It's official - Houston, Texas has gone toxic

[donsu]

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/topstory/2088661

Ozone levels return to unhealthy status

-snip-

"It's worse than we see usually," said John Wilson, executive director of the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention, which issued a news release Monday pointing out that Houston, with two months left in the season, has already eclipsed by one day the number of days last year when the city violated the ozone standard.

So far, Houston has exceeded the standard on 27 days, but that number is likely inflated by a half-dozen new monitors that were installed this year, the TCEQ said.

The plume of ozone was still moving toward the northwest in the late afternoon, and had a chance of reaching Aldine, and triggering level purple, based on an eight-hour average, at a couple of sites, a TCEQ meteorologist said.

"This is not over yet," said Bryan Lambeth, a senior meteorologist for the agency, which was receiving data from 29 monitors Monday. "This blob is moving, and it will likely impact more sites."
-snip-
--------------------------

Is Houston the only city with air monitors?
the weather channel gives air alerts - where do they get the info? Do we really know the content of the air we breathe. I don't. Shouldn't we?

[Robbien]

1. Since that summer of all the deaths in Chicago, Illinois has

been a leader in the number of Ozone monitors it has. And, according to the EPA, over 75% of the US population is covered by Ozone monitors. Other pollutants are anyone's guess.

[Jacobin]

2. Houston is the armpit of the world

I've driven through it (ugh) dozens of times over the past 25 years and it just gets uglier and filthier and more polluted every time.

My apologies to Houstonians who may read this. There are some lovely areas, but good god you are surrounded by and overladen with some stinky stinky air and grotesque cityscapes.

Ole George and his "voluntary" emissions program for his industrial friends at work again. Too bad the media didn't report on this before the warmongerlunatic was selected pretzledent.

[LizW]

3. "Is Houston the only city with air monitors?"

Nope, they're all over the place. We have them in Birmingham, and on ozone alert days, there are all these public service messages on tv and radio encouraging us to carpool, not to use drive-throughs, not to use power mowers, and not to gas up the car until after 6 pm. Also, the city bus fares are reduced on ozone days. I have no idea if any of those measures have any effect, but at least they're trying.

Also, there used to be some loss of federal highway funds for cities that went over the limit on the number of high ozone days. I don't know if that is still the case.

[SoCalDem]

4. Yesterday, AOL news had a story about Texas air.. They called it

"sneeziest".. How cute :eyes:

Instead of calling it "Breatheable gaseous Toxic SLUDGE", they chose "sneeziest"..

Gee THAT has an almost Disneyesque and cute sound to it..