1

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

PUBLIC HEARING ON PETROLEUM REFINERY RTR PROPOSAL

NOVEMBER 27, 2007

HARTMAN COMMUNITY CENTER

HOUSTON, TEXAS

______

HEARING PANEL:

FRED THOMPSON

KC HUSTVEDT

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1 MR. HUSTVEDT: You've traveled quite a

2 distance to be here, and I appreciate your efforts.

3 My name is KC Hustvedt. I'm the group

4 leader of the coatings and chemicals group at EPA's

5 office of air quality planning and standards.

6 Fred Thompson, who is to be our hearing

7 chairman, has been delayed because of flight problems.

8 He'll be joining us later this morning.

9 I'd like to thank the City of Houston,

10 particularly Elena Marks, for helping with the

11 logistics of this hearing.

12 We're here today to listen to your comments

13 on a set of amendments that we propose to our petroleum

14 refinery standards on September 4th of this year.

15 Before we began, I would like to briefly

16 describe the proposed rule that's the subject of

17 today's hearings and provide you some context.

18 Section 112 of the Clean Air Act establishes

19 the way in which we at EPA must address air toxic

20 emissions from industries such as petroleum refining.

21 The law requires that we list categories of industries

22 to be regulated, such as petroleum refineries, and also

23 establishes a two-stage process for developing these

24 regulations.

25 In the first stage, we have to establish

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1 standards based on the emission levels achieved by the

2 best controlled sources in the industry. These

3 standards are known as the maximum achievable control

4 technology standards or MACT standards.

5 As you know, refineries are complicated

6 facilities. We regulate refineries through a number of

7 standards which address different types of equipment

8 and processes. This includes two MACT standards

9 specific to petroleum refineries, one that we issued in

10 1995 and another one in 2002.

11 Other types of equipment and processes

12 commonly found at refineries are also subject to a

13 number of other MACT standards.

14 The second stage of developing air toxic's

15 regulations we revisit the MACT standards to examine

16 any remaining risk, along with the state of technology

17 to determine whether the standards should be amended.

18 We examine the risk known as residual risk

19 one time within eight years after the MACT standards

20 are issued. We do this to determine whether we need to

21 change the standard to address any risk remaining after

22 the MACT standard was implemented. We review available

23 technology every eight years to determine whether MACT

24 standards should be updated to reflect technology

25 improvements.

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1 It is the second stage of the process that

2 brings us here today. We are here to take your

3 comments on the September 2007 proposed amendments to

4 the first MACT standard for petroleum refineries.

5 Those amendments address both residual risk

6 determination and the first technology review of this

7 first MACT standard that we issued in 1995. That rule

8 applied to storage tanks, equipment leaks, process

9 vents and wastewater collection treatment systems at

10 petroleum refineries.

11 It also applied to marine vessel loading

12 operations and gasoline distribution facilities if

13 those were located at the refinery.

14 Let me talk about the residual risk portion

15 of the proposal first.

16 First, we have to estimate the remaining risk

17 from the industry after implementation of the MACT

18 standard. In this case, the industry source category

19 is again the petroleum refinery sources subject to the

20 1995 MACT standard. We then determine whether the risk

21 level is at the level the law refers to as acceptable

22 and whether the MACT standards protect the populations

23 with an ample margin of safety and protect against

24 adverse environmental affects.

25 In the case of cancer, if the risk exceeds

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1 100 in a million or 10 to the minus four, we must

2 establish standards to reduce risk no matter what such

3 reductions cost.

4 At the second step in the risk analysis, we

5 must evaluate whether further reductions of assuring an

6 ample margin of safety are feasible considering the

7 costs of such reductions.

8 In preparing to develop this proposal, we

9 conducted a careful review of emissions data from

10 petroleum refineries. Using this data, we estimated

11 the maximum individual lifetime cancer risk associated

12 with the 1995 refinery MACT standard to be about 70 in

13 a million. Because this is less than the 100 in a

14 million level, we then moved onto the second step in

15 the analysis and looked at what further reductions

16 could be achieved and at what cost.

17 Based on these findings, EPA has proposed two

18 options for two different emission sources to address

19 this residual risk.

20 First, for storage tanks we identified a

21 potential risk reduction option of additional controls

22 for fittings on storage tanks. We co-proposed to

23 either impose no additional controls or alternatively

24 to add this requirement. We're asking for your

25 comments on these two alternative options.

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1 In addition for wastewater treatments units,

2 we propose specific performance standards and

3 monitoring requirements to insure that the level of

4 reduction in air toxic's emissions anticipated by the

5 existing MACT standard is being achieved. Again we co-

6 proposed both no additional requirements for this

7 performance demonstration and for this performance

8 demonstration, excuse me. We'd like your comments on

9 this as well.

10 The technology review identified cooling

11 towers as a source of air toxic emissions that we did

12 not adequately address in the original MACT standard,

13 so we co-proposed two options to amend the MACT

14 standard to reduce emissions from these cooling towers.

15 Both are what are known as work practice standards and

16 are designed to detect and repair leaks from cooling

17 towers.

18 The first option we proposed for cooling

19 towers is based on the performance of the best

20 facilities today.

21 The second option is more stringent than the

22 first. We're seeking comment on the cost effectiveness

23 of this second option.

24 While these proposed amendments to the

25 cooling tower standards are addressing a gap in the

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1 underlying MACT standard, we also conducted the risk

2 review and concluded that no further risk update is

3 warranted after adoption of one of these two options.

4 The original comment period for the rule

5 closed on November 4, 2007. We've reopened the comment

6 period, however, to allow us to take public comment

7 until December 28, 2007. We will sign a final rule by

8 August 21, 2008. We will conduct a similar review

9 later on for the second petroleum refinery MACT

10 standard, which we issued in 2002, along with reviews

11 for the other MACT standards that apply to petroleum

12 refinery emissions.

13 More details about the proposed amendments

14 and instructions for submitting public comments are

15 available at the registration area.

16 We also have prepared a list of topics in the

17 proposed rule for which we're seeking comment. That's

18 also available in the registration area and maybe

19 helpful to you as you are commenting today or in

20 submitting written comments later on.

21 Now let me turn to the comment portion of

22 today's hearing. We'll be preparing a written

23 transcript of today's hearing. The transcript will be

24 available as part of the official record for the rule.

25 Today's hearing will work as follows: I will

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1 call the scheduled speakers to the microphone two at a

2 time. Please remain at the table until both speakers

3 have had an opportunity to speak.

4 When it's your time to speak, please state

5 your name and your affiliation, and it would help very

6 much our court recorder if you spell your name at that

7 time.

8 To be fair to everyone, we ask that you limit

9 your testimony to five minutes each. We'll have a

10 timekeeping system consisting of green, yellow and red

11 lights. When you begin speaking, a green light will

12 come on. A yellow light will signal when you have two

13 minutes left. We ask that you stop speaking when the

14 red light comes on.

15 After you finish your testimony, a panel

16 member, one of us, may ask you clarifying questions.

17 As I mentioned, we're transcribing the hearing, and

18 each speaker's oral testimony will become part of the

19 official record. Please be sure to give a copy of any

20 written comments to our staff at the registration desk.

21 We'll put a full text of your written comments into the

22 docket for the rule making.

23 We'll work hard to insure everyone has the

24 opportunity to comment. We're slated to stay here

25 until 9:00 p.m., but we will stay later if necessary.

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1 We'll take breaks periodically throughout the day.

2 If you would like to testify but have not

3 registered to do so, please sign up at the registration

4 table.

5 For those who have already registered to

6 speak, we have tried to accommodate your requests for

7 specific time slots. We ask your patience as we

8 proceed through the list. We may need to make some

9 minor adjustments as we progress.

10 Now I'd like to introduce the EPA

11 representatives on our panel. From the office of air

12 quality planning and standards, we have Dave Guinnup,

13 the group leader of the sector-based assessment group.

14 And from region six office in Dallas, we have Tom

15 Diggs, associate director for air programs and multi-

16 media planning and permitting division.

17 Later in the day, we'll also be joined by

18 Brenda Shine, an engineer from the coatings and

19 chemicals group, the office of air quality planning and

20 standards, and Ruben Casso, air toxics coordinator in

21 our Dallas office.

22 I would like to thank you all again for

23 participating today, so let's get started.

24 First, I'd like to call up Kelly Harragan and

25 Matthew Tejeda.

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1 MS. HARRAGAN: Good morning. I'm Kelly

2 Harragan here today on behalf of environmental defense

3 in the Galveston/Houston Association for Smog

4 Prevention. Welcome to Houston. We're glad that

5 you've decided to come here from the affected

6 communities about your refinery residual risk rule.

7 It's EPA's job to protect the public from the

8 affects of toxic emissions from refineries.

9 Unfortunately, EPA's failed to do that with this rule.

10 The public, especially fence line communities like the

11 one we're in today, deserve better. The ambient

12 monitoring shows that communities around fence lines of

13 petrochemical facilities are exposed to toxic emissions

14 in levels that harm their health. Yet EPA continues to

15 use fuzzy math and illogical legal interpretations to

16 justify not requiring more stringent regulations on

17 refineries and alleging that the emissions from these

18 facilities are safe.

19 Frankly, it's hard to know where to begin

20 with the critique of this proposal. I'll briefly touch

21 on three flaws and will have more detail in our written

22 comments.

23 The first flaw is EPA's acceptance of an

24 elevated cancer risk. The Clean Air Act clearly states

25 that EPA needs to strengthen its regulations to further

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1 protect public if they're exposed to a greater than one

2 in one million cancer risk from toxic pollutants from

3 refineries.

4 According to EPA's own calculations, the

5 maximum risk from refineries is greater than this, yet

6 EPA has proposed to not strengthen the regulations or

7 under option two to only minimally strengthen the

8 regulations.

9 Most refinery emissions are at ground level,

10 so the most exposed population to the people living

11 right around the refineries in communities like this.

12 EPA has legally decided that it's okay to expose these

13 populations to a greater cancer risk than is allowed

14 under the Clean Air Act.

15 The second flaw with the rule making is EPA's

16 risk analysis. The real health risk from refineries

17 are even greater than the risk analysis predicts,

18 because the data the EPA used in the risk analysis is

19 flawed.

20 There is two main problems that we see with

21 the risk analysis.

22 The first is that it doesn't include all of

23 refinery toxic emissions. It doesn't include emissions

24 from units that are covered by the refinery to MACT.

25 It doesn't include emissions from units like cokers.

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1 It also leaves out emissions from any non-

2 routine facility operations. It doesn't include

3 startup, shutdown, malfunction or other emission events

4 like tank landings. And these emissions can be very

5 significant, so we think that leaving these things out

6 of the risk analysis gives you an unrealistic

7 impression of what the real risk from refineries is.

8 In addition, the data that is used for the

9 units that are included in the risk analysis

10 underestimates emissions. Over and over again in the

11 record of this rule making EPA acknowledges this.

12 Studies show that emissions from refineries are

13 probably at least four times greater than what industry

14 self-reports and maybe 15 to 20 times higher than what

15 industry self-reports. Yet EPA went ahead and used

16 this self-reported that in the risk analysis. If you

17 underestimate the emissions, you're going to

18 underestimate the risk.

19 The third flaw is the failure to require

20 refineries to reduce pollution using today's best

21 technologies and controls. The controls that are

22 required in the federal rule are less than what's

23 required by a lot of states and local air pollution

24 districts.

25 The Clean Air Act requires the agency to

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1 review the best of the best of what's out there. What

2 are the cleanest refineries doing and to upgrade its

3 standards accordingly. There's nothing in the record

4 to indicate that EPA even reviewed a lot of the better

5 practices that are being implemented by states right

6 now, such as limits on flaring, much less to explain

7 why EPA didn't adopt these requirements.

8 So in sum, rather than adopting the option

9 one, which is the do nothing option, or option two,

10 which makes some incremental progress, we believe EPA

11 should consider an option three.

12 Option three would be one immediately

13 requiring refineries to adopt the controls proposed

14 under your option two. Two, redoing the risk analysis

15 to include all of the refinery units that emit toxics

16 and to include more accurate data on what the emissions

17 actually are from units at refineries. Three,

18 developing an on-the-record review of the best

19 technologies that are in use out there by states and

20 local pollution districts and by the best performing

21 refineries which may be doing some of this on their

22 own. And, four, proposing controls that are at least

23 as stringent as what the best of the best is out there

24 doing. These include flare gas recovery, lower leak

25 definitions, improved real monitoring. It also include

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1 a requirement for fence line monitoring.

2 Finally, one final point, we think that the

3 general NESHAP provision exempting SSM emissions should

4 not apply to refineries. Those are very significant

5 emissions, and there's that facilities can do to either

6 reduce or eliminate emissions during SSM, and they

7 should be required to specifically do that.

8 Thank you.

9 MR. GUINNUP: Thank you. I have one --

10 anyone have followup questions?

11 MR. HUSTVEDT: I have one quick question.

12 Are you going to be able to provide us some information

13 on some of the additional controls at some stage --

14 MS. HARRAGAN: Yes, we'll be providing

15 written comments by the deadline, and we'll have a lot

16 of background documents attached to that.

17 MR. HUSTVEDT: Great, thanks.

18 MR. GUINNUP: No additional questions?

19 Along the similar lines, you mentioned

20 cokers. There was no date on that. If you could

21 provide information on that, that would be appreciated

22 also.

23 MS. HARRAGAN: We'd be happy to do.

24 MR. GUINNUP: Thank you.

25 MS. HARRAGAN: Thank you.

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1 MR. HUSTVEDT: Mr. Tejeda?

2 MR. TEJEDA: Good morning. My name is

3 Matthew Tejeda. I'm the executive director for the

4 Galveston/Houston Association for Smog Prevention.

5 I want to thank you all for coming down this

6 morning and giving us opportunity to provide you with

7 testimony. I also want to thank you City of Houston

8 for asking for this event to take place and asking for

9 it to take place in this specific setting.

10 I'm here today, because I am not an engineer,

11 I'm not a medical doctor, I'm not a legal specialist.

12 My job is to work with the community and to work with

13 the actual people who are being affected by air toxics.

14 And my testimony today deals with the actual

15 communities who are being most highly impacted by the

16 air toxics from oil refineries.

17 I pulled data from the U.S. Census,

18 specifically the U.S. 2000 census, and compared it to

19 the most recent statistics we have for all of Harris

20 County from the 2006 updated census. I used 35

21 different census tracks that represent to the best of

22 the census's ability the communities along the ship

23 channel. We used census tracks which had synthroids

24 within two miles of the ship channel. So it doesn't

25 include everybody within two miles. It might include a

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1 few people who aren't within two miles, but that's the

2 best way to get broad data for a specific locale within

3 a county.

