In a rare unanimous vote, the Dallas City Council passed a resolution to protect its citizens from the historically poor air quality in our region. Since 1991, the North Texas region has continuously failed federal air quality standards for ozone and smog pollution. The Dallas resolution follows a flurry of clean air advocacy from elected officials representing the region.
Last month, the Dallas County Commissioners Court approved a similar ozone-crackdown resolution. This came after a joint letter from U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson and U.S. Rep. Marc Veasely to the EPA urging the federal agency to reign in the state’s ozone plan. For years, Texas’ state environmental agency (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality or TCEQ) has made inadequate plans to address smog and ozone levels in our region. Many clean air advocates criticize the state agency for being too soft and understating or even denying the well-known links between air pollution and human health impacts.
Scientists have known for years that ozone pollution is linked with respiratory illnesses like asthma that contribute to missed days of school, loss of productivity at work, and hospitalization. While the state agency is tasked with regulating and reducing air pollution in Texas, one of their lead scientists dismisses the health concerns of ozone – in fact, he argues that reducing ozone pollution will actually be more harmful to our health! The state’s toxicologist, Dr. Michael Honeycutt, has made some truly incredible claims:
“…lowering ozone concentrations would actually result in more deaths in some cities.”
“Since most people spend more than 90 percent of their time indoors, we… are rarely exposed to significant levels of ozone.”
I don’t know about him, but the majority of our community organizers spend several hours outdoors during the hottest and sometimes worst air quality days of the year, and we don’t think less air pollution is bad for our health.
The good news is, Dallas officials aren’t buying it either. By an undivided 15-0 vote, the Dallas City Council and Mayor voted to strengthen enforcement on the Clean Air Act, reduce pollution from large polluting facilities, and advocate for state laws that would help grow residential solar power production.
Texas Campaign for the Environment, along with ally organizations and individuals, testified in support of the resolution championed by Council member Sandy Greyson. We compared industrial pollution to driving around in a car without modern pollution controls.
“If I did that and I got caught, I would be fined. And if I continued to do that for 25 years, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’d probably be in jail.”
This marks an important victory for air breathers and advocates in North Texas. While we celebrate this positive step, we will also be working to hold the state environment agency accountable to enforcing laws that protect public health, the environment, and our economy during the upcoming legislative session in Austin.
Here’s something you can do right now to help us take another important step in the right direction: Write a short letter to the Texas Railroad Commission, the state agency that regulates oil and gas production, to tighten their pollution enforcement as well. An official report for state lawmakers found that the Railroad Commission enforced only 16% of over 60,000 violations found at oil and gas well sites around the state. Texas regulators could do a whole lot better reigning in lawbreakers and protecting the citizens they are supposed to serve. Send your message today!
The Dallas City Council urged the state Wednesday to strengthen its plan to fight ozone pollution, which has been called inadequate by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The resolution was the latest in a campaign by environmental activists to build support for either stronger action by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality or intervention by the EPA. Ozone aggravates lung diseases, increases asthma attacks and can contribute to or cause other respiratory problems.
The TCEQ presented its preliminary ozone reduction plan to the EPA but federal officials said it doesn’t do enough. The final plan is due to the federal government in July.
Dr. Robert Haley of Dallas speaks at a news conference outside an Arlington hearing on an EPA proposal to strengthen the national standard on ozone. (Dallas Morning News, File Photo/Staff)
Mayor Mike Rawlings said the city is caught in a fight between the TCEQ and EPA. And that dispute, he said, has the potential to harm the local economy.
“We want the state to not play a game of chicken with the EPA,” he said. “Often, we do not get caught up in national politics, but this is one we’re getting caught up in a little bit.”
The risks “potentially include the denial of air permits for new businesses in the region, limiting the approval of the expansion of current air permits for businesses in the region, and the withholding of federal highway funds,” according to the city.
A letter from several industry groups said the proposals endorsed by the city “would impose significant costs without providing an equivalent level of air quality benefits. State data show that ozone levels are not driven primarily or even significantly by oil and natural gas activity in the Barnett Shale region.”
