The Philadelphia Energy Solutions Refining Complex on June 21, 2019 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, after a massive fire erupted that triggered explosions. Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / Getty Images
Emissions of the cancer-causing chemical benzene exceeded federal limits at 10 oil refineries across the U.S. last year, a new report from the Environmental Integrity Project has found.
<p>The Environmental Integrity Project reviewed data for 114 refineries across the country. Of the 10 that exceeded U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/epa">EPA</a>) action levels, six were in Texas, while the remaining four were located in Pennsylvania, Louisiana, New Mexico and Mississippi, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-refineries-benzene/ten-u-s-refineries-emitted-excessive-cancer-causing-benzene-in-2019-report-idUSKBN2000EE" target="_blank">Reuters reported</a>.</p><p>The <a href="https://environmentalintegrity.org/reports/monitoring-for-benzene-at-refinery-fencelines/" target="_blank">report</a> analyzed a year's worth of data reported to the EPA following a rule that took effect in 2018 requiring continuous <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/air-pollution">air pollution</a> monitoring at the facilities' perimeters in order to protect nearby communities, which are typically working class and predominantly black or hispanic.</p><p>One of the 20 most commonly used <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/chemicals">chemicals</a> in the U.S., benzene occurs in crude oil, gasoline, vehicle exhaust and cigarette smoke, as well as in glues, paints, furniture waxes and detergents, according to the <a href="https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/benzene/basics/facts.asp" target="_blank">U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a>.</p><p>Multiple studies have shown that long-term exposure to elevated levels of benzene can cause leukemia, which is a cancer affecting blood-forming tissues, according to the <a href="https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/benzene.html" target="_blank">American Cancer Society</a>. Benzene can also cause poor red blood cell production and anemia, and can change blood levels of antibodies, which boosts risk of infection, according to the CDC.</p><p>The report found that breathing in benzene concentrations as low as 13 micrograms per cubic meter over a lifetime could cause one additional cancer case for every 10,000 people exposed.</p><p>EPA regulations dictate that benzene levels higher than nine micrograms per cubic meter over the course of a year require action on the part of the refineries, though they are not in violation of the law, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/06/us-oil-refineries-exceeding-limits-for-cancer-causing-benzene-report-finds" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>.</p><p>"The federal action level is intended as a benchmark to flag when emissions are higher than expected, so that facilities can look for the cause and take early action," an EPA spokesperson told <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/481726-report-finds-10-refineries-with-benzene-above-epas-action-level" target="_blank">The Hill</a>. "The federal action level is not based on an analysis of risk levels to the community — but rather on emissions from the facility."</p><p>The top 10 refineries emitting benzene above EPA limits were:</p><ol><li>Philadelphia Energy Solutions - Philadelphia, PA <em>(49 micrograms per cubic meter)</em></li><li>HollyFrontier Navajo Artesia - Artesia, NM <em>(36 micrograms per cubic meter)</em></li><li>Total Port Arthur Refinery - Port Arthur, TX (<em>22.3 micrograms per cubic meter</em>)</li><li>Pasadena Refining - Pasadena, TX (18 micrograms per cubic meter)</li><li>Flint Hills Resources Corpus Christi East - Corpus Christi, TX <em>(16.1 micrograms per cubic meter)</em></li><li>Chevron Pascagoula - Pascagoula, MS <em>(13.8 micrograms per cubic meter)</em></li><li>Valero Corpus Christi East - Corpus Christi, TX <em>(13 micrograms per cubic meter)</em></li><li>Chalmette Refining - Chalmette, LA <em>(12.3 micrograms per cubic meter)</em></li><li>Shell Deer Park - Deer Park, TX <em>(11.1 micrograms per cubic meter)</em></li><li>Marathon Galveston Bay Texas City - Texas City, TX <em>(10 micrograms per cubic meter)</em></li></ol><p>The leading emitter, Philadelphia Energy Solutions, shut down its South Philadelphia refinery and filed for bankruptcy following <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/26/us/gas-philadelphia-energy-solutions-refinery-shut-down-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">a large explosion last June</a>. During the year before, air monitors showed the net concentration of benzene near the facility was five times the EPA action level.</p><p>In May 2019, the air monitors detected benzene levels at more than 21 times above the action level, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/massive-oil-refinery-leaks-toxic-chemical-middle-philadelphia-n1115336" target="_blank">NBC News reported</a>. NBC also cited census data showing 60 percent of the 297,000 people living within three miles of the PES refinery are minorities, and around 45 percent live below the poverty line.</p><p>At the HollyFrontier Navajo Artesia refinery in New Mexico, monitors detected a net concentration of 998 micrograms per cubic meter during one two-week period, <a href="https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2020/02/06/Report-reveals-elevated-benzene-levels-at-10-US-oil-refineries/8161581008014/" target="_blank">UPI reported</a>. The net concentration for the year was three times higher than the EPA limits.</p><p>"These results highlight refineries that need to do a better job of installing pollution controls and implementing safer workplace practices to reduce the leakage of this cancer-causing pollutant into local communities," Eric Schaeffer, Executive Director of the Environmental Integrity Project, said in a <a href="https://environmentalintegrity.org/news/refineries-emit-benzene-in-amounts-above-epa-action-levels/" target="_blank">press release</a>. "Now, EPA needs to enforce these rules."</p>