4 The average size of households and families

5 within these 35 census tracks along the Houston Ship

6 Channel are slightly greater than the average for

7 Harris County. So you have slightly larger households

8 and families in this area.

9 41 percent of Harris County households

10 altogether have at least one member 18 years or

11 younger. So 41 percent of the families in Harris

12 County have a kid.

13 Along the ship channel, that number goes up

14 to 52 percent. So there's more children living in

15 households and families along the ship channel than

16 there is for Harris County altogether.

17 The average or the median income for a

18 household in Harris County is a little bit more than

19 $47,000 a year. The average median income for these 35

20 census tracks a little less than $31,000 a year. It's

21 less than two-thirds of the median income for the

22 county as a whole.

23 Two census tracks, only two census tracks,

24 had a median income within $1,000 of the average median

25 income for Harris County, and only one census track had

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1 a median income that was great than that of Harris

2 County. The vast majority of median incomes in this

3 area are in the $20,000 range per year for an entire

4 household that has more people and more children than

5 most of the rest of Harris County.

6 For all of Harris County, only three percent

7 of housing units were occupied by the current residents

8 in 1969 or before. Only three percent of all of Harris

9 County is living in the place where they live today and

10 has lived there since before 1969.

11 When you look along the ship channel, that

12 number jumps to 13 percent. It's over four times

13 greater. That means these communities along the ship

14 channel have been living here for far longer than most

15 people around this county.

16 The reason that I'm telling you all this is

17 to get the message real clear that people live here;

18 that these are established historic communities along

19 the ship channel, and that these people live in close

20 proximity to oil refineries. They have less means to

21 seek medical attention. They have far less means to

22 just move away, and they have more children and more

23 people living in their houses. These people do not

24 deserve to have a separate health standard for exposure

25 to air toxics from all the refineries.

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1 Any language included in the NESHAP

2 regulations that sets any different standard is not

3 equal, and it's not just, either socially or

4 environmentally. And we ask the EPA to strike any

5 language from these regulations that sets a separate

6 health standard for the people that need a stricter

7 health standard, but they sure don't deserve and they

8 do not need and they are not served by their government

9 by having a separate health standard that is 100 times

10 more lax in its protection for the people that need the

11 greatest protection.

12 Thank you.

13 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you. Questions? Any

14 questions? Thank you.

15 Next, Arturo Blanco and Geoffrey Castro.

16 Again, please remember to spell your name and

17 please state your name and affiliation.

18 MR. CASTRO: My name is Geoffrey Castro.

19 That's G-E-O-F-F-R-E-Y C-A-S-T-R-O. I'm the executive

20 director for CLEAN, the Citizens League for

21 Environmental Action Now.

22 I would like to start by thanking you for

23 coming to Houston today.

24 Houston ranks among the worst cities for

25 toxic air pollution. The air we breathe in this region

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1 is toxic to our health and diminishes our quality of

2 life.

3 The residents of Houston, more specifically

4 those living near industry here on the east side, are

5 heavily impacted by the standards on review here today.

6 While ozone criteria pollutants have long

7 been a focus for Houston, hazardous air pollutants have

8 often been overlooked. Two hazardous air pollutants,

9 benzene and 1,3-butadiene are of particular concern to

10 Houston as industrial facilities in Harris County emit

11 more of these chemicals than anywhere else in the

12 United States.

13 The national emission standards for hazardous

14 air pollutants set by the EPA are far too lax for

15 protecting public health as they allow for a cancer

16 risk much greater for those living near refineries than

17 those of the general public.

18 This hearing follows a trail of news

19 clippings from the past year citing a study that

20 reported children living near the ship channel have a

21 50 percent higher risk of developing leukemia that

22 those living farther away further supporting the need

23 for stronger control of hazardous air pollutants.

24 There is also increasing evidence beginning

25 with a January 2005 Houston Chronicle investigation

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1 that people residing by our region's chemical plants

2 and refineries are being exposed to concentrations of

3 pollutants here that would be illegal in other states.

4 Environmental defenses analysis of the 2002

5 TRI data also confirms our toxic legacy ranking Harris

6 County third in the country and first in the state for

7 toxic air emissions with just over 20,000 million

8 pounds.

9 Recently our organization in conjunction with

10 a host of other groups canvassed various communities'

11 neighboring refineries. We discovered that many

12 individuals living here in these communities lived here

13 for their entire lives or most of their lives. 97

14 percent of those surveyed were concerned about the long-

15 term health affects of air pollution on their family.

16 Furthermore, the Houston area survey recently

17 conducted by Rice University shows that 56 percent of

18 Houstonians are very concerned about the affects of air

19 pollution on their families' health.

20 The Clean Air Act charges the EPA to set

21 standards to protect public health and to regulate

22 toxic air pollutants from large industrial facilities.

23 The inequity of environmental burdens placed on fence

24 line communities by this agency are unacceptable as

25 these individuals tend to be minority and low income.

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1 Among those in close proximity to refineries

2 are children. In Harris County alone nearly 80,000

3 children attend school within two miles of a refinery

4 or chemical plants. The acceptable risk under the

5 current NESHAP standards is one no young child should

6 have to bear.

7 In the state's last legislative session, as

8 many as 15 bills were filed addressing toxic hotspots

9 and not a single bill was passed.

10 The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to set

11 standards to protect public health with an adequate

12 margin of safety to protect sensitive populations.

13 Therefore, it is imperative we have stronger leadership

14 in the EPA to insure that safety and environmental

15 safeguards are strong enough to insure protection for

16 all people.

17 We call on the EPA to strengthen the health

18 standard and vigilantly regulate the petroleum industry

19 and protect those who need it most and sign the book

20 put public health first.

21 Thank you.

22 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you.

23 MR. DIGGS: Just a follow up. On a survey

24 done of the citizens, is that something that you are

25 willing to put forth for the public record so the

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1 agency can have the documentation. It sounds like a

2 lot of work was done by going door-to-door and

3 visiting, and also it sounds like the Rice University

4 survey was done, and so those are available. EPA would

5 welcome those as part of the public record.

6 Thank you.

7 MR. BLANCO: Good morning. My name is Arturo

8 Blanco, A-R-T-U-R-O B-L-A-N-C-O. And I am co-vice

9 president of the NACAA, National Association of Clean

10 Air Agencies, and chief of the bureau of air quality

11 control in the Houston Department of Health and Human

12 Services.

13 On behalf of NACAA, an association of air

14 pollution control agencies in 53 states and territories

15 in over 165 metropolitan areas across the country, I am

16 testifying today on EPA's proposed national emission

17 standards for hazardous air pollutants from petroleum

18 refineries, which was published in the Federal Register

19 in September.

20 Today I will share some of NACAA's

21 preliminary thoughts and concerns about the proposed

22 rule. NACAA will provide more complete written

23 comments by the December deadline. The City of Houston

24 is providing similar comments today.

25 NACAA is very concerned about emissions of

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1 hazardous air pollutants has from refineries.

2 According to EPA, emissions from the refineries

3 containing pollutants that are associated with a

4 variety of adverse health affects, including among

5 things, cancer, pernicious anemia, lung structural

6 changes, difficulty breathing, conjunctivitis, coma and

7 convulsions.

8 NACAA believes these sources should be well

9 controlled and that the public should be afforded the

10 maximum protection possible from the threats to its

11 health associated with these emissions as provided by

12 law.

13 EPA's proposed rule calls for work practice

14 standards for leaks from cooling towers. Additionally,

15 the proposal outlines two options for addressing

16 emissions from storage vessels and wastewater streams.

17 The first option for storage vessels and

18 wastewater streams calls for no additional controls

19 which NACAA believes is unacceptable. The Clean Air

20 Act requires EPA to establish residual risk standards.

21 If the maximum achievable control technology, MACT

22 standard, has not reduced the lifetime excess cancer

23 risk to the individual most exposed to less than one in

24 one million. Yet EPA estimates that emissions from

25 refineries result in risks of 70 in one million, which

24

1 are significant and warrant additional controls.

2 NACAA and the professional clear air agencies

3 it represents are surprised and concerned that EPA

4 seems to have re-interpreted the Clean Air Act

5 proposing that risks as high as 100 in one million do

6 not need to be minimized with barely variable measures

7 already in use by some refineries. NACAA believes this

8 is contrary to the intent of the Act and is clearly not

9 acceptable. Thus, on the basis of EPA's risk estimates

10 alone, option one isn't consistent with the mandates of

11 the Clean Air Act, because it does nothing to address

12 significant risks above one in one million.

13 Moreover, EPA's methodology for calculating

14 the risks from the refineries is flawed even if the

15 risk of 70 in one million is underestimated. To

16 improve its risk analysis for this source category, EPA

17 should calculate risks to fence line communities as

18 there are many neighborhoods such as this one adjacent

19 to refineries.

20 Consequently, EPA must improve its risk

21 assessment basing its estimates on more robust and

22 complete data rather than only information that the

23 agency admits is a result of under reporting. The

24 analysis should certainly include information on

25 emissions from startup, shutdown and malfunctions which

25

1 are the cause of significant high emissions. Exempting

2 startup, shutdown and malfunction emissions

3 underestimates the true risks and does not provide an

4 incentive to refineries to control these emissions.

5 With respect to EPA's proposed controls for

6 cooling towers and option two strategies for storage

7 vessels and wastewater streams, NACAA is encouraged

8 that EPA's acknowledging the need for additional

9 controls. However, the proposed controls do not go far

10 enough. For one thing EPA is allowing three years for

11 the adoption of the modest option two requirements

12 which is too long. We recommend a more expeditious

13 compliance schedule for those measures.

14 More importantly, there are state and local

15 programs that include measures more stringent than

16 those in the proposal, such as limiting clearing to an

17 emergency procedure, recovering under second vent

18 gases, imposing limits on floor and roof tank landings,

19 monitoring emissions of the fence line.

20 The EPA's rule should at least reflect what

21 the best controlled sources of refineries have

22 accomplished. The costs associated with these measures

23 are reasonable, especially considering the toxic nature

24 of the emissions.

25 As part of this proposal, EPA has included

26

1 its required eight-year review of the MACT standard.

2 EPA has determined that it is not required to conduct a

3 re-evaluation of the MACT floor and that there have

4 been no technological advances warranting controls

5 beyond the same options proposed for the residual risk

6 standards.

7 As stated earlier, state and local agencies

8 have already required more rigorous programs to control

9 emissions of HAPS from refineries. Therefore, if NACAA

10 agrees with EPA's interpretation of the requirements of

11 the eight-year review of MACT, the standards the agency

12 has proposed are inadequate because the controls do not

13 reflect the advances that have been in the last eight

14 years.

15 I think you for this opportunity to testify.

16 As I stated at the outset, these are NACAA's

17 preliminary comments, and NACAA will provide additional

18 comments by the December deadline. And I'm happy to

19 answer any questions.

20 MR. DIGGS: No questions here.

21 MR. GUINNUP: No questions here. Thank you.

22 Thank you very much.

23 MR. HUSTVEDT: Our next two speakers are

24 Brandt Mannchen and Ilan Levin.

25 MR. MANNCHEN: Good morning. My name is

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1 Brandt Mannchen, B-R-A-N-D-T M-A-N-N-C-H-E-N. And I'm

2 representing the Houston Sierra Club.

3 The Sierra Club is very disappointed in this

4 proposal. First we have option one which is a do-

5 nothing option, and, secondly, we have option two which

6 is a relatively modest control option.

7 We support an option three, which includes

8 not only option two but also comprehensively reduces

9 further HAPS from flares, cooling towers, storage

10 tanks, wastewater, process vents, marine vessel

11 loadings/unloadings, bulk gasoline terminals,

12 pipelines, bulk gasoline terminal loading racks, coking

13 units and equipment leaks, and would require fence line

14 monitoring of not just benzene but other HAPS like 1,3-

15 butadiene, toluene, xylene, ethyl-benzene and methanol.

16 The oil industry can afford to install the

17 best control available. We have $100 a barrel oil or

18 almost that right now. In an article that will be

19 included with our testimony, it is reported that

20 Houston Ship Channel industries are planning $5 Billion

21 in expansion projects. There is no reason not to

22 require the best controls possible to reduce harzardous

23 air pollution.

24 The Sierra Club does not agree with EPA that

25 a less than one in a million risk of getting cancer is

28

1 an appropriate standard to determine the health affects

2 of this rule. EPA ignores that there are people right

3 out here who live at the fence line in neighborhoods an

4 communities who are at greatest risk from hazardous air

5 pollutants emitted by refineries. This oversight needs

6 to be corrected.

7 The Sierra Club recommends on page 50721 that

8 the HAP leak detection definition be reduced to 100

9 parts per million. EPA should require infrared cameras

10 as a supplement LDAR leak detection programs. IR

11 cameras used to be cutting edge technology. However,

12 they have been available for at least five years, and

13 now are another tool to supplement existing portable

14 hand-held hydrocarbon analyzers. Why is EPA ignoring

15 the use of IR cameras to supplement LDAR programs? EPA

16 should assess IR cameras in the proposal and require

17 their use in refineries as a supplement for LDAR

18 programs.

19 Option one concerning cooling towers,

20 monitors chemical usage and is not an accurate way to

21 determine leaks. My personal experience as a former

22 investigator with the City of Houston Bureau of Air

23 Quality Control was that even with monitoring for

24 chemical usage, we found volatile organic compound

25 leaks from heat exchangers when we monitored cooling

29

1 water using the TCEQ modified El Paso method.

2 We do not support a delay in repair for heat

3 exchangers. Parts should be available on 99.9999

4 percent of the time and you shouldn't need a delay of

5 repair. You need to close off those tubes that they're

6 leaking and there's no need for a delay of repair. Fix

7 them.

8 We oppose the three-year compliance period

9 proposed by EPA. 18 months makes much more sense,

10 especially since most of these particular processes to

11 be controlled are already very familiar by the industry

12 and are already being controlled to a certain extent.

13 The Sierra Club opposes extending the

14 requirement for control for hazardous storage tanks to

15 the next unit turnaround or 10 years. What this means

16 in the Houston ozone non-attainment area and other non-

17 attainment areas that EPA is actively hindering ozone

18 attainment, because it is not requiring compliance as

19 soon as possible.

20 We request EPA require additional fence line

21 monitoring. We support the proposal for benzene. We

22 don't think it's sufficient, however. We support four-

23 year transform infrared spectroscopy for fence line

24 monitoring due to its greater coverage of area at the

25 fence line, longer path length, greater number of air

30

1 pollutants that can be monitored at one time and

2 ability to operate 24/7.

3 FTIR's path length can measure many

4 pollutants over hundreds feet. Fence line monitoring

5 should not be just required for benzene but also at a

6 minimum 1,3-butadiene, methanol, xylene, toluene and

7 ethyl-benzene.