The statement pointed to various reports saying the oil and gas industry has only a small impact on ozone production compared with mobile sources, such as car, trucks and airplanes. The letter was signed by officials from the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association, Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, Barnett Shale Energy Education Council and the Texas Oil & Gas Association.
The Dallas-Fort Worth area has been out of a compliance with ozone standards since 1991. The EPA said the state’s preliminary plan wouldn’t get the region under the 75 parts per billion limit. The area’s ozone pollution has dropped over the years but not enough to keep up with lower federal standards.
Environmentalists have argued that any solution to the region’s air problems must include reducing emissions from cement plants in Midlothian and several coal plants outside this region. They are demanding decreases in the emissions from natural gas production facilities.
TCEQ officials disagreed and said in a written statement that their plan accounted for the “relatively small impact of DFW area cement kilns and oil and gas operations as well as the power plants outside the DFW, and the high costs of requiring further emission reductions from these sources.”
A statement from Luminant, which owns nearby coal plants, also made the same argument that vehicle traffic was the overwhelming contributor to the ozone levels.
“We understand the City Council wanting to make a statement on clean air,” said company spokesman Brad Watson in a written statement. “Luminant shares the desire for clean air and that’s why all our power plants meet or exceed the rules and laws of our state and nation on emissions.”
Dallas County commissioners voted 3-2 last month to approve an ozone-crackdown resolution. That happened shortly after U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas, and U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, sent a joint letter to the EPA criticizing the TCEQ’s ozone plan.
Alex Mills, president of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, said he has a problem with the federal government setting a national ozone standard.
“That might be good for parts of the country that aren’t in fast-growth mode,” he said. “One size doesn’t fit all.”
The TCEQ also pointed out that “progress toward attainment of the ozone standard from 2000 through 2015 has been significant, especially given that the DFW area population increased approximately 35 percent during this time period.”
And even though Texas is the nation’s top wind energy producer, Mills said renewable sources aren’t feasible now as the state’s primary means of generating electricity.
The speakers and council members at Wednesday’s meeting were united in support for a reduction in ozone.
Tamara Bounds, an air quality activist with Mansfield Gas Well Awareness, said local asthma rates are much higher than the national average and a burden on many. She said it’s time for the state to stop fighting air quality advances.
“TCEQ has failed us for the last 20 years,” she told the council Wednesday. “And they continue to fail us.”
Jim Schermbeck, head of Downwinders at Risk and longtime air quality crusader, pointed out to the council that last week, this region had its worst smog day since 2013.
Corey Troiani, local program director for the Texas Campaign for the Environment, likened industrial pollution to cars driving around without pollution controls.
“If I did that and I got caught, I would be fined,” he said. “And if I continued to do that for 25 years, correct if I’m wrong, but I’d probably be in jail.”
Although the vote was unanimous, the tone of comments from council members varied widely.
There was harsh criticism of the TCEQ as being ineffective and likening its approach to the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984. There was also more moderate language urging the state to cooperate with the EPA.
Council member Philip Kingston, who made the 1984 comparison, called the TCEQ a “multi-decade embarrassment for the state of Texas.”
“It’s sad in a way that we have to do this,” he said, referring to the resolution.
Jennifer Staubach Gates, a council member and registered nurse, was also supportive of the resolution but more cautious. She said tougher regulations could drive up energy costs but could potentially lower health care costs.
“This issue does have an economic impact,” she said, “and I think we need to realize that.”
You’ve probably heard that world leaders and negotiators met in Paris and reached a global agreement on reducing our atmospheric impact on climate change.
For two weeks, thousands of negotiators from nearly 200 countries mulled over scientific data, models, and input from world leaders. These negotiators ultimately crafted a 31-page agreement that countries should dramatically reduce carbon emissions and keep the majority of fossil fuels in the ground. Additionally, industrialized nations will help fund developing nations as they attempt to grow into a low-carbon future.
You might be thinking, how do countries plan on keeping these huge promises, or why should I care about this anyway?