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Fracking Study Shows Toxic Chemical Exposure 2,000 Feet From Drilling Sites
18 October 2019
Fracking
A fracking well looms over a residential area of Liberty, Colorado on Aug. 19. WildEarth Guardians / Flickr
A new multiyear study found that people living or working within 2,000 feet, or nearly half a mile, of a hydraulic fracturing (fracking) drill site may be at a heightened risk of exposure to benzene and other toxic chemicals, according to research released Thursday by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE)
<p>The <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pO41DJMXw9sD1NjR_OKyBJP5NCb-AO0I/view" target="_blank">study</a> concluded that people living within almost a half-mile radius of a fracking well have an increased risk of feeling the effects of chemical exposure though headaches, nausea, dizziness, nosebleeds and respiratory trouble, according to <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/17/colorado-oil-gas-health-risks-study/" target="_blank">The Denver Post</a>.</p><p>Until now, Colorado has had a 500-foot minimum distance that drilling wells can be from homes. The <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pO41DJMXw9sD1NjR_OKyBJP5NCb-AO0I/view" target="_blank">study</a> found that, in certain conditions, toxic <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/chemicals" target="_self">chemicals</a> like benzene, toluene and ethyltoluenes could be up to 10 times the recommended levels at a 500-foot distance. As you move away from the fracking site, the chemicals dissipate, but could still be at unsafe levels at 2,000 feet away, as <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/colorado-fracking-study-shows-toxic-chemicals-2000-feet-away-drilling-sites-1466091" target="_blank">Newsweek</a> reported.</p><p>That takes into account only the chemicals that are known. Some chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process are trade secrets. As <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/colorado-fracking-study-shows-toxic-chemicals-2000-feet-away-drilling-sites-1466091" target="_blank">Newsweek</a> reported, a recent <a href="https://www.pfpi.net/secret-fracking-chemicals-threaten-ohioans-health-drinking-water" target="_blank">study from the Partnership for Policy Integrity</a> noted that natural gas drillers use a law that allows some of their chemicals to remain secretive.</p><p>"Secret exposure to chemicals that our own EPA reports as a potential hazard to human health is unconscionable," said Alan Lockwood, MD, of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) to <a href="http://newsweek/" target="_blank">Newsweek</a>. "Healthcare professionals can't possibly treat patients properly, make protective public health plans and decisions, and protect first responders without knowing what chemicals are in the environment."</p><p>The <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pO41DJMXw9sD1NjR_OKyBJP5NCb-AO0I/view" target="_blank">CDPHE report</a> strengthens Governor Jared Polis' argument that emissions from Colorado's powerful oil and gas industry need to be reined in. The finding also helps explain the complaints 750 residents living near oil and gas facilities made to the state's health department, said state toxicologist Kristy Richardson, as <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/17/colorado-oil-gas-health-risks-study/" target="_blank">The Denver Post</a> reported. Around 60 percent of those complaints involved symptoms commensurate with chemical exposure, such as headaches, dizziness and difficulty breathing.</p><p>Computer modeling from the study is expected to help regulators set new standards for the minimum distance a drilling site can be from a home.</p><p>"This study is the first of its kind because it used actual emissions data to model potential exposure and health risks," said CDPHE environmental programs director John Putnam, according to <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/17/colorado-oil-gas-health-risks-study/" target="_blank">The Denver Post</a>. "While we pursue further research, we won't delay enacting stricter emissions standards for chemicals that cause human effects, ozone pollution and climate change. This study reinforces what we already know: We need to minimize emissions from oil and gas sources."</p><p>State regulators insisted they would start to take a close look at all new applications for drilling within 2,000 feet of any residence and that they would start testing air emissions around industry wells. The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission said it would start to use its money to test air quality around homes near gas wells, according to <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/17/colorado-oil-gas-health-risks-study/" target="_blank">The Denver Post</a>.</p><p>Community activists praised the findings and insisted that state lawmakers need to prioritize community health and rein in oil and gas industry pollution.</p><p>"Dozens of children living in close proximity to oil and gas have already documented off-the-charts levels of benzene in their blood," said Colorado Rising spokeswoman Anne Lee Foster, as <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/17/colorado-oil-gas-health-risks-study/" target="_blank">The Denver Post</a> reported. "Considering this and the corroborative data of the study, the state must pause oil and gas permitting and ensure that public health and safety is protected — as new legislation mandates."