Air Toxic bloggin
Houston Air Quality - great topic with many facets.
Recent Chronicle articles focused on the human side of very reactive hazardous organic air pollutants - especially the ones that ... stink - but those don't travel very far - industries try to buy neighborhood buffer zones to reduce close-by public exposure. Great articles with compliments to the journalist and paper for publishing.
Far more insidious and dangerous to us all is particulate matter less than 2.5 microns (PM2.5s) especially those from industrial point sources -- distributed far and wide containing over 70 elements including the toxic, catalytic and hazardous elements Mercury, Lead, Arsenic, Chromium, Beryllium, Vanadium, Nickel, Strontium, Cadmium, Barium, Antimony, Fluorine, Chlorine, Sulfur, Phosphorus, etc., and those from mobile sources - particularly diesels, mostly carbon hazardous air pollutants.
PM2.5s are virtually invisible at 2.5 microns versus a human hair diameter of 70 microns. They enter living systems through the respiratory system, through the skin, and contained in our water.
Industry spokesmen (Shell, Exxon, Utilities, etc.) express their concern about diesel emissions, not their huge point source stacks. Industry has given PM2.5s the misleading innocent label of 'soot', implying all carbon, rather advertise that their stacks are permitted to shove hundreds of thousands of pounds of toxic elements up, into, and above the Houston airshed.
Curiously recent local research didn't even analyze for Mercury, but fish from Galveston Bay, and Texas lakes have Mercury levels that require the state park department to warn that fish caught in Texas lakes should only be consumed once every two weeks or a month. That mercury didn't walk over to the lakes, so why wasn't it tested in the air, funding sources perhaps? Mercury and Beryllium from our industrial sources doesn't just drop to the ground around the point sources or in our backyard, they are tracked all the way to the Artic.
We started webquests last September with air toxics, especially PM2.5s, and their impact on student health after I noticed that one student, a football player, needed hall passes for drinks of water, to locker for inhaler, to the nurse, ... as the PM2.5s reported at nearby monitoring sites increased, and at the highest PM2.5 readings was in the hospital. Coincident to increased PM2.5 readings, many students (and their teacher) needed more water, or hall exits with tissues, on particular days. Not a surprise that people in Houston find their allergies started bothering them when they moved to Houston, PM2.5s increase sensitivities, susceptibilities, and decrease immune functions.
PM2.5 elements are catalysts in industry and act similarly in the body, increasing sensitivities and causing upper, middle, lower respiratory ailments, heart problems, and cognitive disfunction. The toxic effects of the individual elements are well established, and the debilitating effects of Lead and Mercury on brain functions are especially serious.
However, instead of following the Clean Air Act, and reducing the elements that reduce the mental abilities of our students, documented lobby money has flowed and the government has curtailed enforcement and extended industry's permited toxic releases unabated until 2018. The students questioned the wisdom and logic of such decisions that will increase the level of toxic elements in all those that ... breathe.
Industry (refiners, utilities, cement kilns, etc.) promote extension of toxic emissions to enable the toxics to be studied as directed by ... err, industry funding, hmm.
Industry also promotes a free market approach of emission trading, that is the ability to put more toxics into our air would be traded for a reduction of toxics elsewhere. Do we want more toxicity for our children, our elders, ourselves? Does the emission trade include paying increased health care cost caused by increased toxicity for the downwind population, or reduce the educational requirements commensurate with increased toxicity? Of course not.
Students found that many of their webquests hit the veil of association membership or journal subscription to get to substantive data, and we asked to get access to these studies that were funded partially or totally by government funds.
In the meantime, Houston and surrounding zipcodes have the highest health insurance rates in Texas shown on the Texas Health Pool website. The rates fall off as air is progressively cleaner, to the lowest rates around Uvalde, Llano, ... Texas Hill country. The insurance cost difference for one family of four would be $11,000/year. Move 1 million families out of the toxic fallout and into clean air, and that would be $11 billion per year lower health insurance cost. By 2018, that roughs out $144 billion savings for those 1 million families. Scrub the air clean at the point source, and savings for all would be much higher.
The national impact of allowing industrial toxic air emissions is huge and was included in Eliott Spitzer's congressional testimony -- instead of reducing as per the Clean Air Act, maintaining current levels of toxic emissions results in over 30,000 premature deaths/year, some 2,900/year in New York, (professionals term this loss of life of the youngest, the oldest and the sensitive: harvesting) trillions in lost manhours, and lost school hours -- to say nothing of the emotional cost of these losses.
Fortunately, Houston's mayor doesn't think it wise to have Houston citizens as test subjects. But it will be uphill, as the EPA has dropped enforcement 87% in four years, and more drop is expected as 'enforcement' is transferred to states. No surprise that politics already hit the states: TCEQ gutted it's toxics enforcement division last year, and the only real funding is to reduce the Haze problem.
Late now, linkage to current PM2.5 and other pollutant data and other sites hit by the students in their webquest are found under http://chemiztry.blogspot.com/
At a recent pm2.5 meeting, a doctor with 50 years practicing experience and most concerned about the increasing asthma, illness, allergy pain and decreased cognitive functions being suffered by the children, asked me to encourage students attendance at public meetings. The only two high school students that attended that meeting were ours.
Lots of information available in the journals, our students enjoy finding what is being hidden from the public when on webquests.
Good hunting.