First, scientists have long known that fossil fuel emissions contribute to what is called the greenhouse effect. Heat-trapping gases, like carbon dioxide, keep the suns heat in our atmosphere, causing global temperatures to rise over time. The more heat-trapping gases we release, the hotter the planet gets. And boy, are we releasing a lot of greenhouse gases nowadays. The US alone releases 14.7 trillion pounds of the stuff every year. For perspective, global temperatures have been rising to the tune of about four Hiroshima bombs every second (or about two billion of these bombs since 1998).
So, what happens when the earth heats up a few degrees? The short answer is: Chaos.
If we do not put a control on global carbon emissions soon, we can expect larger storms, more droughts, mass human and animal migrations and extinction, as well as food and water shortages all over the globe. It’s not a pretty sight.
Maybe an uncle, or someone, told you over Thanksgiving dinner that we don’t need to take this seriously, since the Earth hasn’t warmed in the last 15 years or so. Pass the salt, Auntie, because the science is out on that one as well. Even though global atmospheric temperatures have stalled to some extent, oceanic temperatures continue to absorb the bulk of the heat, and ocean chemistry is changing as a result, bleaching wild coral preserves as the waters acidify.
Even in Texas, a fossil fuel friendly state, the public recognizes the impact we are having on our climate. According to a poll by the University of Texas in October, a full 76% of Americans agree that climate change is occurring, along with 69% of Texans. That is remarkable consensus among the population, an agreement only dwarfed by the 98% + consensus among climate scientists. Of course, just because everyone agrees on something—even scientists—doesn’t mean that it is true. However, experiment after experiment, data point after data point confirms the simple fact that more greenhouse gas emissions means a hotter planet.
So, let’s get back to the big climate meeting in Paris and how countries plan on keeping all these big promises to kick their bad energy habits and dole out stacks of cash to the poorer countries. The 21st annual session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) was held in Paris over the past two weeks. The significance of this event was supposed to be greater than any preceding, because it was to result in binding international agreements over a global climate deal.
On Saturday, December 12, negotiators announced that they had finalized their agreement with full consensus by 195 countries. The highlights of this agreement include:
The desire to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius since preindustrial average.
The pledge of wealthier nations to contribute $100 billion annually to developing nations to shift to a cleaner energy economy.
Developed countries agreed to take “the lead” on reducing emissions, while developing nations will “move over time” to make cuts.
Many environmental and social justice groups have a critical view of the agreement for a number of reasons:
The funding targets for developing nations are non-binding.
There are no clear mechanisms for parties to take action (e.g. agreement on a carbon tax).
Indigenous and island nations did not win specific defenses against climate damages.
Negotiators settled on limiting to 2 degrees Celsius rather than below 1.5 degrees, which could be difference between life and death for many threatened communities.
The agreement must be ratified by 55 countries (responsible for at least 55% of global emissions) before it is considered “binding” (aka worth adhering to at all).
Some analysts suggest that even if countries adhere to their goals, we will still not hit the 2 degrees or less warming targets.
While it is still unknown if countries will adhere to their agreement in Paris by establishing similar targets at home, the events surrounding this conference inspire a lot of hope. More than 600,000 people across the world took to the streets to stand up for a fair and just future during the conference. Despite the French government’s ban on marches in the city of Paris due to national securities threats, thousands took to the streets. In one instance 10,000 shoes were left in the Place de la Republique to replace marchers who were barred from the area.
The climax of marches took place across the world on Saturday, December 12. Dubbed the Red Line Action, to signify the line of temperature and carbon emissions that cannot be crossed to avoid catastrophic climate disruption, 15,000 took the streets in Paris alone carrying red banners and decorations.
Climate justice organizers, who believe large industrialized countries should make the lion’s share of emissions cuts and assist developing nations and indigenous people with equitable solutions, used the conference “as an opportunity to organize, to mobilize, to build new links, strengthen existing networks and announce ambitious future plans for action.”