</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">"There is no evidence that <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/fracking?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#fracking</a> can operate without threatening public health directly" <a href="https://t.co/9c3wXGzba6">https://t.co/9c3wXGzba6</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/FrackAction?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FrackAction</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Frack_Off?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Frack_Off</a></p>— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) <a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/status/1142628425582227456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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From Asthma to Cancer, 'Blistering' New Report Details Human Cost of Fracking
14 March 2018
Health + Wellness
Garry Knight / Flickr
By Jessica Corbett
A team of researchers on Tuesday released a "blistering" report on the serious public health threats—from headaches to asthma to cancer—posed by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a process of injecting a mix of water and chemicals into rocks to release oil and natural gas.
<p>The <a href="http://www.psr.org/assets/pdfs/fracking-compendium-5.pdf" target="_blank">study</a>—<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/fracking-health-risk-asthma-birth-defects-cancer-w517809" target="_blank">described</a> as "the most authoritative" of its kind—was published by Concerned Health Professionals of New York and Physicians for Social Responsibility. Researchers found that "by several measures, evidence for fracking-related health problems is emerging across the United States and Canada."</p><p>Looking to Pennsylvania—a <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/12/13/meet-european-petrochemical-giant-trying-profit-fracking-pennsylvania" target="_blank">hotbed</a> for fracking—as an example, the report says that "as the number of gas wells increase in a community, so do rates of hospitalization, and community members experience sleep disturbance, headache, throat irritation, stress/anxiety, cough, shortness of breath, sinus, fatigue, wheezing and nausea."</p><p>"Drilling and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fracking/">fracking</a> operations are also correlated with increased rates of asthma, elevated motor vehicle fatalities, ambulance runs and emergency room visits and gonorrhea incidence," according to the report, for which researchers analyzed thousands of journalistic investigations, government research and peer-reviewed scientific articles.</p><p>The report also notes that levels of <a href="https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/substances/toxsubstance.asp?toxid=14" target="_blank">benzene</a> "in ambient air surrounding drilling and fracking operations are sufficient to elevate risks for future cancers in both workers and nearby residents," and "animal studies show numerous threats to fertility and reproductive success from exposure to various concentrations of oil and gas chemicals, including at levels representative of those found in <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drinking-water">drinking water</a>."</p><p>Dr. Sandra Steingraber, one of the report's co-authors and a biologist who has <a href="http://steingraber.com/bio/" target="_blank">worked</a> as a public health advocate, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/fracking-health-risk-asthma-birth-defects-cancer-w517809" target="_blank">told</a> Rolling Stone, "Fracking is the worst thing I've ever seen."</p><p>"Those of us in the public health sector started to realize years ago that there were potential risks, then the industry rolled out faster than we could do our science," she said. "Now we see those risks have turned into human harms and people are getting sick.... And we in this field have a moral imperative to raise the alarm."</p><p>Climate activist and 350.org cofounder Bill McKibben said in a tweet that the new report serves as a powerful reminder that it's not just the planet that experiences harmful consequences as a result of fracking:</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="eb1d6" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="IE8RQQ1576661699"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="973591847863050241" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Big new study reminds us that climate is not the only reason to fear #fracking: "Our examination…uncovered no evide… https://t.co/w3OgoTaqKt</div> — Bill McKibben (@Bill McKibben)<a href="https://twitter.com/billmckibben/statuses/973591847863050241">1520957359.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p>This is the fifth edition of the <em>Compendium of Scientific, Medical and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking (Unconventional Gas and Oil Extraction)</em>, and the researchers note that "given the rapidly expanding body of evidence related to the harms and risks of unconventional oil and gas extraction, we plan to continue revising and updating the compendium approximately every year."</p><p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/03/13/asthma-cancer-blistering-new-report-details-human-cost-fracking" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>
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Most EPA Pollution Estimates Are Unreliable, So Why Is Everyone Still Using Them?