8 We believe EPA should have a program where

9 each refinery looks at the most emitted HAPS and sets

10 up monitoring for those specific areas, especially for

11 fugitive emissions.

12 On page 50734, section 63.641, the definition

13 for point of measurement of leak determination should

14 be changed. It should be changed so it is located just

15 prior to where the cooling return line, lines exposed

16 cooling water to the atmosphere to insure that the

17 aeration of HAPS in cooling water is maximally taken

18 into account during sampling.

19 Page 50736, section 63.654C, there is a

20 loophole which can cause more delay of repair

21 emissions. It states that no later than 30 days after

22 receiving the sampling results that indicate the

23 presence of leak. This requirement does not state who

24 will receive the results. This could result in a delay

25 and a reverse incentive to not provide results

31

1 immediately for leaks. The phrase should be reworded

2 to say "but no later than 30 days after the sample has

3 been analyzed," so there is no time lag between

4 analyzing, recording and receiving sample results where

5 it has been determined that there is a leak.

6 Finally, the Sierra Club is opposed to

7 exemptions for maintenance, startup, shutdown and

8 upsets. Most of those can be avoided. We've seen this

9 with TCEQ's upset program where most of the upsets

10 cannot be forgiven because they are preventable. So

11 most upsets in refineries are emissions that you should

12 take into account.

13 Thank you.

14 MR. HUSTVEDT: Any questions?

15 MR. DIGGS: No additional questions.

16 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you.

17 MR. DIGGS: Thank you, Brandt.

18 MR. MANNCHEN: Thank you.

19 MR. LEVIN: Good morning. My name is Ilan

20 Levin, I-L-A-N L-E-V-I-N. And I'm with the

21 Environmental Integrity Project.

22 Thanks for holding this public hearing this

23 morning and today to take testimony on the agency's

24 recent proposal to require no further reduction in

25 hazardous air pollution from refineries.

32

1 This proposal assumes that regulations

2 already on the books have reduced emissions to levels

3 that pose no real risk to the public, but data reported

4 by the industry to EPA's toxics release inventory shows

5 that hazardous air pollutants from some refineries have

6 actually increased since EPA began regulating such

7 emissions in 1995.

8 For example, Exxon's Baytown Refinery

9 reported just over 814,000 pounds of hazardous air

10 pollutants in 1995, and over 1.3 million pounds in

11 2005. HAP emissions from BP's Texas City Refinery rose

12 from 570,000 pounds in `95 to 880,000 pounds 10 years

13 later.

14 Preliminary data from 2006 toxic release

15 inventory an upward trend for some refineries that's

16 starting to reverse earlier gains to reduce emissions.

17 A couple of quick examples: HAP emissions

18 from the Houston Refinery, formerly Lyondell-Citgo

19 declined between `95 and 2000, but jumped from 450,000

20 pounds to 665,000 pounds per year between 2004 and

21 2006.

22 Now we know that there are several possible

23 explanations for these troubling increases, including

24 production increases and better accounting of emissions

25 that have escaped detection in the past. And in fact

33

1 TRI data suggests that annual HAP emissions from all

2 refineries have declined between `95 and 2005. But

3 offers small comfort to people living in neighborhoods

4 like this and people living in communities on the fence

5 line of refineries where emissions have actually gone

6 up.

7 And there's good reason to fear that reported

8 industry-wide declines are well overstated for a couple

9 of reasons.

10 First, over three-quarters of the reported

11 reductions are in fugitive emissions, leaks for example

12 from valves, tanks, wastewater treatment plants. These

13 fugitive emissions are notoriously difficult to

14 measure.

15 Second, pollutant releases are often

16 estimated rather than directly measured using emission

17 factors that are outdated and which do not take into

18 account variations in day-to-day operations that can

19 traumatically affect the results.

20 Plant upsets, as we know, can release huge

21 amounts of pollution over short periods of time. One

22 example, Motiva reported only 42,000 pounds of

23 hazardous air pollutant emissions in 2005. In 2006,

24 that number jumped to 386,000 thanks in part to a

25 cooling tower leak.

34

1 And EPA has recognized that additional

2 regulation of cooling towers may be needed and has

3 pointed out that better leak prevention programs

4 actually pay for themselves by recovering lost product.

5 Third, and EPA has conceded this. We know

6 that emissions are very likely low biased, and that the

7 data from several processes and operations are not

8 included in the reported emissions from many

9 facilities, including a total exclusion of emissions

10 from upset, malfunction, startup and shutdown events.

11 So knowing full well that refinery emissions

12 are under reported, how on earth is there any basis for

13 saying that there's no risk to the community? 30 years

14 after the Clean Air Act was past refinery communities

15 ought to know how much they're being exposed to

16 pollutants that contribute to alarming diseases. The

17 stakes are high. These HAPS are by definition so

18 harmful to human health, EPA advises that in addition

19 to cancer hazardous air pollutants with chronic health

20 affects like aplastic anemia and lung structural

21 damages and other well known health problems.

22 30 years after the Clean Air Act was passed,

23 it's time to stop guessing and start actually measuring

24 emissions that are so dangerous to human health.

25 Thank you.

35

1 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you.

2 MR. GUINNUP: Mr. Levin, are you aware of any

3 other data besides the data that was cited in the

4 proposal that would help us to better quantify

5 underestimated emissions from either fugitives or any

6 of these other sources you mentioned?

7 MR. LEVIN: Yeah, and we'll be submitting

8 that in our written comments --

9 MR. GUINNUP: Okay, great.

10 MR. LEVIN: -- by the comment deadline.

11 MR. GUINNUP: Okay, thanks.

12 MR. LEVIN: Thank a lot.

13 MR. MANNCHEN: May I make a statement on

14 that?

15 The TCEQ did air quality studies in 2000 and

16 then 2005, 2006 regarding ozone. They found massive

17 amounts of VOC's that were not in the emissions

18 inventory. I highly recommend that EPA go to TCEQ and

19 get those documents to look at them. Not all were HAP

20 emissions, but it shows you the level of under

21 reporting we're getting.

22 MR. HUSTVEDT: I believe we were aware of

23 that, and that is in our record, but we'll look at it

24 again.

25 MR. MANNCHEN: Thank you.

36

1 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you.

2 Our next two speakers, Senator Gallegos and

3 Laura Blackburn.

4 MS. BLACKBURN: My name is Laura Blackburn,

5 and I am president of the League of Women Voters of the

6 Houston area. L-A-U-R-A B-L-A-C-K-B-U-R-N.

7 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you.

8 MS. BLACKBURN: Let me say first that you are

9 on Avenue P. I grew up on Avenue Q. That's not very

10 far away.

11 By saying I grew up, I left when I was 14 and

12 went into high school. A few years later, however, my

13 father who worked in this area died at age 46. Those

14 kinds of things happen in this community.

15 Let me say that with regard to the proposal,

16 I was shocked when I read about the 100,000, one in

17 100,000 rule. I can't believe that anyone would go to

18 that extent.

19 Obviously the League considers option one

20 unacceptable. Option two is unacceptable because of

21 the one in 100,000 risk.

22 Obviously, it's been spoken many times here

23 this morning that under reporting is a real problem in

24 this area. Having lived here, I can assure you that

25 that is true.

37

1 The League's primary concern is public

2 health. In that connection we absolutely insist that

3 BACT be considered, best available control technology.

4 Public health is spoken to in this proposal,

5 but it is not addressed with a very clear public health

6 intent of the Clean Air Act and that is what we submit

7 is absolutely totally the only way to go.

8 Thank you very much.

9 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you.

10 SENATOR GALLEGOS: My name is Mario Gallegos.

11 That's the way it's pronounced. And let me see here --

12 MR. HUSTVEDT: Could you spell your name

13 please for the recorder.

14 SENATOR GALLEGOS: G-A-L-L-E-G-O-S, first

15 name Mario. Do I need to spell that too? Okay.

16 Let me just say I want to thank the EPA and

17 Mr. Hustvedt for having this hearing here right in the

18 middle of senate district, which I represent almost

19 800,000 people in this district, and also Donna

20 Phillips with TCEQ, she's here. Donna, where are you

21 at? Donna is here with TCEQ representing the state.

22 Let me tell you real quick, and I have my

23 newsletter here for those of you that live in the

24 neighborhood or those of you that are concerned about

25 obviously emissions in this part of the state that has

38

1 what I did during the legislative sessions, the two

2 months that I did -- was able to make it. I did have a

3 transplant in January and was able to make the last two

4 months of the legislative session, especially one for

5 another issue but especially environmental issues in

6 the middle of my district which you are having the

7 hearing here today.

8 I would like to tell you that there was a

9 bill filed in the legislature for -- to say that this

10 bill would be able to control emissions, and now that

11 bill did nothing. It did nothing. You could get

12 better control out of Mr. Rogers' PBS channel and his

13 train going around. That's the meat and potatoes of

14 that bill, and that's the way I debated it on the

15 senate floor. It did nothing, nothing.

16 For those of you that do want to know the

17 definition of air toxins, the definition are pollutants

18 that cause cancer and other serious health affects or

19 have adverse environmental impacts.

20 With the bill that was proposed by one of my

21 colleagues, under current state law, there are no, no

22 ambient air standards for toxic pollution, none. This

23 means that there are no legal limits on the amount of

24 toxic pollutants, including carcinogens, emitted into

25 the community's air -- no rules or regulations by the

39

1 state.

2 Current state law and TCEQ permits do not

3 address the cumulative impacts of toxic pollution from

4 multiple facilities in small areas like this area here

5 that you're sitting in today. As a result, even if

6 sources follow their TCEQ permits, they can still cause

7 unhealthy air pollution.

8 And because of this in certain hotspots

9 around the state, TCEQ monitors show that the toxic

10 pollution exceeds safe levels. Many of these unsafe

11 areas are right here in Houston and right here in the

12 middle of my district.

13 I represent, born, lived and raised and

14 worked from the turning basin all the way out -- I was

15 born and raised in the turning basin of this channel,

16 and I represent the channel all the way out to the Fred

17 Hartman Bridge. It's a long way. Both sides of the

18 channel.

19 And because the state does not have laws

20 addressing toxic emissions, the City of Houston stepped

21 forward with overwhelming public support and was forced

22 to step forward to protect public health with a

23 nuisance ordinance.

24 This bill would have taken away the city's

25 ability. This bill that was filed by my colleague

40

1 would have taken away the city's authority to limit

2 unsafe levels of pollution within the city limits if

3 that pollution is caused by sources outside the city

4 limits.

5 What my -- let me tell you where I'm getting

6 this data, also for the record, for the record, that's

7 where it's from Rice, Baylor College of Medicine, Texas

8 Southern University and UT Medical Branch agree toxic

9 pollution levels in Houston are high enough to make

10 people sick.

11 The City of Houston in concert with the UT

12 School of Public Health has determined there are at

13 least 12 pollutants present in Houston air at levels

14 that pose definite health risks. And the Texas

15 Commission on Environmental Quality maintains its own

16 list of areas where toxic air pollution exceeds agency

17 health-based guidance. Eight of the 16 areas are

18 around Houston, the majority of them in my senate

19 district.

20 You know I could go on and on. I have data.

21 I have my -- for those that are here from the district

22 and those that belong to environmental groups, and then

23 I have my -- my newsletter has a brief description of

24 what happened, the debate I had, and I was prepared to

25 filibuster my colleague's bill, because it actually did

41

1 nothing to protect the environment around my district

2 or anybody else's district on emissions.

3 The TCEQ -- if you look at the commissioners,

4 not a single one lives in a environment like the City

5 of Houston. And unlike senate six, I have most of the

6 petrochemical oil and gas refineries in my district all

7 the way out to the Fred Hartman Bridge, I told you.

8 That's out in Baytown. That's a long way from here.

9 And I think if you look at some of the

10 testimony that's already addressed, that people in my

11 district have problems with lungs, have problems with

12 breathing, have cancer. I can go on and on and on and

13 on. This is the same debate I held on the senate floor

14 this last session, and to the point of almost

15 filibustering the bill. I'm not healthy, but I would

16 have filibustered until I, you know, at least fell

17 down. That's how strong I feel about this issue,

18 especially in the City of Houston.

19 There deserves to be a bill, and I will be

20 filing this same bill again, again, and for those of

21 you that are interested, I do have the names of my

22 colleagues that voted not to bring the bill up. It

23 lost by one vote. It lost by one vote. I do have my

24 colleagues' names, the ones that voted to bring it up.

25 You're welcome to that list. And I think they have

42

1 seen now of what the risk, especially carcinogens, do

2 not only to my constituents, but Texans all across this

3 state on these emissions that are coming.

4 A lot of these penalties or the emissions

5 that are coming out don't ever get reported. I found

6 out about an emission violation that was done. The

7 company reported itself. They reported it themselves,

8 but those are statistics that don't even show on this

9 data that the groups that are represented here or

10 citizens that are interest in, never show on data,

11 never show on data, because we have no rules in the

12 State of Texas.

13 You know it's basically, hey, if you want to

14 monitor this company, go right on ahead. That's the

15 rule that we have in the State of Texas, all voluntary.

16 My bill -- let me tell you what my bill would have been

17 -- it would have codified TCEQ's current practice of

18 maintaining an air pollutant watch list of areas of the

19 state where monitored toxic air pollution levels exceed

20 agency healthy-based guidance. It would have also

21 required the TCEQ to hold public meetings and to report

22 annually to the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor and

23 the Speaker of the House, regarding areas on air

24 pollution watch lists what is being done to reduce

25 pollution in those areas and any areas where more

43

1 monitoring is needed.

2 It also -- this is a big one right here, this

3 is what I really wanted is requires follow through on

4 the TCEQ's current plans to put all toxic monitoring

5 data online, online, so these people, these groups can

6 monitor it on a daily basis on the emissions around my

7 district here in the City of Houston. And those were

8 the meat and potatoes of my district, and I'm going to

9 file that bill again in November of next year, pre-file

10 it for the session in 2009.

11 So those were basically --

12 MR. HUSTVEDT: Okay, thank you.

13 SENATOR GALLEGOS: -- what I have. I mean

14 there's all kind of data -- I know you only gave me

15 five minutes, but I can give you more than that and

16 tell you the way that I feel; --

17 MR. HUSTVEDT: [cross-talk] [inaudible]

18 comments now.

19 SENATOR GALLEGOS: -- they've had enough.

20 They have had enough here in the City of Houston. I

21 mean I tried -- you know, I'll be able -- I can work

22 with my corporate partners down the channel. I can

23 work, you know, but we compromise and do this, because

24 a lot of my constituents work there. And I understand

25 that, but we have to have some kind of compromise on

44

1 monitoring these levels of emission. They are killing

2 my constituents out here, and you can see it.