The conference in Paris inspires hope for us primarily because it demonstrates how many ordinary people are willing to stand up and fight for a fair and livable future. We look forward to building power with communities across the state—and globe—who share the vision of an equitable and just world that is free of pollution.
Here’s what some of our allies from Houston had to say about Paris.
Apparently so, according to the Texas Campaign for the Environment, which has been pressuring retailers including Pier 1 Imports to stop selling furniture treated with flame retardant chemicals it claims do more harm than good.
On Tuesday, more than a dozen protesters demonstrated (with a couch) outside Pier 1’s Fort Worth headquarters, calling on the retailer to stop selling furniture with flame retardants. They also delivered more than 300 letters from consumers solicited in a door-to-door campaign.
Flame retardant chemicals have been used on furniture for decades since they were first required in California, the group says. But in recent years, scientific evidence has suggested that the chemicals not only fail to effectively protect against fires, but also release chemicals into dust. So advocacy groups have been pushing retailers including Macy’s, Ikea and others to respond.
“Toxic flame retardants threaten our reproductive and nervous systems,” said Corey Troiani, a member of the advocacy group.
Troiani said that just a couple of hours after the lunchtime demonstration, the environmental group’s executive director received a call from an executive at Pier 1, who told them that the company had already contacted suppliers and would phase out flame retardant chemicals from its furniture by Jan. 1.
“We see this as a victory and a direct result of the grassroots organizing and public pressure on the company to stop selling flame retardant chemicals.” he said.
Pier 1 contends that it began phasing out flame retardants in newly manufactured furniture about a year ago.
“Since early 2015, Pier 1 customers have been able to order flame retardant free upholstered furniture,” said spokeswoman Jennifer Engstrand. “For all upholstered furniture manufactured after January 1, 2015, Pier 1 Imports requires that the labeling indicates that the product contains no added flame retardants.”
Despite that, Troiani said the company’s response this week marked the first time his group had received a commitment. And he urged consumers to check furniture labels. “TCE has verified that Pier 1 Imports still sells products containing flame retardant chemicals,” he said.
If you read the New York Times, you may have seen an Op-Ed by John Tierney last week trying to persuade you that recycling is actually a bad thing. He’s been railing against recycling since the mid-90’s, and now he’s been published again, coming to a predictable conclusion:
“Cities have been burying garbage for thousands of years, and it’s still the easiest and cheapest solution for trash.”
Don’t buy it. Recycling certainly isn’t a perfect silver bullet that will solve all of our waste problems, but burning or burying our trash is far worse for the environment and the economy. We need to prevent and reduce waste right from the start, reuse everything we can after that, and yes, recycle the rest.
If you get that, no need to keep reading—but if this bad Op-Ed has you wondering, allow us to dismantle it. Let’s get started.
It’s still typically more expensive for municipalities to recycle household waste than to send it to a landfill.
Here’s the first major misleading claim, one that’s at the center of our current waste system and is often used in similar arguments elsewhere: It’s cheaper not to protect the environment.
What’s really going on here, of course, is that it only appears cheaper—we aren’t even seeing, let alone paying, the true costs of landfills. In the business world, this is called an externality because it means externalizing what should be an internal cost. And polluting industries are really, really good at doing just that. The company gets the profit, the public gets the cost. (“Cheap” fossil fuels are another perfect example of this.) Landfills often have long-term costs that are borne by we the taxpayers.
Prices for recyclable materials have plummeted because of lower oil prices and reduced demand for them overseas.
Indeed, prices for commodities go up and down over time like the stock market. Every time those prices go down, you can count on someone to claim that recycling is not viable as a result. Yet somehow, prices go back up again when manufacturers realize they can save money using recycled materials.
While politicians set higher and higher goals, the national rate of recycling has stagnated in recent years…. [it] has been stuck around 34 percent.
This is a real problem. But it’s because manufacturers keep making products and packaging that can’t be easily recycled—disposable Styrofoam food and drink containers are nearly impossible to recover and recycle, for example, yet they are everywhere—and because of the false economics that keep landfill costs artificially low. Some producers, such as the inventor of Keurig and its infinite, unrecyclable K-Cups, actually live to regret it.