29 January 2018
Climate
Smoggy downtown Houston. Kyle Jones / Flickr
By Rachel Leven
Engineer Jim Southerland was hired by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1971 to join the nascent war on air pollution. He came to relish the task, investigating orange clouds from an ammunition plant in Tennessee and taking air samples from strip mines in Wyoming. Among his proudest accomplishments: helping the agency develop a set of numbers called emission factors—values that enable regulators to estimate atmospheric discharges from power plants, oil refineries, chemical plants and other industrial operations.
<p>By the time Southerland left the EPA in 1996, he was "frustrated and ticked off," he said, because the numbers he had helped develop were being misused. The original aim had been to paint a broad-brush picture of pollution. Instead, the numbers—meant to represent average emissions from industrial activities—were incorporated into permits stipulating how much pollution individual facilities could release. This happened despite EPA warnings that about half of these sites would discharge more than the models predicted. "These factors were not intended for permits," said Southerland, now retired and living in Cary, North Carolina.</p><p>The number of <a href="http://bit.ly/2ATCqLW" target="_blank">emission factors</a> used by the EPA since Southerland's time has proliferated and stands at 22,693. The agency itself admits most are unreliable: It rates about 62 percent as "below average" or "poor." Nearly 22 percent aren't rated at all. About 17 percent earned grades of "average" or better, and only one in six has ever been updated. There is a slew of common problems, such as poor accounting for emissions from aging equipment.</p>
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<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNzEyOTUzMy9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzODM1NTk4M30.dFlvERwd5hY5oH2PJttEk1vfrwYWfjjTd_Y9OiXifo4/img.png?width=980" id="daf15" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="777c4d8fd6d893a3eb1686bc5cd8bb34" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
</p>
<p>The upshot: in some cases, major polluters are using flawed numbers to calculate emissions of substances such as benzene, a carcinogen, and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/methane">methane</a>, a powerful greenhouse gas. Regulators at times are flying blind. The factors color everything we know about air quality and many of the decisions the EPA and state environmental agencies make, from risk assessment to rulemaking.<br></p><p>In an email, an EPA spokeswoman told the <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org" target="_blank">Center for Public Integrity</a> that the agency has been working on the problem for a decade. "EPA believes it is important to develop emissions factors that are of high quality and reliable," she wrote.</p><p>Some experts, however, say the agency hasn't done enough. The unreliability of the numbers has been flagged over a period of decades by the EPA's own internal watchdog and other government auditors. "This is what tells you what's being put in the air and what you're breathing," said Eric Schaeffer, former head of civil enforcement at the EPA and now executive director of the <a href="http://www.environmentalintegrity.org" target="_blank">Environmental Integrity Project</a>, an advocacy group. "You don't want those numbers to be wrong."</p><p><strong>Accuracy Questions</strong><br></p><p>Emission factors are based on company and EPA measurements as well as external studies. They are plugged into equations to estimate total emissions from industrial activities, such as the burning of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal">coal</a> in boilers.</p><p>As early as the 1950s, regulators in places like Los Angeles were using emission factors to try to pinpoint the origins of dangerous smog episodes. The numbers allowed them to avoid "time-consuming, expensive testing programs and extensive surveys of individual sources," according to a 1960 <a href="http://bit.ly/2DoXwVq" target="_blank">paper</a> by the Los Angeles County Air Pollution Control District.</p><p>In 1965, the U.S. Public Health Service—which regulated air pollution at the time—released its first comprehensive list of factors, a document the agency would label "AP-42" in a 1968 update. The EPA, created two years later, kept <a href="https://www.epa.gov/air-emissions-factors-and-quantification/ap-42-compilation-air-emission-factors" target="_blank">revising the estimates</a> as they became more widely used in emission inventories depicting pollution levels and sources around the country.</p><p>The EPA knew early on there were problems with the numbers. In 1989, for example, the Office of Technology Assessment—a now-defunct, nonpartisan science adviser to Congress—reported many U.S. metropolitan areas had not met their goals for controlling smog-forming ozone in part because of inaccurate emission inventories. In 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act, Congress gave the agency six months to make sure all emissions contributing to ozone formation were assigned up-to-date, accurate factors, and directed the EPA to review the numbers every three years thereafter.