3 These universities, Baylor College of

4 Medicine, these were studies done not at anybody's

5 request; their own. These were independent studies

6 done not requested by me, the City of Houston, nobody

7 at TCEQ, EPA. They were done by themselves,

8 independent. So these are two facts that I think

9 anybody to take on the Baylor College of Medicine, Your

10 Honor, especially their data.

11 But that's basically my testimony.

12 MR. GUINNUP: We look forward to the

13 additional data or studies you can provide, --

14 SENATOR GALLEGOS: And I have --

15 MR. GUINNUP: -- but that's really good for

16 us though.

17 SENATOR GALLEGOS: I do have -- like I said,

18 I do have my newsletter that has a brief report on what

19 we did on this bill, but I also have some other data

20 here that my staff has and will be available to you all

21 day that they have. And they also have the names of my

22 colleagues that voted to bring this -- to bring, my

23 colleague that introduced that bill that does nothing,

24 that does nothing to control the environment and

25 emissions from some of these companies. And I have

45

1 their names, the ones -- if you want their names, the

2 ones that voted to put this bill on the floor.

3 It passed the senate, but thanks to Hannah

4 Hernandez, who is my colleague here in the House, and

5 they were able to kill that bill in the House and then

6 keep it from coming up. Like I said, it does nothing.

7 I does nothing, and I've seen those bills before that

8 do nothing, but give you a nice back rub.

9 I've been -- you know, I don't need my back

10 rubbed anymore. And my folks are tired of it, and

11 we're going to introduce that bill again in November.

12 Thank you very much.

13 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you very much.

14 Our next two speakers are Bud Karachiwala and

15 Debbie Allen.

16 MR. KARACHIWALA: Good morning. My name is

17 Bud Karachiwala, and I'm the director of the

18 Environmental Public Health Division of the Harris

19 County Public Health and Environmental Services. I

20 would refer to the department hereinafter as HCPHES.

21 HCPHES commends the EPA for holding this

22 public hearing here in Harris County. We would also

23 like to thank the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

24 for the opportunity to submit comments regarding

25 proposed revisions to the national emission standards

46

1 for hazardous air pollutants, or NESHAP's, from

2 petroleum refineries.

3 Because of time limitations, my statement

4 here will be in the form of a summary of detailed

5 written comments which are being submitted concurrently

6 by HCPHES.

7 In it's detailed written comments, HCPHES

8 provides a background review of the origin, the

9 regulatory process and the residual risk determinations

10 of the NESHAP program. In addition, HCPHES draws

11 attention to various governmental studies that conclude

12 that in the case of the Houston/Galveston area,

13 industrial hydrocarbon emissions are significantly

14 underestimated or under reported.

15 With this rule making, the EPA is proposing

16 regulatory options for (a) storage vessels with

17 external floating roofs; (b) enhanced bio-degradation

18 unit or EBU; and (c) requiring leak protection under

19 their program for cooling towers.

20 With regard to storage vessels, the EPA is

21 proposing two options. For existing storage vessels,

22 option one requires no revisions to refinery MACT rule.

23 Option two would remove the current

24 exemption for slotted guide poles. The removal of this

25 exemption would require the owner/operator of a storage

47

1 vessel at an existing source that is equipped with an

2 external floating roof to equip each slotted guide pole

3 with a gasket of sliding.

4 HCPHES does not support option one that

5 requires no revisions to the refinery MACT rule,

6 because the methodology used by the EPA to determine an

7 ample marginal safety with an acceptable level of risk

8 of one in 10,000 fails to consider crucial information.

9 Findings from both the tax act 2000 and the

10 tax acts, two comprehensive studies, show that VOC

11 emissions inventories underestimate total actual

12 emissions by at least an order of magnitude. This is

13 clearly an example of an uncertainty arising from data

14 gaps which the EPA must address in determining an ample

15 margin of safety.

16 Given the findings from these air quality

17 studies, HCPHES believes that EPA would be ill advised

18 to consider an ample margin of safety to be an

19 acceptable of a risk of one in 10,000. We strongly

20 urge the EPA to consider an acceptable level of risk

21 far more stringent than in the one in 10,000 when

22 determining an ample margin of safety.

23 Of the two proposed options, HCPHES favors

24 option two. However, HCPHES urges the EPA in initiate

25 additional rule making to remove other current

48

1 exemptions.

2 Additionally, emissions associated with roof

3 landings must be address and roof landings for

4 convenience should be restricted.

5 The EPA is proposing two regulatory options

6 for EBU. Option one requires no revisions to the

7 refinery MACT rule. Option two for EBU proposes to

8 revise the wastewater provisions in the rule at a

9 specific performance standard and monitoring the

10 requirement for EBU.

11 HCPHES does not support option one, which

12 requires no revisions to the MACT rule for the reasons

13 stated earlier.

14 Of the proposed option is, HCPHES favors

15 option two. However, they urge the EPA to include

16 provisions for quarterly performance demonstrations

17 identical to the initial performance demonstration so

18 as to verify ongoing compliance.

19 With regard to cooling towers, EPA is

20 proposing work practice standards which would require

21 the owner or operator of a new or existing source to

22 monitor for leaks in the cooling tower return lines

23 from exchangers which are an organic HAP service, and

24 where leaks are detected to repair such leaks within a

25 specified period of time.

49

1 The two options that are being proposed defer

2 any detection methods used to identify leaks for

3 existing sources and in the frequency of monitoring for

4 new sources.

5 The first option proposed by EPA would reject

6 imposing controls beyond the MACT rule.

7 Under the second option, the EPA would select

8 a control option based on its analysis and would

9 require the owner/operator of new and existing sources

10 to conduct monthly sampling and analysis to identify

11 HAP leaks into the cooling water.

12 HCPHES does not support the first option

13 which rejects imposing controls beyond the MACT rule

14 for the reasons stated earlier. Of the two proposed

15 options, HCPHES favors option two.

16 It is our position, however, that the leak

17 definitions of 10 pounds per day or greater of any

18 single HAP or 100 pounds per day or greater of total

19 HAP is appropriate. However, we recommend that the

20 monitor frequency of once per month be increased to

21 allow the utilization of continuous monitoring systems.

22 The continuous monitoring systems must have a minimum

23 detection capability of 25 parts per billion weight.

24 The continue monitoring must be calibrated with

25 [indecipherable] or VOC. And finally the calibration

50

1 must be checked or more frequently as necessary to

2 maintain a drift of less than five percent.

3 And finally, HCPHES strongly supports

4 requiring fence line monitoring of ambient benzene

5 concentrations.

6 Additionally, we support the development of

7 ambient benzene concentration standards and the

8 development of a regulatory framework very similar to

9 the national ambient air quality standards to regulate

10 ambient benzene concentrations.

11 Furthermore, we support a phased approach to

12 expand the fence line monitoring and regulatory

13 framework so as to include in addition to benzene other

14 HAP pollutants such as 1,3-butadiene, formaldehyde,

15 xylene, styrene, vinyl chloride, ethyl-benzene and

16 toluene.

17 This phase expansion would within a

18 reasonable time frame establish fence line monitoring

19 requirements in a regulatory framework for all HAPS.

20 Thank you again for the opportunity to submit

21 comments on this rule making.

22 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you.

23 MR. KARACHIWALA: Thank you.

24 MR. HUSTVEDT: Any questions? Debbie Allen.

25 MS. ALLEN: Thank you. My name is Debbie

51

1 Allen. That's D-E-B-B-I-E A-L-L-E-N. And I'm the

2 president of the Pleasantville Environmental Coalition.

3 I'd like to thank the EPA and the City of

4 Houston for providing us the opportunity to be heard

5 today.

6 I live in an historically African-American

7 community called Pleasantville that was built in the

8 1940's for the veterans returning home from the war.

9 There are approximately 1,500 homes with about 3,000

10 residents, low income. We have an elementary school

11 located in our community, Pleasantville Elementary, and

12 we have a middle school located in the center of our

13 community, which is Holland Middle School.

14 In 1995 we had a fire that burned for seven

15 days in the Pleasantville community. To this date we

16 have not been informed as to what was in the air, what

17 did we breathe. We have asked repeatedly, repeatedly

18 for a study, some type of health study to be done to

19 let us know what types of chemicals were in the air, if

20 any, what did the people breathe. Most of the people

21 that were affected by that fire have passed away.

22 We have also schools where the kids go when

23 they leave Pleasantville and Holland, they go on to

24 attend Furr, Wheatley, Kashmere and Houston

25 Community College, Northeast Caldwell Hall Campus. And

52

1 I'm saying this to let you know that we are there. We

2 live in these communities. We breathe this air. We've

3 been begging for help if someone can tell us what did

4 we breathe in 1995 when that fire burned for seven

5 days. We've asked and asked for health studies. To

6 date, we have not received a response.

7 Many of the residents that still live there,

8 their children they have a lot of illnesses. Many of

9 our kids are sick with asthma. That's not normal. Why

10 are so many of our children suffering with asthma and

11 other upper respiratory illnesses. Again, we've asked

12 for help.

13 I've contacted the TCEQ on numerous

14 occasions. If I don't tell them, who is going to be at

15 the meeting, what's on the agenda, what's going to be

16 said, they will not come. I need your help.

17 We do not deserve to continue to live under

18 these types of conditions. Our children do not deserve

19 to grow up under these types of conditions.

20 If it were not for organizations like CLEAN,

21 GAS, CEC and the Mothers for Clean Air, a lot of

22 communities like the Pleasantville community would not

23 even be heard. We would not even have this type of

24 opportunity. So, once again, thank you.

25 When they speak of under reporting, we have

53

1 no reporting. We have had no reporting in the

2 Pleasantville community. We've begged for a monitor to

3 be put in our community.

4 In 1995 when those fires burned for seven

5 days, they put them out; it ignited again. We were

6 told "well, you have a monitor; it's on Clinton Drive."

7 Well we checked. That monitor did not even register

8 not one particulate in the seven days that that fire

9 burned.

10 We were also told "well, there's another

11 monitor near your community on Wayside." We checked.

12 That monitor did not register. What do we need to do

13 to get someone out to the Pleasantville community to

14 help us?

15 No studies have been done.

16 Air toxins: what type of air toxins did we

17 breathe? What type are we still breathing? We don't

18 know. No reporting again. We have several facilities

19 in the area. We've asked, "Can someone from the EPA,

20 TCEQ, city, Harris County, go and check to find out do

21 they have the proper permits." No response.

22 We've repeatedly asked for help, so we're

23 asking today, can you please help us and the

24 communities here?

25 I like what I heard Senator Gallegos say

54

1 about the air polluter watch list. That is very much

2 needed, and we very much support it.

3 Thank you very much.

4 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you. Are there any

5 questions? Okay, thank you very much.

6 We'll leave to take a short break now for a

7 couple of minutes while we set up a presentation for

8 the next presentation. So it will be a couple minute

9 break. Thank you.

10 (Off the record.)

11 MS. OWEN: Good morning. My name is Jane

12 Owen, spelled J-A-N-E O-W-E-N.

13 I'm the president of CLEAN, which stands for

14 Citizens League for Environmental Action Now.

15 Good morning.

16 Air quality in Houston is critically

17 important to all of us. Ranking as one of the top

18 cities in the United States for the most toxic air

19 quality means our health and quality of life are

20 threatened every day.

21 Most of Texas is in non-attainment for ozone

22 levels. In other words, the air is dangerous to human

23 health.

24 A major of the pollution that makes up ozone

25 and hazardous air pollutants is petroleum refineries.

55

1 Families living along the Houston Ship

2 Channel know this all too well. They are afraid to let

3 their children play outside.

4 Outdoor activity is healthy for most of us.

5 In this neighborhood you may be better off to stay

6 inside.

7 It is not an exaggeration to say the

8 pollution from these refineries is hazardous. Recent

9 studies show that in addition to an increased risk for

10 heart disease and respiratory illnesses, breathing

11 toxic air means a higher risk for liver and kidney

12 damage, as well as a higher risk for cancer.

13 Small children are most vulnerable. The

14 cells of their developing bodies are changing rapidly

15 and a more susceptible to the toxic affects of polluted

16 air. Children spend more time outdoors and breathe

17 more breaths per minute than adults do, and, therefore,

18 take in more toxic air. This is especially true for

19 children living near the Houston Ship Channel. Recent

20 studies show that these children have a 56 percent

21 higher risk for leukemia than children living further

22 away.

23 I was shocked to learn that the national

24 emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants allow

25 cancer rates 100 times greater for those living near

56

1 refineries than the rate for the general population.

2 These are low income minority communities. It is

3 morally indefensible to allow those who need the most

4 help to have the greatest health risks. We must give

5 these communities equal protection from hazardous

6 toxins. The EPA must change this standard and uphold

7 justice for all people when it comes to health risks

8 from petroleum refinery pollution.

9 I also call on the EPA to be more responsible

10 in monitoring petroleum refineries for maximum

11 achievable controlled technologies. To comply with

12 these standards, new emission sources must have the

13 best and newest emissions control devices.

14 Existing sources must meet an average of what

15 are considered the best 12 percent of operating

16 sources. The EPA has been lax in monitoring and

17 regulating the petroleum industry on technology

18 standards.

19 Refineries are supposed to be reviewed every

20 eight years for MACT compliance, but it has been more

21 than 12 years since the EPA has done a maximum

22 achievable controlled technologies review on petroleum

23 refineries. The EPA must do a better job of regulating

24 these major sources of hazardous air pollutants.

25 Finally, the punishment must fit the crime.

57

1 When a refinery is knowingly or neglectfully poisoning

2 the air, they need to be charged according to the

3 health risk and suffering they create. In this country

4 we are fined for not wearing our seatbelts. How much

5 is a petroleum company fined for poisoning the air we

6 breathe?

7 This is a matter of life and death for some

8 of us and especially for our children. The quality of

9 all life, of life for all Houstonians is declining

10 because of refinery pollution. As we continue to live

11 in this toxic soup, healthcare costs go out,

12 productivity and quality of life go down.

13 We expect the EPA and petroleum industry to

14 do everything they can to protect public health.

15 The Statue of Liberty in the New York harbor

16 invites those oppressed from other countries. Those

17 who are yearning to breathe free, to come to the United

18 States of America. In the shadows of the refinery of

19 the Houston Ship Channel, we demand that the EPA do its

20 job. Clean up the air and protect the people who live

21 here and who are still learning to breathe free.

22 As I see so many of you assembled here this

23 morning, I sense a change in is in the air, a change

24 for the better.

25 God bless you all. Thank you.

58

1 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you. Any questions?