Yes, it’s popular in affluent neighborhoods like Park Slope in Brooklyn and in cities like San Francisco, but residents of the Bronx and Houston don’t have the same fervor for sorting garbage in their spare time.
Here we come to our first outright lie. Americans of all stripes want to recycle. We know it works. Despite the lack of effort by state officials to promote or support it, recycling has spread from El Paso to Texarkana and many cities in between just since the last time the author wrote a hate-piece against it. In fact, more people say they recycle regularly than vote!
“If you believe recycling is good for the planet and that we need to do more of it, then there’s a crisis to confront,” says David P. Steiner, the chief executive officer of Waste Management, the largest recycler of household trash in the United States. “Trying to turn garbage into gold costs a lot more than expected. We need to ask ourselves: What is the goal here?”
Another major, unmissable clue: Waste Management is one of the largest landfill companies in the world. Yes, they recycle materials as well, but they make far more money by continuing to build trash mountains, AKA landfills. We do need to ask ourselves what the goal is—to make landfill companies more profitable?
But how much difference does it make? Here’s some perspective: To offset the greenhouse impact of one passenger’s round-trip flight between New York and London, you’d have to recycle roughly 40,000 plastic bottles.
The author is comparing one of the worst materials to recycle—single-use plastic bottles, which arguably should not even be made or used in the first place—to one of the most carbon-intensive things you can do. Disposable plastic drink containers will lose every argument they’re in, because they’re an unsustainable product in general. But that doesn’t mean we should just burn or bury them instead of recycling!
One of the original goals of the recycling movement was to avert a supposed crisis because there was no room left in the nation’s landfills.
Actually, we now have the opposite problem: Texas has more than enough landfill capacity. Too much landfill space can lead to hyper-competitive markets pressuring landfill companies to cut corners to keep their rates low. That helps keep the “landfills are cheap” myth going.
Landfills are typically covered with grass and converted to parkland… The United States Open tennis tournament is played on the site of an old landfill — and one that never had the linings and other environmental safeguards required today.
This one’s a doozy. In older times, our trash was organic in nature—there were no plastics or synthetic materials—so old landfills have indeed been reclaimed. But garbage today is full of synthetics, toxic chemicals and heavy metals, which is why new safeguards are now required. That also means modern landfills are essentially hazardous waste sites. No, our kids aren’t playing there.
Though most cities shun landfills, they have been welcomed in rural communities that reap large economic benefits (and have plenty of greenery to buffer residents from the sights and smells).
Here’s another blatant lie. Landfills are increasingly foisted on rural areas because there are far fewer people around to object. Landfill companies reap the economic benefits, while surrounding communities loses money due to declining property values. That’s because most big waste companies are terrible neighbors. Some prove to be exceptions, but they are just that—exceptions.
For example, the Hempstead community (near Houston) is close to defeating a proposed landfill that threatened their water supply. The fight unified the community as they raised $1.7 million to defeat it, sued their former County officials for cutting secret deals with the landfill company and defeated elected officials at the ballot box who refused to protect their health from the proposed dump.
A modern well-lined landfill in a rural area can have relatively little environmental impact. Decomposing garbage releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas, but landfill operators have started capturing it and using it to generate electricity. Modern incinerators, while politically unpopular in the United States, release so few pollutants that they’ve been widely accepted in the eco-conscious countries of Northern Europe and Japan for generating clean energy.
This is like some kind of competition to see how many falsehoods can fit into one paragraph. All landfills have big environmental impacts—the EPA says that eventually, they all leak toxic wastewater (called “leachate”) into the ground, which means possibly into groundwater. According to the state environmental agency, 36 of 100 Texas landfills with groundwater monitoring wells were leaking in 2013.
Even landfills that attempt to capture methane still release far too much of it—for instance, the McCommas Bluff landfill is the 6th largest stationary source of hazardous air pollution in Dallas, even though it has a gas capture system in place. Living near a landfill is like living near any other polluting, industrial facility: It makes people sick.