</p><p>The EPA missed both deadlines. It has failed to do at least some of the three-year reviews. It claims to have created all the necessary ozone-related factors, but questions about their accuracy remain. </p><p>For decades, government watchdogs, including the EPA's Office of Inspector General, have pointed out deficiencies in the factors, which drive actions ranging from enforcement cases to the drafting of regulations. "We believe the status of emission factor development … is a significant weakness that impedes achievement of major air program goals," the IG wrote in a 1996 report. The EPA's dependence on industry studies because of funding constraints could result in factors that minimized pollution, it warned. The U.S. General Accounting Office—now the Government Accountability Office—<a href="https://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0146.pdf" target="_blank">reported</a> in 2001 that polluters rely on the estimates even though "facilities' actual emissions can, and do, vary substantially from the published factors." The EPA's IG came back with a targeted reproach in 2014, questioning the validity of factors used to estimate methane emissions from some <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pipelines">pipelines</a>.</p><p>Still, there was little movement. Whereas emission factors are recognized as crucial tools in understanding air quality and underpinning inventories, they tend to be forgotten. "That foundation is buried to such an extent that it's not often appreciated," said David Mobley, who worked on emission factors in the 1990s. "The urgency is rarely there."</p>
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<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNzEyOTU0NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MjQxNTkwNX0.2ZuCuQ9lar5Tdu5gdT2NXrjir7zfNqqhUurp98V_YGs/img.jpg?width=980" id="5c46a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4a60e5573734aff910848d518646ca4e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption..."><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2018/01/29/21492/most-epas-pollution-estimates-are-unreliable-so-why-everyone-still-using-them" target="_blank"></a>Vehicles travel along Highway 225 near Shell Oil Company's refinery and petrochemical facility in Deer Park, Texas.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">texasfreeway.com</small></p>
<p><strong>Test Case in Houston</strong></p><p>Accurate pollution data matters. Consider what happened in the ozone-plagued city of Houston, a hub of oil refining and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/chemicals">chemical</a> manufacturing.</p><p>The city had been using emission inventories to guide its ozone-control strategy. Air monitoring by researchers in 2000 found levels of volatile organic compounds—highly reactive ozone precursors, such as benzene, known as VOCs—were 10 to 100 times higher than what had previously been estimated. The study—conducted by what was then the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, the EPA and more than 40 other public, private and academic institutions—singled out as culprits VOCs such as ethylene, a flammable gas used mainly in the production of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/plastics">plastics</a>.</p><p>Houston, it turned out, had focused on controlling the wrong emissions from the wrong sources to lower its ozone levels, said Daniel Cohan, an associate professor of environmental engineering at Rice University. The city changed course, expanding VOC monitoring and developing rules to reduce emissions. Ozone production rates dropped by up to 50 percent in six years, Cohan and his colleagues found in a follow-up <a href="https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/14/2777/2014/acp-14-2777-2014.pdf" target="_blank">study</a>. The study showed that reliance on emission factors alone is a bad idea, Cohan said. "We need scientists to measure these pollutants in the air to find out how much is really being emitted," he said.</p><p>The underestimation problem surfaced at individual facilities as well, including Shell's 1,500-acre petrochemical complex in the Houston suburb of Deer Park. A <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10962247.2015.1058304?needAccess=true" target="_blank">study</a> begun by the City of Houston and the EPA in 2010 showed levels of benzene wafting from one Shell tank were 448 times higher than what the relevant emission factor had predicted. The discrepancy led to an EPA enforcement action; in a <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-07/documents/sdp-cd.pdf" target="_blank">consent decree</a>, Shell agreed to pay a $2.6 million fine and spend $115 million to control pollution from flaring—the burning of gas for economic or safety reasons—and other activities. Shell did not respond to requests for comment, but a spokeswoman told the <a href="http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/article/Shell-agrees-to-cut-emissions-at-Deer-Park-complex-4657913.php" target="_blank">Houston Chronicle</a> in 2013 "the provisions of the settlement are consistent with Shell Deer Park's objectives and ongoing activities to reduce emissions at the site and upgrade our flaring infrastructure."