Recent Chronicle articles focused on the human side of very reactive hazardous organic air pollutants - especially the ones that ... stink - but those don't travel very far - industries try to buy neighborhood buffer zones to reduce close-by public exposure. Great articles with compliments to the journalist and paper for publishing.
Far more insidious and dangerous to us all is particulate matter less than 2.5 microns (PM2.5s) especially those from industrial point sources -- distributed far and wide containing over 70 elements including the toxic, catalytic and hazardous elements Mercury, Lead, Arsenic, Chromium, Beryllium, Vanadium, Nickel, Strontium, Cadmium, Barium, Antimony, Fluorine, Chlorine, Sulfur, Phosphorus, etc., and those from mobile sources - particularly diesels, mostly carbon hazardous air pollutants.
PM2.5s are virtually invisible at 2.5 microns versus a human hair diameter of 70 microns. They enter living systems through the respiratory system, through the skin, and contained in our water.
Industry spokesmen (Shell, Exxon, Utilities, etc.) express their concern about diesel emissions, not their huge point source stacks. Industry has given PM2.5s the misleading innocent label of 'soot', implying all carbon, rather advertise that their stacks are permitted to shove hundreds of thousands of pounds of toxic elements up, into, and above the Houston airshed.
Curiously recent local research didn't even analyze for Mercury, but fish from Galveston Bay, and Texas lakes have Mercury levels that require the state park department to warn that fish caught in Texas lakes should only be consumed once every two weeks or a month. That mercury didn't walk over to the lakes, so why wasn't it tested in the air, funding sources perhaps? Mercury and Beryllium from our industrial sources doesn't just drop to the ground around the point sources or in our backyard, they are tracked all the way to the Artic.
We started webquests last September with air toxics, especially PM2.5s, and their impact on student health after I noticed that one student, a football player, needed hall passes for drinks of water, to locker for inhaler, to the nurse, ... as the PM2.5s reported at nearby monitoring sites increased, and at the highest PM2.5 readings was in the hospital. Coincident to increased PM2.5 readings, many students (and their teacher) needed more water, or hall exits with tissues, on particular days. Not a surprise that people in Houston find their allergies started bothering them when they moved to Houston, PM2.5s increase sensitivities, susceptibilities, and decrease immune functions.
PM2.5 elements are catalysts in industry and act similarly in the body, increasing sensitivities and causing upper, middle, lower respiratory ailments, heart problems, and cognitive disfunction. The toxic effects of the individual elements are well established, and the debilitating effects of Lead and Mercury on brain functions are especially serious.
However, instead of following the Clean Air Act, and reducing the elements that reduce the mental abilities of our students, documented lobby money has flowed and the government has curtailed enforcement and extended industry's permited toxic releases unabated until 2018. The students questioned the wisdom and logic of such decisions that will increase the level of toxic elements in all those that ... breathe.
Industry (refiners, utilities, cement kilns, etc.) promote extension of toxic emissions to enable the toxics to be studied as directed by ... err, industry funding, hmm.
Industry also promotes a free market approach of emission trading, that is the ability to put more toxics into our air would be traded for a reduction of toxics elsewhere. Do we want more toxicity for our children, our elders, ourselves? Does the emission trade include paying increased health care cost caused by increased toxicity for the downwind population, or reduce the educational requirements commensurate with increased toxicity? Of course not.
Students found that many of their webquests hit the veil of association membership or journal subscription to get to substantive data, and we asked to get access to these studies that were funded partially or totally by government funds.
In the meantime, Houston and surrounding zipcodes have the highest health insurance rates in Texas shown on the Texas Health Pool website. The rates fall off as air is progressively cleaner, to the lowest rates around Uvalde, Llano, ... Texas Hill country. The insurance cost difference for one family of four would be $11,000/year. Move 1 million families out of the toxic fallout and into clean air, and that would be $11 billion per year lower health insurance cost. By 2018, that roughs out $144 billion savings for those 1 million families. Scrub the air clean at the point source, and savings for all would be much higher.
The national impact of allowing industrial toxic air emissions is huge and was included in Eliott Spitzer's congressional testimony -- instead of reducing as per the Clean Air Act, maintaining current levels of toxic emissions results in over 30,000 premature deaths/year, some 2,900/year in New York, (professionals term this loss of life of the youngest, the oldest and the sensitive: harvesting) trillions in lost manhours, and lost school hours -- to say nothing of the emotional cost of these losses.
Fortunately, Houston's mayor doesn't think it wise to have Houston citizens as test subjects. But it will be uphill, as the EPA has dropped enforcement 87% in four years, and more drop is expected as 'enforcement' is transferred to states. No surprise that politics already hit the states: TCEQ gutted it's toxics enforcement division last year, and the only real funding is to reduce the Haze problem.
Late now, linkage to current PM2.5 and other pollutant data and other sites hit by the students in their webquest are found under http://chemiztry.blogspot.com/
At a recent pm2.5 meeting, a doctor with 50 years practicing experience and most concerned about the increasing asthma, illness, allergy pain and decreased cognitive functions being suffered by the children, asked me to encourage students attendance at public meetings. The only two high school students that attended that meeting were ours.
Lots of information available in the journals, our students enjoy finding what is being hidden from the public when on webquests.
Good hunting.
posted by chem teacher at 2/20/2005 12:33:00 AM
6 comments