Then there’s the worst lie so far: Incinerators are fine and dandy. We could spend the entire article debunking that. Burning trash is absolutely terrible for the environment, the economy, and the climate. Just because other countries do it doesn’t means it’s a good idea. For much more about this absurd, destructive practice, read on here.
Composting facilities around the country have inspired complaints about nauseating odors, swarming rats and defecating sea gulls….the unhappy neighbors of the composting plant successfully campaigned to shut it down last year.
Yes, if run badly, composting facilities can be bad neighbors too. Even bad-apple recycling facilities can do great harm. There was a lead-acid battery recycling plant in Frisco, TX that dumped so much lead into the air and water that it turned the town into a national “toxic hotspot.” We helped local residents win their fight to shut it down. Does that mean we shouldn’t recycle car batteries? Of course not—it means we should do it correctly.
The environmental benefits of recycling come chiefly from reducing the need to manufacture new products — less mining, drilling and logging. But that’s not so appealing to the workers in those industries and to the communities that have accepted the environmental trade-offs that come with those jobs.
Unreal. The author glibly glosses over a massive, global problem as if it’s a minor annoyance. Have you seen where most of our raw materials actually come from? It’s a catastrophe, a true environmental disaster, that’s often kept hidden from view. Trade-offs? Jobs? Sometimes it’s more like war prisoners and child labor in the developing world.
Recycling one ton of plastic saves only slightly more than one ton of carbon dioxide. A ton of food saves a little less than a ton. For glass, you have to recycle three tons in order to get about one ton of greenhouse benefits. Worst of all is yard waste: it takes 20 tons of it to save a single ton of carbon dioxide.
As opposed to burying or burning the material instead, which brings zero climate benefits and actually produces even more greenhouse gas emissions! Worst of all is the author’s dismissal of yard waste composting: Keeping organic material out of landfills prevents methane pollution, which is 20 times better at trapping heat than carbon dioxide is.
Once you exclude paper products and metals, the total annual savings in the United States from recycling everything else in municipal trash — plastics, glass, food, yard trimmings, textiles, rubber, leather — is only two-tenths of 1 percent of America’s carbon footprint.
Meanwhile, back in reality: EPA estimates show that taken as a whole, the provision, transportation and disposal of products, food and packaging accounts for 42% of our overall climate footprint. Recycling is one key part of reducing that impact.
For centuries, the real cost of labor has been increasing while the real cost of raw materials has been declining. That’s why we can afford to buy so much more stuff than our ancestors could.
The author either doesn’t understand this or doesn’t want you to. We’re simply not paying the real cost of labor or raw materials right now. Using child labor in a war-torn region of Africa to get materials that are then sent to be manufactured in glorified sweatshops in Asia that need suicide nets to keep people from jumping off the roof who make smartphones by the billions that are then shipped all over the world using heavily subsidized fossil fuels—our current take it, make it, waste it system is built on a giant compilation of externalized costs and privatized profits. Understanding where most of our stuff really comes from makes the entire article read like something out of The Onion.
Social good would be optimized by subsidizing the recycling of some metals, and by imposing a $15 tax on each ton of trash that goes to the landfill…. The result, Dr. Kinnaman predicts, would be a lot less recycling than there is today.
Here’s the first and only good idea in the article. However, a measly $15/ton is far too low. If the true costs of extraction, manufacturing, transportation and waste were really reflected in such a garbage tax, we would have much MORE recycling because that would obviously be far cheaper. Many countries, and even many U.S. states, have laws in place that make manufacturers responsible for the costs associated with recovering the waste they create, such as Texas’ computer and TV recycling laws. By all means, let’s expand and improve that system to hold even more companies accountable. But pretending those costs are miniscule will only incentivize even more waste, landfills and incinerators.
[Recycling] is less an ethical activity than a religious ritual, like the ones performed by Catholics to obtain indulgences for their sins.
Interesting word choice—today’s raw materials extraction, sweatshop manufacturing centers, landfills, and incinerators are indeed sins against nature and humanity. Recycling isn’t asking for forgiveness, it’s working to prevent future harm.
