.
Massive coal-burning power plants, cement kilns, virtually uncontrolled oil and gas fracking, and transportation are the biggest culprits of harmful smog-creating pollution in the San Antonio area. Texas can, and should, require those sources to use common-sense, industry standard technologies to reduce pollution.
We also need to take steps to reduce pollution from the ever growing suburban population who live outside Bexar County but drive into the city for work and play. The Dallas and Houston area designations include surrounding counties. So should San Antonio’s.
As you can tell from these examples from across the state, our federal and state agencies are playing political volleyball with people’s health. But we’re going to continue to pressure them to acknowledge our state’s smoggy air and take the action needed to begin cleaning it up.