2 MS. CANALES: Ready? My name is Suzie

3 Canales, and I am the director of Citizens for

4 Environment Justice.

5 I spelled my name out already on the break,

6 and I'm also representing Global Community Monitor and

7 the Refinery Reform Campaign, and I am a board of

8 director for Lois Gibbs Center for Health Environment

9 and Justice.

10 I would like to start off by telling you a

11 little bit about Corpus Christi. Corpus Christi has

12 the largest cluster of oil refineries in the United

13 States, and it's mostly people of color and low income

14 that reside along refinery row, and this dates back to

15 race zoning restrictions when the city forced the

16 people to live by the most desirable areas, the areas

17 by the refineries and the toxic dumps.

18 Corpus Christi has two refineries that make

19 the top 10 list of worst polluters for carcinogens this

20 year in the nation, Coke Refinery and Valero Refinery.

21 We have a chronic benzene problem in Corpus

22 Christi, some years ranking number one. As you could

23 see, the highest bar right there is a Corpus Christi

24 Huische monitor.

25 We have high rates of birth defects in Corpus

59

1 Christi. The last report that was issued showed that

2 Corpus Christi has 84 percent higher overall birth

3 defects than the entire State of Texas.

4 We have one refinery, Coke, who has paid the

5 largest criminal and civil fines in U.S. history.

6 Shortly after they pled guilty to conspiring to conceal

7 documents from the government, they changed their name

8 to Flint Hills is what you might know them by, but

9 they're still Coke, the parent company.

10 We have another refinery in Corpus Christi,

11 Citgo, that has just been criminally convicted for

12 violating the Clean Air Act, and, KC, you may know a

13 little bit about that. I know you were in court

14 helping the prosecution.

15 For 10 years they operated those two enormous

16 tanks that you see at the bottom illegally. They

17 knowingly did this even though there was a neighboring

18 community there, the Hillcrest community. For years

19 people in the community were calling in the TCEQ and

20 saying they were sick.

21 One woman was woken up in the middle of the

22 night, because she was sick from the fumes that entered

23 her home. Another woman called in and said to the

24 TCEQ, "I think I'm dying." She put towels on the

25 bottom of her door and on her windows to try to stop

60

1 these toxic pollution from entering her home.

2 Those smells were attributed to those two

3 tanks that Citgo operated illegally and knowingly, and

4 they did this even knowing the community was impacted,

5 they did nothing for almost 10 years.

6 A study done along refinery row in a fence

7 line community found that soil samples were elevated

8 six to 10 times above the EPA's own limits for HAP's in

9 carcinogens. Dust samples were collected in the

10 community, and they were found to be comparable,

11 actually a little higher than those of the former

12 Soviet Union.

13 So the question is how can your risk analysis

14 find that there are no unacceptable health risks after

15 everything I've laid out to you? Well, one problem is

16 that you are basing your decision on bad data. You are

17 using the data of industry themselves that submit data

18 to you, and I'll give you one example why you can't

19 trust their data.

20 Just a few weeks ago, I was along Coke

21 Refinery, they call themselves Flint Hills now, and I

22 detected some odors that were of concern. They sent

23 out a man with a meter who told me that there were no

24 gases detected, nothing was of concern. In your words,

25 no unacceptable health risks.

61

1 Go onto the next slide.

2 I'd like to show you just how close that

3 refinery is to the community. How would you like to

4 have that view coming out of your living room window,

5 and then you call the plant and tell them that it

6 smells bad, (and then go on) and they come out with a

7 monitor that's not capable of telling you the truth?

8 I found out that that monitor is used for

9 occupational use. It reads in the parts per million.

10 As you know, that that is way too high for residential

11 concerns. That's how Coke creates the illusion that

12 everything is okay, just how your analysis creates the

13 illusion that everything is okay, because you exclude

14 toxic amounts of pollution from startups, shutdowns and

15 malfunctions. And by the way, this is illegal.

16 (Go on.)

17 You ignored tremendous amounts of pollution

18 that are emitted during upsets. Please keep in mind

19 that there is a community right here, the Hillcrest

20 community. How would you like to live right there in

21 that fence line community and have that monstrous toxic

22 cloud dump on your community and have EPA say "there

23 are no unacceptable health risks?"

24 You are ignoring multiple impacts from

25 refineries. We have six oil refineries all stacked up

62

1 against each other along refinery row and numerous

2 chemical plants, and it's mostly low income people of

3 color that are still stuck there from race zoning

4 restrictions in the past.

5 (Go on.)

6 You are dismissing the fact that people do

7 have to live this close to industry. How would you

8 like that cooking in your backyard and having those

9 humongous enormous tanks in your backyard?

10 You're ignoring your own documentation, EPA's

11 document on benzene that says there is no one threshold

12 level that can be applied across a whole population.

13 The same document says that children are at greater

14 risk for benzene exposure, and you're ignoring that.

15 Your residual rule enables environmental

16 racism to continue. Your analysis is a sham because

17 it's incomplete. It does not include all the emissions

18 from within a refinery.

19 You can't hardly see the unit here, but

20 that's the Citgo coker unit. Twice a day they emit

21 tremendous amounts of pollution, uncontrolled and into

22 the environment. There are no controls for this, and

23 it's toxic. We've had readings where we have toluene,

24 benzene and so forth. This happens twice a day, and

25 that's not included in your analysis. Therefore, your

63

1 analysis is incomplete.

2 (Next one.)

3 So it's no wonder that people are sick that

4 live on the fence line.

5 (Go on.)

6 People need air tanks to breathe, wheelchairs

7 to get around. This woman here, this beautiful,

8 beautiful woman is suffering from a rare blood disease

9 and tightening of the skin.

10 (Go on.)

11 By the way, she lived on the fence line

12 community. She grew up there.

13 These two gentlemen need air tanks to

14 breathe. The lady standing there is going through

15 chemotherapy now for cancer.

16 These people do count. It is not

17 unacceptable. These people need to be included; they

18 need to be counted. They are real people. Just

19 because they are people of color and low income, they

20 deserve to be included in your analysis as counting.

21 You have no right to exclude these people,

22 these EJ communities. You must protect human health.

23 The EPA should redo the analysis, adopt our option

24 three, include emissions from SSM's, consider special

25 impacts on children and the elderly, require fence line

64

1 monitoring and make it available for everyone to

2 access, require additional refinery pollution controls,

3 include all sources of toxic pollution within a

4 refinery, consider multiple refineries in a community

5 and validate emission data, don't just trust a

6 refiner's numbers for it.

7 Thank you. Questions?

8 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you.

9 Next we have Thomas McKittrick and Rosalia

10 Guerrero.

11 MR. McKITTRICK: Good morning. My name is

12 Thomas McKittrick, spelled M-C-K-I-T-T-R-I-C-K.

13 I am the treasurer of a local organization,

14 Mothers for Clean Air. There is no organization for

15 grandfather's for clean air, so I choose to help this

16 organization as it advocates for the health of children

17 in the greater Houston area.

18 I have two grandsons, Max, age six, and Reed,

19 age four. They do not live in the vicinity of the

20 industries along the Houston Ship Channel, but they

21 both have respiratory problems, as do I.

22 As you probably know, Houston Mayor Bill

23 White has been seeking action by these industries to

24 curb the release of airborne pollutants, even though

25 the industries lie outside the city.

65

1 Polluters such as benzene are airborne

2 meaning they go where the breeze takes them, including

3 the places where Max and Reed will be playing soccer,

4 football and tennis as they grow to be teenagers.

5 I'm an architect and professor of

6 architecture, not a chemical engineer or environmental

7 engineer. I do not understand the science related to

8 oil refineries or petrochemical plants. Still, it is

9 dismaying to me that during this time of unprecedented

10 high oil prices and soaring profits these polluting

11 industries are not being required to comply with the

12 laws that the EPA promulgates.

13 The Clean Air Act should be enforced and not

14 in 10 years or 18 years. It should be enforced now.

15 EPA's policy of considering a risk of one cancer per

16 million persons who live some distance from a

17 petrochemical plant or refinery acceptable compared to

18 100 cancers per million people who live near such a

19 facility. That's skewed logic.

20 People who live near refineries deserve the

21 same public health protection as those who live further

22 away, yet those same people benefit from using the

23 products of those facilities such as gasoline to fuel

24 their vehicles.

25 Therefore, I believe that the current NESHAP

66

1 rules are not adequate to protect the health of people

2 living near polluting industries. EPA, whom you

3 represent, please revise the rules so that the health

4 of sensitive populations is protected. Level the

5 playing field.

6 MR. GUINNUP: Thank you.

7 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you. Ms. Guerrero?

8 MS. GUERRERO: Yes, okay. My name is Rosalia

9 Guerrero-Luera. That is R-O-S-A-L-I-A G-U-E-R-R-E-R-O

10 -- L-U-E-R-A.

11 I'm the outreach coordinator for Mothers for

12 Clean Air, and I work in this area. Besides that I

13 grew up, born and raised, on a fence line in Texas

14 City, which is about 45 minutes from here. I survived

15 two major explosions and countless industrial spills.

16 You can say I was poster child for the Clean Air Act.

17 I'm just sorry to say that we all didn't make it.

18 Now I live and work around a city that is

19 nicknamed "the Petro-Metro." And knowing what I know

20 now, why didn't I move away from the fence line, well

21 although Montana looks like heaven and I hear there's

22 great skiing in Colorado, the Texas Gulf Coast is my

23 home. It's always been my home. My family, my

24 friends, everything I know or want is here. I just

25 couldn't move away.

67

1 When I walk through Manchester though and

2 other neighborhoods around the ship channel, I must

3 admit I get a little nostalgic. It reminds me of home.

4 The sights, you know, you see the chatty neighbors

5 calling from open windows, watching over the kids as

6 they catch little tadpoles in the open ditches, because

7 we don't have sidewalks here. The smell, of course,

8 reminds me of home, even that constant noise. That's

9 why they say I talk so loud, because I always had to

10 speak over it, because we lived a block away from the

11 fence line.

12 All those remind me of days past, but I look

13 closer and things have changed. Now you go into the

14 street, and you can drive down in a car that goes --

15 gets 40 miles to the gallon even though gas costs four

16 times as much as when I got my driver's license.

17 You know, children now giggle and gossip but

18 over cell phones and chat online, but they're still

19 kids.

20 The only thing that hasn't seemed to change

21 is the plants. It's the same smell, the same sounds,

22 the same lights. Maybe the industrial reporting

23 process has changed, the numbers have changed, but the

24 sights, the noise and the smells the plants produce and

25 the harm they cause have not.

68

1 I remember this when I tried to explain to my

2 mother what lymphoma means. That was the day my sister

3 was diagnosed with cancer. She may be an acceptable

4 health to you, but she was more than that to us.

5 What struck me the most about that experience

6 is how my mom cried, not like this, you know, with that

7 shaky cry. That when my son was born, my only son, the

8 way she cried or the way she was like, you know, the

9 tears with the silently being when her own mother

10 passed away. It was a weird like guttural moaning I

11 still here today.

12 There some mother here in this neighborhood

13 who is crying just like that. Her pain is just way too

14 profound to even come to speak to you today. She's

15 saving all her energy to hold onto her child and pray,

16 which is the only power left to her or her other

17 children in her home are left orphaned to her grief.

18 As a part of my work in this community, I

19 also have had the pleasure to meet with industrial

20 representatives. They're fathers, brothers, sisters,

21 people I grew up with. They're just planning by the

22 rules, rules you set. And one thing I do have learned

23 and I know for sure that they are capable

24 professionals. They're smart people. They're very

25 committed to their work.

69

1 And if you put the strictest standard which I

2 believe right now is option three, and if there's a

3 four and a five and a six, please consider those too.

4 I know that industry will rise to the challenge to meet

5 any standard that you put forth as long as it's applied

6 across the board.

7 Thank you ver much.

8 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you.

9 Next we have Mario Benavides and Doug Smith.

10 MR. BENAVIDES: My name is Mario Benavides.

11 It's spelled M-A-R-I-O; Benavides is B-E-N-A-V-I-D-E-S.

12 I've been a long-time resident. I was born

13 and raised in this neighborhood. I live right here in

14 Magnolia Park.

15 And the growth that I've seen in my own

16 neighborhood is nothing compared to what these

17 industrial plants around here have grown. I mean in my

18 neighborhood I've maybe seen five percent. In these

19 industrial plants that I've seen around here have grown

20 at least 50 to 80 percent, just growth where they're

21 making more money --

22 MR. HUSTVEDT: Can you speak into the

23 microphone please?

24 MR. BENAVIDES: And the sad part is that that

25 money is not being distributed in this neighborhood.

70

1 It's going everywhere else but here. And we have poor

2 residents around here that have been forgotten for

3 almost 40 years. And here and now where they've

4 received this little bit of growth is coming, but still

5 why? How come so slow? Everywhere else has grown but

6 here. And the reason I think it is is because of these

7 plants that are around here, the air pollution that

8 they put in. The air pollution that they're putting

9 out for us to breathe is not quality.

10 I mean even if you have animals, children or

11 whatever you have, they don't have to be breathing this

12 air like it is. I mean right now the wind's blowing

13 from the north. So that stack you see out there, it's

14 blowing out that way. When it rains, that stacks

15 blowing 10 times what it's blowing right now.

16 And in this area, nobody is going to say

17 anything, because nobody has a voice. This area

18 doesn't have a big voice like it used to have so it'll

19 be known that these plants are the ones that are

20 contributing to all the problems that we're having in

21 our neighborhoods with the children being sick.

22 I mean half of the kids in our neighborhood -

23 - respiratory problems. A lot of the elderly, when

24 their age comes up to retire, what kind of retirement

25 is that to be breathing this air to where in 10 years,

71

1 you're going to die.

2 I mean I'm at the age of 47. Will I see 50?

3 I mean I'm starting to wonder. From all the things

4 I've heard in this session today, made me wonder what

5 my children are going to be like. What kind of life

6 are they going to have? You know what I'm saying? And

7 they've lived just as long as I have. They were born

8 and raised here, and I'm like, come on, it's

9 astonishing to hear the things that we're hearing

10 today, but nothing is being done and it's going to be

11 continuing to stay the same way that it's been.

12 I mean the sad part is we're all going to die

13 some day, but come on, we all have a promise of a

14 quality of life.

15 Thank you.

16 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you. Mr. Smith?

17 MR. SMITH: Hello. My name is Douglas Smith,

18 and I work as a principal environmental health

19 scientist for Enser [phonetic] Corporation, an

20 environmental consulting firm.

21 And my appearance here today is sponsored by

22 the American Petroleum Institute and the National

23 Petrochemical Refiners Association. And separately

24 those groups have submitted on behalf of their members

25 constructive written comments concerning EPA's proposed

72

1 refinery rule. However, they've encouraged me to come

2 here and express my own personal views regarding some

3 of the risk issues before us today.