They want to make these rituals mandatory for everyone else, too, with stiff fines for sinners who don’t sort properly…It would take legions of garbage police to enforce a zero-waste society, but true believers insist that’s the future.
Yes, when you do something that harms society as a whole, society may eventually penalize you for doing it. Hardly a new concept. But no, “garbage police” aren’t the only way to Zero Waste. Education, well-designed programs, and economic incentives will all play a role. For an excellent “road map” to Zero Waste, read here.
Cities have been burying garbage for thousands of years, and it’s still the easiest and cheapest solution for trash.
And we’re finally back where we started. We should just keep burying our trash forever, ignoring the global, interconnected consequences, because it’s “easy and cheap.” We haven’t learned anything new about how to function as a species since pre-history. What a compelling argument…
When it comes to waste and recycling, remember that there are many systemic, unsustainable problems involved. Unfortunately, misinformation is everywhere—even in the New York Times.
Corey Troiani DFW Program Coordinator, Texas Campaign for the Environment
Yesterday, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) paid Dallas City Hall a visit. During their all-day event they took public testimony on their newly proposed rules to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas operations.
EPA’s hearing in Dallas follows other recent proposals including the Clean Power Plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and another plan to reduce ozone and smog. All of these proposals are critically important for residents in North Texas since we have some of the worst air quality in the country, not far behind the Houston ship channel.
Methane gas is released from oil and gas drilling and transportation. In fact, about 30% of methane emissions in the US come directly from these operations. Methane is a concerning air pollutant for three main reasons, (1) it is almost always paired with other toxic chemicals when released, (2) it reacts with those other chemicals to produce ozone and smog, and (3) it is key greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Reducing methane emissions would kill all three birds with one stone.
Clean air advocates, including families, scientists, and businesspeople signed up for five-minute speaking slots to air their concerns over toxic emissions. An overwhelming majority of speakers, 106 out of 114, at the event supported the new rules and most advocated for significant improvements.
Many speakers commented on the lack of leadership from state agencies, the state environmental agency and Texas Railroad Commission, both responsible for regulating oil and gas in Texas.
“For years we tried to work with state government to try to protect Denton from fracking-related air pollution,” said Denton Drilling Awareness Group co-founder Cathy McMullen. She continued, “They refused to help us. Not only that, earlier this year the state stripped communities of our century-old rights to protect ourselves. Now EPA is our only hope to protect our health.”
Unfortunately, EPA’s new standards apply will only to new oil and gas operations across the country. All existing sites, including the estimated 17,000 in the North Texas region, will be exempt in unless modifications are made on those sites. The rules seek to reduce fugitive and designed emissions by 40-45% from wells, compressors stations, and pipelines. Fugitive emissions refer to leaked gas from pipes or other accidental leaks during operations; designed emissions refer to intentional mechanisms that release gas pressure to ensure safety, like condensate tank vents.
In some instances, like in the Eagle Ford Shale (south of San Antonio), operators are venting and flaring up to 30% of their natural gas. Why? Because they’re pretending natural gas is a waste by-product of crude oil. There is little profit motive in that region for companies to use that essential natural resource, so they just burn it off and refine the more expensive oil.
“I live in San Antonio downwind of the Eagle Ford Shale, and we’re struggling with high levels of smog linked to oil and gas,” said Krystal Henagan of Moms Clean Air Force whose son suffers from severe asthma. She continued, “By proposing these rules, the EPA is trying to protect families and clean up our air. We need to do more, but I’m grateful for this first step.”
Industry also sent some of their own people to the hearing. Including TXOGA (Texas Oil and Gas Association) and API (American Petroleum Institute) who claimed emissions reductions rules would do very little and have a negative impact on jobs. However, similar methane rules are already in place in Colorado and California and jobs have soared compared with Texas.
Texas Campaign for the Environment applauds the EPA for working on this new rule and has proposed these changes to make it as robust as possible:
Existing oil and gas operations should not be exempted, but regulated as well.
