Area benzene levels take center stage in air quality debate
The TCEQ’s Michael Honeycutt, toxicology division director, said the organization already conducted tests in August and October, is executing a third at present and will perform a fourth round of tests in spring 2010. Findings will be published to the organization’s Web site and are available to the public.
“We’ve also, from data collected, seen other chemicals that at the levels we’re finding aren’t a huge health concern … Remember: the take-home message tonight is benzene,” Honeycutt said at a Nov. 19 League of Neighborhoods meeting.
Short-term exposure of benzene can cause nausea, dizziness, headache and drowsiness, whereas long-term exposure may affect bone marrow and blood, and may cause leukemia, Honeycutt said. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lists benzene as one of 188 air pollutants that “may reasonably be anticipated to result in an increase in mortality or an increase in serious irreversible or incapacitating reversible illness,” according to the agency’s Web site.
The same mobile monitoring tests being conducted in the Barnett Shale already have taken place in the Houston ship channel, where high levels of benzene were found around oil and gas refineries and facilities – “something we would not have expected,” he said. Eventually, Honeycutt said the TCEQ would like to install long-term monitoring systems – complex and expensive – in the Barnett Shale.
“We really need to figure out the sources of the chemicals that we’re finding,” Honeycutt said.
DISH, Texas, Mayor Calvin Tillman, who attended the Nov. 19 meeting at which Honeycutt spoke, has been vocal in his belief that the 11 compressor stations located around the tiny Denton County town have resulted in high levels of benzene, and subsequently illnesses, damage to area foliage and more. The town had air tests conducted in August that found high concentrations of benzene exceeding the TCEQ’s short-term and long-term effects screening levels. Levels of carbon disulfide, xylene and napththalene (found in pesticides, solvents and mothballs, respectively) also were found to exceed TCEQ levels.
“The town of DISH has virtually no heavy industry other than the compression stations,” according to a report drafted by Wolf Eagle Environmental, the Flower Mound company commissioned to conduct the tests. “There is no other facility with the capability to produce the volume of air toxins present within miles of the town.”
Current and former DISH (previously named Clark) residents also are encouraged to fill out a health survey, available on the town’s Web site, that includes queries on residents’ proximity to a compressor station, whether odors are experienced and if certain medical symptoms are present, such as asthma, nausea or eye burning.
Area resident Deborah Rogers, who raises goats to produce goat cheese, also has aired her concerns that pollution from Chesapeake Energy wells near her Westworth Village property could impact her livelihood. She funded her own tests that have found high levels of benzene, a carcinogen also found in gasoline.
Change could be in the air.
Representatives from 10 of the Barnett Shale’s biggest operators already have met with TCEQ leaders to discuss the findings and ways to clean up their act, so to speak.
Also, former Southern Methodist University Professor Al Armendariz, an engineering professor who released reports linking heavy air pollution to area gas production, recently was named regional administrator to the Environmental Protection Agency. State Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, called Armendariz’ appointment “one of the greatest things that has happened for our community in a very long time.” Industry players have been less enthusiastic.