4 And as an environmental scientist involved in

5 performing air pollution modeling and risk analyses

6 over the last 30 years for a wide variety of industrial

7 and civil and governmental projects all over the

8 country, and as an alumnus of the Harvard School of

9 Public Health, I thought I might be able to offer a few

10 observational comments that I hope will contribute to

11 the meeting's important goals.

12 Risk assessments like the one conducted by

13 EPA to inform its rule making are important tools

14 helping us to understand in an organized way what the

15 risk issues are, where they come from and which ones we

16 can meaningfully control.

17 (The first slide please.)

18 For example, you may have already seen this

19 slide. The information illustrated in EPA's national

20 air toxic assessment report. It's obvious from this

21 slide that the on-road automotive sources are the

22 number one contributor at 24 percent. They're closely

23 followed by smaller industrial businesses like auto

24 repair shops, dry cleaners, et cetera. To a much

25 lesser standpoint, major sources like refineries and

73

1 other large industries. And that's the big picture.

2 Time doesn't allow me to go into any great

3 detail about these sources or recent progress made in

4 Houston, but the next slide taken the EPA's office of

5 inspector general report that was just published this

6 October indicates that there was been a tremendous

7 reduction in refinery emissions across the country.

8 And although it's not exactly the same in the Houston

9 area, this is the trend that we've seen, and it's, you

10 know, much better than the 59 percent EPA original

11 forecast when they set up their control strategy back

12 in the late 80's and early 90's.

13 During the same period, parallel improvements

14 from all sources and including those in the Houston

15 area have resulted in more than an 80 percent reduction

16 in air concentrations measured for benzene in the

17 Houston area, one of the constituents of greatest

18 concern as go forward with this rule making.

19 However, Houston air quality measurements

20 indicate to me that all sources, especially automotive

21 and diesel will still need further improvement. Major

22 sources can't do it alone.

23 My main focus today though is the management

24 process, the risk analysis in which -- risk analysis

25 can be a useful tool when properly applied. But just

74

1 establishing a single popular target number like one in

2 a million for an adverse affect as a threshold for

3 acceptable doesn't really work. The fuller context of

4 the risk must be considered.

5 As you've heard from some of the testimony

6 this morning, both the technical information and the

7 opinions of all the key parties involved, particularly

8 those likely to be most affected. Clearly that's why

9 EPA organized today's meeting.

10 The next slide is one that was developed by

11 EPA, but I'm not putting it up here to judge risk

12 acceptability, only to show the range of risks that are

13 under discussion and how they fit in with all the other

14 risks that we have to deal with every day.

15 One can draw their own conclusions about how

16 safe is safe enough, but the -- you know, when we look

17 at these risks, there are many things on the left side

18 of the diagram here that we don't have much control

19 over. We have some control with seatbelts over

20 accidents in cars and the consequences of those

21 accidents, but we tend to be reluctant to accept risks

22 if either they're not familiar or they're not our

23 doing, they're not under our control.

24 Knowledge and understanding of the fuller

25 context of these issues is most important to making

75

1 informed judgments about any risk, whether voluntary or

2 involuntary.

3 The same slide on the right shows a portion

4 of the risk curves that relates to EPA's current

5 discussions about air toxics and their calculated

6 risks. As you see, the range is being estimated for

7 the refining industry generally overlap this scale with

8 a section labeled "Ample Margin of Safety" or AMOS, the

9 regulatory language meant to convey EPA's goal and

10 follow up and control.

11 Those state and national agencies, TCEQ, EPA,

12 FDA, who are entrusted with making decisions to protect

13 public health, have attempted to set up a series of

14 workable guidelines progressing toward lower and lower

15 risk, recognizing there's no single one-size-fits-all

16 to acceptable risk.

17 The one in a million value we hear so often

18 was originally picked back in the 60's by the FDA as

19 something that they could apply to medicine or

20 pesticides, so low that it would be totally

21 insignificant and required no more attention or control

22 ever. That has been picked up as a favored phrase, but

23 most risk managers of health and environmental agencies

24 across the U.S., every state, tend to assign the same

25 insignificant level to 10 in a million, well in 100,000

76

1 on this graph when they're comparing environment risks

2 to each other or to types of cancer-related risks,

3 which aware off the left hand of the chart.

4 However, most states, the federal control

5 efforts and the state control efforts don't really get

6 very serious until the risks get up to the one in

7 10,000 level. Above that, virtually every agency

8 agrees that it's time to make sure that you have all

9 those risks under control.

10 So one could argue that one in 10,000 might

11 be the universal level that is applied as an

12 unacceptable boundary for most regulations in the

13 United States at a controlled risk.

14 How can we further improve this process?

15 Well like many others observe the EPA and state

16 environmentals every day of my life, I sometimes

17 criticize particular aspects of their risk assessment

18 process. But in this particular rule making, EPA has

19 been showing improvements in its awareness of several

20 key principles. And then that last slide summarized in

21 this slide as my conclusions for this meeting, the EPA

22 is now recognizing that this decision process has to be

23 objective. It has to be transparent and has to be

24 consistent.

25 Risk reduction measures have to be -- must be

77

1 effective and efficient to be of greatest long-term

2 benefit to the public. And using our scant resources

3 on negligible risks can be counterproductive. I'm not

4 saying that the risks you're pointing to are

5 negligible. I'm just saying we have to be careful to

6 make sure we know the difference between which ones are

7 negligible and which ones are important and need to be

8 addressed.

9 On the other hand a few areas do need

10 improvement, and we've been hearing some comments on

11 that. Improved accuracy of emissions data and source

12 information. That should indeed result in better risk

13 estimates as we go forward. Avoiding use of generic

14 assumptions used for screening models when a detailed

15 site specific assessment that would look at individual

16 areas with more precision might be in order.

17 And consistent polices for risk control must

18 be established for all types of sources in all areas in

19 order to apply an ample margin of safety for all of us.

20 The final conclusion is that EPA must

21 finalize a rule that appropriately considers risk and

22 when necessary, provides efficient and effective risk

23 reduction measures that lead to more permanent

24 solutions.

25 I'm convinced the EPA has the capacity to

78

1 accept constructive criticism as they're demonstrating

2 today and hope that many of the comments made here will

3 be considered with that intent.

4 Thank you.

5 MR. GUINNUP: Thank you.

6 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you. I have an

7 announcement please. A car in the parking lot with the

8 license plate, I assume Texas, 797RHV, could you

9 please go out if that's your car out to the

10 registration desk please.

11 MR. GUINNUP: We're having to move some cars

12 around to accommodate the parking for everyone, so

13 that's why this person's being asked to go to the desk.

14 MR. HUSTVEDT: Our next two speakers, first

15 Dora Olivo; the next Neil Carman, if you could please

16 come up.

17 MS. OLIVO: Good morning. My name is Dora

18 Olivo, and I'm the -- represent district 27. That's

19 part of Fort Bend County, and --

20 MR. HUSTVEDT: Could you please spell your

21 name for the recorder?

22 MS. OLIVO: Sure. Dora, D-O-R-A; Olivo is O-

23 L-I-V like in Victor-O.

24 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you.

25 MS. OLIVO: It's really good that you're here

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1 this morning listening to all this testimony.

2 Unfortunately, I understand this is the only hearing of

3 this kind in the country. We probably need to do

4 better than that. I mean there's no way people can fly

5 down or whatever. You know what I'm saying? And these

6 issue are so serious, so I'm hoping that maybe you'll

7 find a way to have some of these hearings in other

8 areas too.

9 I want to say first of all that I live in

10 Fort Bend County, but air doesn't stay in Houston. It

11 goes all over the place, but it goes from here.

12 Houston is home to the largest refinery

13 complex in the entire country. This is not just in

14 Texas -- in the entire country.

15 But every breath is filled with a host of

16 chemicals that are known to be hazardous to our health.

17 Furthermore, our region has struggled with meeting

18 clean air deadlines since the Clean Air Act was passed

19 nearly four decades ago.

20 And let me tell you about your agency.

21 You're so darn critical to this process as a federal

22 agency. I've been a state legislator for about 11

23 years now. We can't get the votes to pass decent

24 legislation regarding the environment in Texas. We

25 can't do it. This last session even just for

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1 landfills, which are pretty serious in themselves, we

2 got 56 votes on an amendment, on an amendment to try to

3 have better review of landfill legislation where

4 landfills are authorized. Some of these landfills are

5 there for 100 years -- no review process.

6 So then if you pass federal legislation, we

7 can pass legislation superceding that. You know that.

8 But we can't even do the minimum in Texas. That's how

9 serious it is with Texas having the serious problem

10 with the largest refinery in the country.

11 You all need to do something better. And let

12 me tell you, I was reviewing the fact sheet here on

13 information and what ya'll are proposing. I'm real

14 concerned about this. Ya'll analyzed emission -- and

15 I'm saying "you," you know what I'm talking about,

16 your agency analyzed emission sources of petroleum

17 refineries after the implementation of the 1995 air

18 toxic standards and determined that the risk to human

19 health and environment are low enough that no further

20 controls were warranted to protect human health.

21 With the testimony I just heard a while ago

22 that what is being used to make these determinations;

23 what instruments are being -- are you using the best

24 instruments to make these decisions. Who is this

25 agency really listening to?

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1 It is my understanding growing up in this

2 wonderful country that government should always exist

3 to protect the people and not somebody's pocket.

4 That's what's happening.

5 Another thing that it says here is that

6 because the risks are acceptable, the EPA is proposing

7 this one option to retain the current level of the

8 standard by not including any new requirements for

9 these emissions sources. That's not right.

10 I think this agency really -- you know, one

11 of the things that I've learned being in government,

12 state agencies and federal agencies are so important to

13 the process. We pass the legislation, but you all put

14 those rules together. And when you put in those rules,

15 those rules are impacting somebody's life. And in this

16 country one person is important -- in this country.

17 That's what we're the great country that we are. When

18 we lose that, and we're losing it when we're making

19 this kind of regulations and not really enforcing it in

20 what we have to do. Then we are not being the country

21 that we said we are and that we should be.

22 You have such a big job on your hands. You

23 work for a very important agency. And I'm just telling

24 you, yeah, the little people can't be here, the ones

25 that live around the refineries. The ones that own the

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1 refineries, they can afford to be way away, far away,

2 but not the people that live close to them.

3 And even those of us that live Fort Bend and

4 other areas, the air travels. It doesn't stay. So I'm

5 just asking that please, please look very carefully at

6 your regulations and the work that you do to really

7 protect the people of this state and of this country.

8 Thank you.

9 MR. GUINNUP: Thank you.

10 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you. Mr. Carman?

11 MR. CARMAN: My name is Neil Carman, N-E-I-L

12 C-A-R-M-A-N. I'm the clear air program director for

13 the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, and I also

14 worked for the State of Texas for over a decade

15 inspecting refineries, chemical plants and other

16 industrial sources.

17 I worked going to those refineries and some

18 of them, some of the inspections were based on

19 complaints from people living in the area, and, you

20 know, when I went into the refineries, just like as we

21 sit in the room today, I can smell what in my opinion

22 is probably sulfur dioxide from the refinery next door,

23 and there's probably some other pollutants, but, you

24 know, having worked in a chemical laboratory for many

25 years and around organic chemicals such as benzene, I

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1 knew what it smelled like.

2 So when I went into the refineries in the

3 benzene process areas, I knew what it smelled like,

4 and, you know, when the fugitive leak detection

5 monitoring devices were registering 5,000 or 10,000

6 parts per million of benzene, you know, I could smell

7 it in the air.

8 I'm very concerned that what EPA's proposed

9 here is completely inadequate. And basically if EPA

10 and the State of Texas had been doing their job for the

11 last 27 years that I've been involved with refinery

12 issues, I don't think we should be sitting here today.

13 But the fact is that the EPA and the state have greatly

14 failed almost every refinery community in Texas that I

15 visited, those in Louisiana and many around the

16 country.

17 Why has this happened? The problem is that

18 we have first of all a very flawed permitting process

19 for refineries. The process is basically a piecemeal

20 review process in which a company submits their

21 emissions inventory information, including benzene and

22 other hazardous air pollutants. And then the way the

23 agency review it, as I've, you know, tried to show this

24 to citizens in Port Arthur, Corpus Christi, here in

25 Houston, is that it's a very piecemeal fraudulent

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1 process in which they take, you know, one unit or a few

2 units in the refinery, and they look at the total

3 benzene emissions that are calculated for this process

4 units, and they ignore in their evaluation the air

5 dispersion modeling and the health affects review the

6 plant-wide, the site-wide benzene impacts.

7 And about 10 years ago, I was in a meeting

8 here in Houston where one regulatory agency said that a

9 major refinery should be conducting a plant-wide

10 benzene impacts review, but another of the state

11 environmental agency which I had worked for sided with

12 the company and said, "No, we don't want to know how

13 bad the benzene is, so we're not going to require them

14 to do a plant-wide air dispersion modeling analysis for

15 all of the benzene." And that's not all the benzene in

16 the area, because there's other chemical plants and

17 refineries. You've got a whole cluster.

18 And so basically the bottom here with this is

19 that we have a fraudulent regulatory permitting system

20 that doesn't want to look at the total benzene picture.

21 That it uses a piecemeal process and, therefore, what

22 this does is it allows weaker control technologies for

23 benzene in the refineries. It allows more benzene

24 across the fence line, and the communities suffer, even

25 though maybe many people don't know when they're

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1 smelling benzene, because the levels aren't what people

2 would be familiar with. Nonetheless, it's in the air.

3 And the monitoring also, even though here in

4 Houston, I know some of the refineries and industrial

5 plants participate in the Houston regional monitoring

6 network, that data has never, never been made public

7 even though industry says that the benzene levels they

8 see are acceptable.

9 One experience that I had a few years ago is

10 that one company was refilling a benzene storage tank,

11 and actually there was over a huge amount benzene and

12 several thousand pounds of benzene with the refilling

13 of this tank, and it's really unacceptable that here in

14 the Houston Ship Channel there's huge numbers of

15 storage tanks that are -- some of them are not as well

16 controlled as they could be, and, therefore, you have

17 benzene and other hazardous air pollutants, not to

18 mention from other kinds of sources.

19 So anyway EPA needs to do a much better job

20 with this proposed rule. You need to take a look at

21 option three. Consider things like flare gas recovery

22 systems. There's already a few refineries in Texas

23 that are installing flare gas recovery systems. One

24 refinery in fact a few years ago during Hurricane

25 Katrina and Rita, it did a stage shutdown over two to

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1 three days so that it had zero emissions from the

2 shutdown process, while the neighboring refineries were

3 having, you know, releases from the way they shutdown.