</p><p>Despite the findings of these studies and others, the EPA didn't <a href="https://www3.epa.gov/ttn/chief/consentdecree/index_consent_decree.html" target="_blank">update</a> emission factors for the U.S. refinery and petrochemical sector until 2015, seven years after Houston had petitioned the agency to do so and two years after it was sued by environmental justice groups.</p><p><strong>Unreliable Methane Estimates</strong></p><p>The low-balling of pollution isn't limited to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/toxics">toxic</a> chemicals. Many emission factors used to estimate releases of methane—a potent greenhouse gas associated with oil and natural-gas development—are "far too low," said Robert Howarth, an ecology and environmental biology professor at Cornell University. Identifying how much methane these operations discharge can help scientists calculate the impact of natural gas—which in 2016 displaced coal as the nation's biggest source of electric power generation—on global warming. This is crucial to preventing "runaway <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/">climate change</a>," Howarth said.</p><p>Much remains unknown. A 2015 <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/112/51/15597.full?tab=author-info" target="_blank">study</a> sponsored by the <a href="https://www.edf.org" target="_blank">Environmental Defense Fund</a> found methane releases from oil and gas production and processing in the Barnett Shale Formation in northern Texas were 90 percent higher than what the EPA's Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions had estimated.</p><p>About a third of the factors used to estimate pipeline leaks and other natural-gas emissions in the most recent inventory, for 2015, are based on a <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-08/documents/8_equipmentleaks.pdf" target="_blank">1996</a> study by the EPA and an industry group<strong> </strong>then known as the Gas Research Institute. The EPA's IG <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-09/documents/20140725-14-p-0324_0.pdf" target="_blank">found</a> in 2014 "there was significant uncertainty in the study data," meaning the EPA's assumptions on the amount of methane that spews from pipelines "may not be valid."</p><p>The harm caused by faulty estimates extends beyond oil and gas. An emission factor designed to estimate ammonia releases from poultry farms, for example, "is probably far too low<strong>" </strong>according to a <a href="http://www.environmentalintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Ammonia-Emissions.pdf" target="_blank">report</a> by the Environmental Integrity Project. These emissions contribute to problems like <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/algae">algae</a> blooms, which can spread rapidly and kill <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/marine-life">marine life</a> in waterways like the Chesapeake Bay.</p><p><strong>'Pandora's Box of Problems'</strong></p><p>The EPA, according to its spokeswoman, has begun executing a plan to improve the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/science/">science</a> that underlies emission factors and review the estimates more frequently. Among the changes: some companies now must report pollution data electronically to the agency.</p><p>The <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/">Trump</a> administration proposed slashing the EPA's budget by 31 percent for fiscal year 2018, although Congress has so far extended existing funding levels through a series of short-term resolutions. Progress on emission factors will hinge on "available resources," the EPA spokeswoman wrote in an email, declining to specify a deadline for the project.</p><p>The agency said it does not intend to limit the use of emission factors to the purpose for which they were originally intended—to inform pollution inventories. That means, for example, that the numbers will still be used in permits.</p><p>Many in industry are fine with that. When the EPA asked in a 2009 Federal Register <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2009/10/14/E9-24684/emissions-factors-program-improvements" target="_blank">notice</a> for suggestions on how to improve the system, companies from electric power generators to auto manufacturers argued for the status quo, saying emission factors were sometimes their only data option. Trade groups like the American Petroleum Institute and the American Chemistry Council argued their members should not be penalized if the EPA discovered a deficient factor had caused a permit to underestimate pollution. API said it worried that additional industry data supplied to the EPA to help it improve the numbers "could be misused for enforcement or other purposes." Neither group responded to requests for comment.