6 Years, 21,000 Incidents, 400,000 Tons Of Air Pollution; TX Acted On 1% Of These Releases
More than 21,000 unexpected pollution releases by Texas companies have released over 400,000 tons of air pollution in Texas from 2016 to 2022, and companies in less than 1% of these cases have been forced by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to find the root cause and take preventive action, according to a new report.
The report by the Environmental Integrity Project, dubbed the “The Polluter’s Playbook — How Loopholes and Lax Enforcement Harm Air Quality in Texas,” claims that the TCEQ has not been doing enough to hold companies accountable for unexpected pollution releases. The study focused on pollution that is unexpectedly released during an accident, a facility shutdown or startup or during maintenance. Such emissions are separate from what companies are allowed to release under their TCEQ permits.
The report found that only 119 out of 21,769 unplanned emissions events were designated “excessive” by the TCEQ. Tagging an event as “excessive” means that companies are required to analyze and pinpoint the root causes of the event and submit a plan outlining how they will prevent similar releases in the future. But the report’s authors found that there are more unexpected events that should have been titled “excessive.” The report found that 1,634 of the unexpected emissions lasted longer than a week, which far surpasses the limit that the TCEQ considers “excessive.”
Gabriel Clark-Leach, senior attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project and the report’s lead author, told The Texas Tribune that the current system in Texas “provides polluters certainty” that if an accident causes a release of pollution, they will not be fined. This gives companies little incentive to prevent future releases, he said. “The system that TCEQ implements, it isn’t designed to protect the people,” Clark-Leach said. “It isn’t designed to protect air quality. …Vigorous enforcement of pollution control requirements isn’t going to destroy the economy. It’s going to be good for the public.”
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https://www.texastribune.org/2023/03/23/texas-environment-pollution-tceq-report/