4 So EPA needs to go back and propose a rule

5 that protects public health and not the refineries,

6 because they're making plenty of money and they need to

7 invest it in a lot more pollution control for hazardous

8 air pollutants.

9 Thank you.

10 MR. GUINNUP: Thank you.

11 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you.

12 Our next two speakers are Jose Chavez and

13 Jeff Holmstead.

14 (The following testimony of Jose Chavez was given

15 through the translator, Larry Stelly.)

16 MR. CHAVEZ: Hello. My name is Jose Chavez.

17 I have come to give my testimony concerning

18 the preoccupation that we have concerning the air in

19 this locality.

20 I've lived in this area for more than 25

21 years. Here's where my four children were born and

22 raised.

23 I always thought that something was being

24 done about the contamination that exists here. I

25 think, however, it's not been sufficient, because I

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1 personally have been especially affected.

2 This past June I was diagnosed with throat

3 cancer. My problem is concentrated particularly in the

4 tonsils. Since my tonsils were removed, I'm more -- I

5 can more acutely feel the contamination that exists in

6 this area.

7 I would that there be more effective

8 monitoring of the air quality here and that more be

9 done in order to protect, because we're going to be in

10 this area for who knows how much longer.

11 And that's all I have. Thank you.

12 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you.

13 MR. HOLMSTEAD: Good morning. My name is

14 Jeff Holmstead, J-E-F-F H-O-L-M-S-T-E-A-D.

15 I'm currently a partner in the law firm of

16 Bracewell and Giuliani, and the head of the firm's

17 environmental strategies group. But from 2001 to 2005,

18 I was in charge of the office of air and radiation at

19 EPA, the office that is responsible for implementing

20 the Clean Air Act. In fact I'm very proud to say I was

21 the head of that office longer than anyone else in EPA

22 history.

23 The petroleum -- I'm sorry -- the American

24 Petroleum Institute and the National Petrochemical and

25 Refiners Association invited me here today to explain

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1 how EPA historically have used the health risk

2 associated with air toxics, and in particular how the

3 agency is required to deal with those risks under the

4 Clean Air Act.

5 I will say that I get many invitations to

6 speak at hearings and other events, and I can't accept

7 them all, but I wanted to come here this morning,

8 because there does seem to be a lot of misunderstanding

9 about these issues.

10 As someone who has dealt with air toxics

11 issues for many years, I hope that I can perhaps help

12 at least some of the people here better understand the

13 risks of air toxics and how they are regulated under

14 the Clean Air Act.

15 As well know, most of the discussion about

16 air toxics deals with cancer risk. And cancer is

17 obviously a very emotional issues, especially for

18 anyone like Jose who has suffered from cancer or has

19 seen the suffering of a friend or a loved one.

20 Because the thought of getting cancer is such

21 a scary thing, it's often hard to talk about cancer

22 risks in a rational way, but that's what EPA and other

23 regulatory agencies have to try to do every day.

24 Here is something that was explained to me by

25 EPA risk experts when I was at the agency that may be

89

1 helpful. The average American faces a cancer risk of

2 about one in three, roughly a 33 percent chance that he

3 or she will get cancer during the course of his or her

4 lifetime.

5 When someone is exposed to high levels of

6 certain hazardous substances, that person's risk of

7 getting cancer may be increased. By law, EPA is

8 required to evaluate this excess cancer risk from air

9 toxics and where necessary and appropriate to develop

10 regulations to reduce this risk to an acceptable level.

11 I have heard I think even today some

12 activist's claim that under the Clean Air Act any risk

13 higher than one in a million is unacceptable, and that

14 EPA is required to reduce excess cancer risks to this

15 level. This, as I think you know, is simply not true.

16 It's not the way the law works, and honestly, it would

17 be pretty silly if that is the way the law worked.

18 Consider it this way. Remember that the

19 average American faces a cancer risk of about 33

20 percent. Activists who argue for a one in a million

21 standard are saying in effect that if anyone faces an

22 additional risk of 0.0001 percent because of an air

23 pollutant, then that risk is unacceptable and must be

24 eliminated no matter what the cost.

25 Perhaps I could put this issue into a

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1 perspective that may be easier for some people to

2 understand. We know in this country how many people

3 are struck by lightning every year. Thankfully, not

4 all of these people die as a result, which seems kind

5 of amazing, but about a fourth of those struck by

6 lightning do.

7 For the average American the lifetime risk of

8 not only being struck by lightning but being struck and

9 killed by lightning is about 27 in a million, 27 times

10 greater than the risk standard sought by many

11 environmental activists.

12 When Congress passed the Clean Air Act

13 amendments in 1990, it did not adopt a one in a million

14 standard. Rather EPA is required to use a much more

15 sophisticated and sensible approach for dealing with

16 air toxics. In fact, Congress explicitly codified a

17 detailed two-step regulatory approach that EPA had

18 developed and published in a 1989 Federal Register

19 notice.

20 In the first step of this approach, the

21 agency sets an acceptable risk level considering just

22 the health information, but all the relevant health

23 information. For a substance like benzene, which is

24 believed to be a linear carcinogen, a lifetime risk of

25 approximately one in 10,000 or 100 in a million to a

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1 person living near a plant is generally considered to

2 be the line between acceptable and unacceptable. If

3 the risk is appreciably higher than one in 10,000 or

4 100 in a million, then EPA is required to issues

5 regulations to reduce it to an acceptable level.

6 Under the second step, even if the risk is

7 already acceptable, the agency must consider many other

8 factors in order to set an emission standard that

9 provides an ample margin of safety to protect public

10 health. Among other things, EPA considers how many

11 people might face risk levels higher than this -- I'm

12 sorry -- higher than one in a million, as well as other

13 relevant factors including costs, economic impacts and

14 technological feasibility.

15 Thus, one in a million is not the standard

16 for acceptable risk, but the level at which risk is

17 viewed as trivial and not even worth considering.

18 Again, given that the average American has a 33 percent

19 lifetime risk of getting cancer, it is not surprising

20 that Congress and EPA consider a risk of 0.0001 percent

21 to be trivial.

22 As you have already heard this morning,

23 emissions from refineries and other facilities in the

24 ship channel have been substantially reduced over the

25 last decade. These reductions have resulted from the

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1 combined efforts of EPA, the Texas environmental

2 regulators and local industry. And because of recent

3 actions taken by EPA, air quality throughout Houston

4 will continue to improve over the next decade.

5 I've not taken the time to understand all of

6 the detailed requirements that are still under

7 discussion as part of this rule making, but I can say

8 that the overall approach that EPA has used to evaluate

9 and regulate the risk posed by emissions of air toxics

10 from petroleum refineries is the approach required

11 under the Clean Air Act. And mostly importantly, it

12 will insure that these emissions do not pose an

13 appreciable risk to the people of Houston, even to

14 those living closest to these refineries.

15 Thank you very much.

16 MR. GUINNUP: Thank you.

17 SENATOR GALLEGOS: Mr. Chairman, as a point

18 of information, the gentleman that just spoke in

19 Spanish, for his and others that only understand

20 Spanish and for the other, my other constituents, I

21 think should be alerted all the testimony that you

22 heard by consultants that are paid to come here and

23 give data, just what they gave, then those consultants

24 are paid for what I would like my constituents that

25 just testified in Spanish to understand that that

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1 gentleman who just testified and the one prior, that

2 these people are paid to give that data, to give that

3 data they just introduced. I think they deserve that

4 right to understand those, especially my constituents

5 that live here and only speak Spanish and that

6 gentleman that just testified is a paid consultant and

7 he's paid to give the testimony that he just gave.

8 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you. The next two

9 speakers are Juan Parras and Julie Pippert.

10 MR. PARRAS: Good morning. My name is Juan

11 Parras. Juan is spelled J-U-A-N, Parras, P-A-R-R-A-S.

12 And I'm here to represent two groups that I

13 work very closely with, and one is Citizen's League for

14 Environmental Action, and the other is TEJAS, Texas

15 Environmental Justice Advocacy Services.

16 And to get to what I comment is that I kept a

17 while ago one in a million, and I thought they were

18 talking about me. By anyway, those statistics, you

19 know, just kind of impressive anyway.

20 But anyway, again, what I'd like to talk

21 about is that, of course, we're against the rules that

22 are being proposed right now. And while it may not be

23 so obvious to people that actually come up with those

24 rules and try to enforce them in regulations, if you

25 live in a fence line communities, it's very obvious

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1 that we need stricter standards, stricter rules to

2 apply to communities of color and in environmental

3 justice communities.

4 The other thing that really was briefly

5 touched on earlier is the cumulative impact of just

6 various amounts of, you know, pollutants in the air.

7 When we talk about a particular chemical, then it

8 becomes more technical and more medical scientists need

9 to evaluate, you know, how bad is this going toward

10 health adverse affects. So I think we also need to

11 consider the cumulative impact of pollution, and there

12 is a good model that NEJAC, the National Environmental

13 Justice Advisory Committee, came up with. I think that

14 needs to be looked at.

15 The other obvious fact that has been pointed

16 here, and I keep hearing it from all the elected

17 officials, and I'm glad I'm hearing that is that when

18 the state, the EPA delegated authority to the state,

19 then it probably should rescind that at least in our

20 state, because nothing that the politicians are

21 honestly trying to achieve to clean up the air is

22 getting any headway, and I think we need to reconsider,

23 should the state have that authority that was delegated

24 to them, because delegation to them means "will you

25 volunteer to clean up the air." That what it means

95

1 here, and I think we need to change that attitude.

2 And I appreciate Senator Gallegos and all the

3 other elected officials. They have told you it needs

4 to be delegated with enforcement with the authority to

5 actually bring about change.

6 The quality of life, we have heard the things

7 that said quality of life. We all want our kids to

8 grow up to prosper in this American dream, but how can

9 they prosper if in this community -- I can take you

10 down the street, two blocks from here where there is a

11 young kid. His name is Vincente, Vincente Maroquin.

12 He had leukemia at the age of six. People made fun of

13 him. I mean his peers made fun of him, because he

14 started losing his hair. I mean this is no joke, but

15 the young kids who don't know and especially those that

16 have leukemia, it is a traumatic experience for them

17 and their families.

18 We have -- there was a recent study that

19 indicated that if you live within the Houston Ship

20 Channel two mile radius, the rate of increase -- the

21 risk of increase, because we talk about risk. It's 56

22 percent higher of getting childhood leukemia if you

23 live within the two-mile radius.

24 The -- let me look at my notes here -- when

25 we talk about industry trying to maximum available

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1 control technology, a lot of times they will come to

2 the table and say "well it's going to take a lot of

3 money to actually implement those systems." But they

4 never talk about the huge, tremendous profits that they

5 make, you know, selling gas and oil to communities like

6 us, and they're profits are just grossly over the brim,

7 you know, that they can afford to spend money on real

8 technology to reduce air toxins in our community.

9 And I'm glad that you guys are here, the EPA

10 and everybody that's come in here, and we're glad that

11 it was hosted here and that the City of Houston

12 actually supported the idea of having the meeting int

13 his particular location, because what we wanted, at

14 least in our communities, is for you not only to an

15 area that is highly toxic as far as benzene and

16 butadiene, but we wanted you to see the other

17 infrastructure that exists here. These are low income

18 communities. If you take a look at the community

19 before you leave, and that's what we hope you do, and

20 just notice all the other facilities that are here, the

21 lack of sidewalks, the lack of good infrastructure and

22 then to have a park right next to Valero. As the lady

23 from Corpus Christi stated, Valero has been cited for

24 numerous fines throughout the country, not just in

25 Corpus Christi and here in Houston.

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1 But what they tend to do is company's will

2 come to communities like this and say "well we're going

3 to -- we're going to redo your house, you know,

4 insulate so that you won't lose heat in the winter and

5 you'll retain, you know, your air conditioning units."

6 What they do is they voluntarily weatherize the house

7 basically. And while it looks fine and dandy, the

8 problem is that they need to be insulated from those

9 companies themselves. They need to be relocated and we

10 have to start seriously about relocating and giving

11 them affordable and reasonable enough wages to where

12 they can move to outside the area.

13 Right now, again, if you walked in here or

14 drove in here, you'll find that it was very hard and

15 difficult to get in here. The same thing applies to

16 ambulance services. That's where there is an overpass

17 that is being built right now, because if the train

18 blocks your entrance in here and if somebody's either

19 shelter in place or there's an accident close to the

20 companies or if somebody's having a heart attack,

21 sometimes it's very hard to reach those people, and

22 they have died in the past because of accessability.

23 So again the bridge, while it may seem like a

24 good idea, it is a lot of money wasted on a community

25 that really is not really protected because they

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1 continue to breathe the toxins in the air.

2 And they need -- and if you have a situation

3 that you have to evacuate, I guarantee you that it's

4 not going to be probable to evacuate, you know, in a

5 one bridge that is the only exit out here that is, you

6 know, close by.

7 So, again, we need to rethink about impact on

8 the communities. We need to look at the National

9 Environmental Justice issue on cumulative impact

10 studies, and I think again we need to push the EPA to

11 start -- if they're going to delegate authority, you

12 expect something, you expect results. Otherwise, why

13 delegate authority and get no results.

14 Thank you for your time.

15 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you also.

16 MS. PIPPERT: Hello. My name Julie Pippert.

17 When I tell that I got sick from pollution, I

18 get two reactions -- agreement or disbelief. I'm not

19 sure why we're so skeptical that we have a serious

20 pollution problem in our country and that pollution is

21 unhealthy. I think it's an understandable disbelief

22 though. It's the same disbelief we feel when people do

23 terrible things to other people on purpose, but it

24 happens, such as polluting our environment with harmful

25 things how ever inconvenient it might be to accept

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1 this.

2 But more than that, it's scary, so it's

3 easier to turn our faces and hide from the truth.

4 Because I'm sick, I don't get that option. I have to

5 face it every single day. It's my hair, my cells, my

6 brain, my endocrine system, my rising healthcare bills,

7 my family's stress and anxiety about my health. It's

8 the handfuls of medication I take daily to try to

9 maintain something close to healthy. It's in a fear I

10 have cancer, because we've already had that scare one.

11 It's in the questions my children ask me for

12 which I have no answers. "Mommy, why are you sick?

13 Will you always be sick?" I found the truth a month

14 ago when after two years of testing my doctor said,

15 "It's the hydrocarbons in your area. They're endocrine

16 disruptors, and you're a textbook case."

17 Endocrine disruption sounds relatively

18 innocuous when you just say the words, but it's not.

19 It means there are mutagens in your body damaging your

20 organs, messing up how they work, creating a poor

21 quality of life and health and potentially causing

22 cancer. These mutagens come from pollution. They bind

23 your fat cells. If your body can expel them fast

24 enough, they might not do much damage, but if it can't,

25 you get sick like me.