Inspections should be scheduled quarterly at minimum.
Gas compressors located next to drilling sites should not be exempted from the rule.
Non-emergency gas leaks should be fixed sooner than 6 months, we recommend 15-30 days.
Public health benefits from cleaning up our air should be factored into the cost-benefit analysis.
The comment period will be open until November 17, 2015. You can submit testimony on the official public comment website.
You can read EPA’s full methane proposal here. It’s not exactly a light read. It looks more like a 600-page book pulled from Jack Kerouac’s typewriter, taped end-to-end with poor formatting and no table of contents. A lighter, more digestible summary report is available here.
Computer companies now must provide free recycling programs for Texas customers. A state law passed last year that went into full effect Monday mandates that PC makers take back old computers, keyboards, monitors, mice and other parts.
“We think everyone can win when electronic waste has to meet its maker,” said Robin Schneider, executive director of the Texas Campaign for the Environment.
Texas became the fourth state to enact a computer recycling law, behind Minnesota, Maine and Maryland. The law applies to every computer maker from Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. to the mom and pop computer making shop.
“It doesn’t matter where the computers are made, whether it’s a foreign or domestic company, if you sell your computer in Texas, you have to provide free, convenient recycling,” Schneider said.
Under the new law, the burden of recycling the computers falls on the manufacturer and not the retailer or any government agency, she said. Retailers that sell their own brand of computers, though, would be subject to the new law. It applies to all computers.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has a list of computer brands and manufacturers and their recycling programs at www.texasrecyclescomputers.com.
For example, Lenovo has partnered with UPS and Eco International to recycle old Lenovo Inc. and IBM computers.
Electronics waste recycling has become a huge problem in the U.S., with only 18 percent of all discarded computers, monitors and other equipment recycled annually, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The waste, which goes to landfills, can become dangerous because it contains toxic substances such as lead and mercury. Recycling computers is good for the environment.
“Recycling 1 million desktop computers prevents the release of greenhouse gases equivalent to the annual emissions of over 17,000 passenger cars,” the EPA reports.
With the new mandatory recycling law, Texans — either as consumers or local taxpayers — don’t have to pay for disposing for their computers, Schneider said.
Just six years ago, the Texas Campaign for the Environment got into a huge spat with Dell over its recycling practices. Outside the Consumer Electronics Show and at Dell’s annual meeting in Austin, the environmental group’s members protested Dell’s lack of consumer recycling options.
Dell has since become a leader nationwide in computer recycling. In 2004, Dell started a program partnering with Goodwill Industries of Central Texas in Austin allowing consumers to take old PCs to Goodwill, which recycles and resells what it can. Dell has since expanded that program. It partners with several others, including Goodwill Industries San Antonio.
Dell will pick up any old Dell-branded computers or parts from consumers in its residential program, said Kristyn Rankin, its compliance programs director. Dell also will recycle old computers, regardless of brand, from any customer who buys a new Dell computer, she said.
“We are big proponents of the new law,” Rankin said.
The law ends up creating more recycling options for consumers without creating more bureaucracy or becoming a burden to local government, she said.
In San Antonio, Goodwill recycles 70,000 computers annually and processes 20,000 pounds of computers, monitors and other items each month, Goodwill spokeswoman Dawn C. White said. Goodwill also works with other companies to recycle computers, she said.
“This may be a burden on some businesses, and we want to be a resource for them,” White said. “It helps us to generate revenue, and it may provide a gently used computer to someone who needs it at an affordable price.”
“If I did that and I got caught, I would be fined. And if I continued to do that for 25 years, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’d probably be in jail.”
that countries should dramatically reduce carbon emissions and keep the majority of fossil fuels in the ground. Additionally, industrialized nations will help fund developing nations as they attempt to grow into a low-carbon future.
conference. Despite the French government’s ban on marches in the city of Paris due to national securities threats, thousands took to the streets. In one instance 
“We see this as a victory and a direct result of the grassroots organizing and public pressure on the company to stop selling flame retardant chemicals.” he said.
San Antonio Express-News
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