</p><p>Public health advocates, on the other hand, want more. Some companies game the system to avoid EPA permitting fees and civil penalties, said Neil Carman, clean air director for the Lone Star Chapter of the <a href="http://www.sierraclub.org">Sierra Club</a> in Austin. "We don't know what the emissions really are," he said. "It's a real Pandora's box of problems."</p><p>Carman and other advocates say they understand emission factors will have to be used in some circumstances, and that some types of pollution can be estimated with reasonable accuracy. They also maintain, however, that air monitoring should be more widely deployed. "Where you can do direct monitoring of emissions, that should be required," said Schaeffer, of the Environmental Integrity Project.</p><p>Schaeffer faults the EPA for giving some companies an out. It allows operators of power plants, for example, to choose between using continuous monitoring to measure fine particles, or a combination of quarterly testing and emission factors. Some of these plants already have monitoring systems installed, Schaeffer said, but "it's easier to mask noncompliance using emission factors."</p><p><strong>Shining a 'Bright Light' on Pollution</strong></p><p>California's Bay Area Air Quality Management District changed its approach after studies showed leaks from oil refineries in the area—known as fugitive emissions—were likely underrepresented in emission factors. "We decided, based on that information, that we needed additional ways to better identify fugitive emissions and to shine a bright light on those fugitive emissions," said Eric Stevenson, the district's director of meteorology, measurement and rules.</p><p>In 2016, the district urged refineries to install "open path" monitoring systems—which use beams of light to detect the presence of gases like benzene—and make the data available to the public in real time. Chevron installed such a <a href="http://fenceline.org/" target="_blank">system</a> on the perimeter of its refinery in Richmond, California, in 2013.</p><p>The company didn't respond to specific questions about the monitoring but said its focus "on running the refinery efficiently and investing in new technologies" has significantly reduced air pollution since the 1970s. Denny Larson, executive director of the <a href="http://www.communityscience.org" target="_blank">Community Science Institute</a> - CSI for Health and Justice, an environmental group that helps the public test for pollution, said the system in Richmond shows levels of chemicals in the air at a given moment and can alert residents to emission spikes that can trigger asthma attacks and other serious health problems.</p><p>"It's showing lots of pollution has been flying under the radar that's extremely toxic and problematic," Larson said. "We can prove what we've always known."</p><p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2018/01/29/21492/most-epas-pollution-estimates-are-unreliable-so-why-everyone-still-using-them" target="_blank">The Center for Public Integrity</a>.</em></p>
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Earthjustice
“Many people don’t know that major industrial operations often have their own personal power plants, which have not been subject to EPA clean air standards,” said Earthjustice staff attorney Jim Pew. “People who live near industrial power plants pay a disproportionate cost in increased cancer risk, heart attacks, asthma and other respiratory illness. Americans have the right to know where these plants are located and the pollutants they emit. Now they can get this information easily online.”
Though they are usually smaller than power plants that sell electricity to the public, industrial power plants released millions of pounds of toxic air pollutants like mercury, lead, benzene and acid gases in 2010 alone. Earthjustice has worked for more than a decade to reduce health threats from pollution caused by industrial power plants—also known as industrial boilers.
In February 2011, under a court-ordered deadline, the EPA issued Clean Air Act emission standards for industrial power plants. In December 2011, EPA issue a revised proposal and plans to finalize an updated standard by mid-2012. These standards (often referred to as the "Boiler MACT" rule) will bring IPPs into Clean Air Act compliance like any other power plant, saving thousands of lives each year and preventing widespread sickness, suffering and premature death, especially in communities that need the help most.
The white paper, The Toxic Air Burden from Industrial Power Plants, includes:
- Health impacts of selected pollutants
- Top 20 states for boiler emissions of mercury, lead, chromium, hydrochloric acid, PM2.5 (soot)
- Top 20 facilities for these pollutants
- Ranking of states with the most industrial boilers
- An explanation of the research methods
The interactive map shows where these facilities are located from coast-to-coast.
Read the white paper and use the interactive map by clicking here.
For more information, click here.