100

1 It harms unborn babies, mutates healthy

2 bodies and prevents children from growing and

3 developing properly. Because these toxins attack the

4 endocrine system, the reproductive and hormonal organs

5 are at greatest risk.

6 However, my doctor's diagnosis was bold.

7 Endocrine disruption in humans has been a fiercely

8 debated topic for over 20 years, but I knew he was

9 right.

10 After countless misdiagnoses, specialist

11 referrals, medical exams and costly medical procedures

12 and treatments, most of which were not covered by

13 insurance and none of which worked. I finally had a

14 diagnosis that fit. It explained my failing pituitary,

15 thyroid and adrenal glands, the constant abdominal

16 cysts, the pain, the forgetfulness, the weight

17 problems, the fatigue, the depression, the migraines,

18 the life-threatening allergies, and it even explained

19 why my body seemed as if it had cancer. The polycyclic

20 aromatic hydrocarbons disrupt my endocrine system and

21 act like tumors in my body.

22 Quick facts: the agency for Toxic Substances

23 and Disease Registry, part of the CDC, released a

24 public health statement for PAH's, because they're a

25 hazardous substance that may harm you.

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1 The EPA flagged 1,408 hazardous waste sites

2 as the most serious in the nation. At least 600 of

3 those sites have a PAH's and are potential or actual

4 sources of human exposure. 42 of these sites are in

5 Texas, 18 in this area. My town just south of here

6 hosts one of the worst offenders which ranks on the

7 toxic inventory list.

8 I'd like to leave you with a few parting

9 thoughts. By allowing any amount of pollution which is

10 harmful to humans, we are asking citizens of the United

11 States to endure harm. By allowing -- in Hearst's

12 book, "Silent Spring," Rachelle Carson 45 years ago

13 wrote "This is an area dominated by industry in which

14 the right to a dollar at whatever cost is seldom

15 challenged." It is the public being asked to assume

16 the risks, and that you must decide whether it was just

17 to continue on the present road and can only do so when

18 in possession of the facts.

19 In the words of John Rastant [phonetic], "The

20 obligation to endure gives us the right to know. If

21 the Bill of Rights contains no guarantee that a citizen

22 shall be secure against lethal poisons distributed

23 either by private individuals or public officials, it

24 is sure only because our forefathers, despite their

25 considerable wisdom and foresight could conceive of no

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1 such problem."

2 People in Houston seem to accept being sick,

3 having terrible allergies and high rates of cancer as

4 normal. At some point common became confused with

5 normal. It's not normal. It doesn't have to be like

6 this. It shouldn't be.

7 When I moved to Houston three years ago, I

8 was a very healthy person. Since moving here, I've had

9 to endure increasingly bad health due to pollution. My

10 doctor's ultimate prescription is for me to move away

11 from the area.

12 Is this the future of our town and community

13 that people have to move away to preserve their health,

14 their children's health. It seems a sad prognosis to

15 me for Houston.

16 Please tighten the emission restrictions.

17 Help us clean up our two so that it isn't known as the

18 most polluted city in the United States, the

19 unhealthiest due to pollution. Help keep the wonderful

20 people who make it a great city right here, because

21 they don't have to choose between health and community.

22 We need you, the EPA for that. We need you to set

23 strict limits, enforce them with a zero tolerance

24 policy for non-compliers and set limits that put the

25 citizens and their health and future as the highest

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1 priority.

2 The truly inconvenient thing is that we are

3 being asked to endure this pollution and its harmful

4 affects on our health.

5 Thank you for your time and consideration.

6 MR. HUSTVEDT: I'd like to take a five minute

7 now. Thank you.

8 (Off the record from 11:39 a.m.to 11:48 a.m.)

9 MR. HUSTVEDT: Our next two speakers will be

10 Ramon Alvarez and Frederick Newhouse if you could

11 please come up.

12 Ramon Alvarez and Frederick Newhouse? He's

13 not speaking?

14 UNKNOWN: Right.

15 MR. HUSTVEDT: You're it. Mr. Alvarez, you

16 can go ahead and get started.

17 MR. ALVAREZ: Good morning. My name is Ramon

18 Alvarez, R-A-M-O-N A-L-V-A-R-E-Z.

19 I am a scientist with the Austin office of

20 environmental defense. So I don't live in the

21 community. I do work on air pollution issues in Texas.

22 I've been doing so for over 10 years.

23 I really appreciate the fact that EPA is here

24 today to listen to the comments of the public,

25 especially those from the community.

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1 I think that really you can hear a lot of

2 anecdotes, and sometimes an anecdote is just that, it's

3 sort of an unusual occurrence, but when you hear a lot

4 of the anecdotes piling up and sort of leading you in

5 the same direction, you really have to take note; you

6 have to pay attention.

7 A couple of years ago there was a series that

8 the Houston Chronicle, a week long series on air

9 toxics. One of the things they talked about was the

10 mobile monitoring that the TCEQ does in these

11 neighborhoods around the refineries and chemical

12 plants. And one of those that they were out

13 monitoring, they caught a picture of the van that was

14 sitting there empty. They had the equipment on, but

15 the staff had left, because they had gotten sick. They

16 were getting sick from the pollution in the air on that

17 particular day, and that's another anecdote.

18 But the fact is that the pollution levels in

19 concentrated industrial areas like Houston, like Corpus

20 Christi, are too high and they're harming public

21 health.

22 We can argue about the appropriate risk level

23 whether it's one in a million, one in 10,000, but this

24 dismisses the point of the toxics provisions that were

25 put into the Clean Air Act in 1990, and that was to

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1 protect public health. To do that, emissions have to

2 be reduced. They have gone down since 1990, but we're

3 still seeing adverse health affects. We need to go

4 further.

5 I think that Representative Olivo made a very

6 good point that, you know, Americans are counting on

7 you, especially those that live in the fence line

8 around these plants.

9 The State of Texas is not going to solve this

10 problem. This problem requires action at the national

11 level. This is something that you all can take care

12 of, and Texans and the rest of the country are counting

13 on your. This is a once in a decade opportunity.

14 As you know -- and I'm going to talk very

15 sort of informally today. We're going to be submitting

16 formal comments with a lot of detail and technical

17 critiques of the risk assessment and other issues.

18 But I did want to touch on one aspect the

19 residual risk assessment that's provided here. And it

20 has to do with the fact that it's based emissions data

21 that almost by every account is woefully inadequate and

22 especially in places like Houston where you have a high

23 concentration of industrial facilities.

24 Measurements done by the best scientists in

25 the country going back to 1995 have shown that the

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1 emissions inventory is under predicting what the actual

2 emissions are, actual concentrations levels are in the

3 atmosphere.

4 In 2000 there was study called the Texas Air

5 Quality Study where they found that the VOC emissions

6 in the ambient air was order of magnitude or more

7 higher than what was predicted by the emissions. The

8 study was followed up in 2006 with a second Texas Air

9 Quality Study, and they confirmed the findings the VOC

10 emissions were significantly higher than are predicted,

11 although they had gone down since 2000 because of

12 actions that the TCEQ had taken to reduce ozone

13 precursors. They were still higher than was predicted

14 by the emissions inventory, still on the order of an

15 order of magnitude or more.

16 And Houston is not unique. Actual refinery

17 emissions around in the United States and around the

18 world exceed the amounts in emissions inventories.

19 EPA's own position, according to a technical memo in

20 the docket, acknowledges "a systematic low bias in

21 industry emissions report."

22 So we're -- and this is the core of your

23 decision-making process for whether or not you need to

24 tighten controls on refineries. The emissions that go

25 into the modeling are significantly flawed, and at the

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1 end you conclude that the level of risk is acceptable.

2 As we will describe in our comments, we

3 disagree with the conclusion that the current refinery

4 rules lead to an acceptable level of risk. You know

5 based on the emissions inventory bias alone, which

6 underestimates emissions both in the short term and

7 long term, you're going to underestimate the exposures

8 that the public receives, and, therefore, you

9 underestimated the risk that the public receives.

10 So I hope that you find some ways to

11 accommodate these uncertainties. I thought that the

12 Harris County suggestion to work in a more protective

13 risk standard of one in a 100,000 and one in a million

14 instead of the one in 10,000 is one way to do that. I

15 thought that was a good suggestion, but there's

16 probably others, and I hope that you will reconsider

17 the conclusion of the level of risk being acceptable at

18 this time.

19 Thank you.

20 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you. Any questions?

21 Our next two speakers are Carol Alvaro and

22 Martina Cartwright.

23 MS. ALVARADO: Good morning. My name is

24 Carol Alvarado, and I'm the city council member for

25 this area, but I think --

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1 MR. HUSTVEDT: Would you spell your name

2 please?

3 MS. ALVARADO: A-L-V-A-R-A-D-O, Alvarado.

4 I think more importantly though is that this

5 my home. This where I grew up on East Avenue L, and I

6 lived here for 33 years. My parents still live here.

7 Living here certainly opened my eyes to many

8 of the issues that this neighborhood, Manchester and

9 the east end community face. I tell people that this

10 is probably what got me started in public policy and in

11 politics want to get involved in policy and make a

12 difference.

13 Growing up here, playing here at the park,

14 going to church at St. Alfonse's, walking to the

15 elementary school, I knew that we were very different.

16 And, you know, sometimes kids from other neighborhoods

17 made fun of us, because they knew that there was a

18 smell here. And I think over the years growing up, we

19 just sort of became immune to it.

20 And then when I was old enough to vote and I

21 got involved, I knew that there was something that

22 could be done. I knew that other parts of the city

23 didn't have these kind of issues.

24 And while many of my neighbors and family

25 worked at these facilities and I knew that they

109

1 provided a stable income and health insurance for many

2 families, I also knew that many of them were suffering

3 from cancer, from leukemia, and then we started seeing

4 as they got older, they passed on, they died. And it

5 wasn't just people that worked in the facilities, but

6 we started seeing neighbors -- my godfather, my

7 padrino, people that were very near and dear to me that

8 started developing various illnesses and have passed

9 on. We can give you names if you'd like.

10 I think you've heard from some people today.

11 One that really sticks out is the Maroquin family. If

12 you think that these emissions have no impact, if you

13 haven't heard this story of Mrs. Maroquin's son, I urge

14 you to listen and listen good.

15 I know that you have some options here that

16 you're looking at. You are our only hope.

17 Unfortunately, we don't get much help from the state,

18 but it's not because our elected officials aren't doing

19 their job; they are. I think you heard very vibrantly

20 from my friend, Senator Gallegos, who's done an amazing

21 job. We supported his legislation and opposed other

22 legislation that did nothing. I know Anna Hernandez,

23 state rep. She's also introduced things and has been

24 an advocate. I hope in my next job, whatever that

25 else, that I'm able to make a difference.

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1 I also chair the City of Houston's Health and

2 Environmental Committee. We've been able to make

3 difference. We have had to pick up the ball, because

4 the state, the TCEQ, has failed us.

5 You, as representatives of the EPA, you are

6 our only hope. We are here today not because we're

7 getting paid to be here, not because we have an

8 interest or a job at stake, but we're here because we

9 know that you can do better.

10 It's interesting that states all over the

11 country have stricter emissions that other states,

12 other cities throughout the country can balance

13 business and jobs and the environment. I think we all

14 know -- we appreciate the contributions that all of

15 these facilities contribute to the community, but we

16 don't appreciate the negative health impacts that they

17 contribute to the community. We want the jobs here.

18 We want people in the community to be employed, but we

19 want them and their families to live long enough to be

20 able to benefit from those jobs. We know that it's

21 possible.

22 I ask you to consider your second option and

23 strengthen it into option three to include the

24 following: controlled requirements for storage

25 vessels, wastewater and cooling towers as soon as

111

1 possible, but no later than 18 months from rule

2 adoption; secondly, recognition of the real health

3 risks to the public and particularly fence line

4 communities from refineries creating lifelong -- I'm

5 sorry -- people that live in this area will not or

6 should not have to move; additional refinery pollution

7 controls requiring refineries to implement pollution

8 controls at least as stringent as the current industry

9 best practices; fourth, elimination of the startup,

10 shutdown, malfunction exemption. Large quantities of

11 toxic pollution are emitted during SSM and harm public

12 health.

13 We ask you today to consider those

14 recommendations.

15 I've never been for much in my 40 years of

16 living, but I beg you today. You are our only hope. I

17 ask you to consider these recommendations and to listen

18 to the people that are here. Many people have taken

19 time off of work to be here, and I know that this

20 evening there will be more, but I ask you to have a

21 heart, have some compassion. Help us to find a way to

22 balance good business, good policy and good public

23 health.

24 I thank you.

25 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you.

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1 MS. CARTWRIGHT: Good morning. I'd like to

2 thank the EPA for hosting this public comment meeting,

3 particularly in an environmental justice community, and

4 by environmental justice community, I refer to --

5 MR. HUSTVEDT: Let's get your name.

6 MS. CARTWRIGHT: I'm sorry?

7 MR. HUSTVEDT: Your name?

8 MS. CARTWRIGHT: My apologies. Everybody

9 knows me here. My name is Martina Cartwright. I'm the

10 managing attorney for the Environmental Law and Justice

11 Center over at Thurgood Marshall School of Law, and I

12 am presenting comments on behalf of that center, as

13 well as TEJAS.

14 And I apologize for assuming that we're here

15 among friends and everyone knows everyone.

16 But I would like to again thank you for

17 having this meeting, this public meeting, which I think

18 is incredibly important, and I would like to encourage

19 the EPA, any future public meetings on issues of great

20 importance, public health, should be held in those

21 communities that are most affected, and I think I refer

22 to them as being the least of us, those environmental

23 justice communities.

24 I think it's very rare that individuals have

25 access to the Code of Federal Regulations where they

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1 can pick up a copy of a notice and see that comments

2 are due in 30 days from the day that the notice is

3 published, but they are no less affected and certainly

4 should be invited to present comments, their own

5 personal stories, their narratives, that could guide

6 the EPA in making it's decisions.

7 This is certainly one of those least of us

8 communities. It is one of the least protected, the

9 least heard and seen and certainly afforded access to

10 justice.

11 And when I speak of environmental justice

12 communities, I speak of those predominantly minority,

13 low income communities that invariably serve as hosts

14 for the most undesirable of land uses. And you are

15 certainly sitting in one of those communities, one of

16 those undesirable uses is to your right.

17 I'm curious to know if any environmental

18 justice analysis was conducted by the EPA in

19 considering some form of action as it pertains to

20 residual risks posed by petroleum refineries. I didn't

21 see anything in the notice and comment period that

22 referred to Executive Order 12898. A lot of the

23 executive orders that I saw were unfunded mandates that

24 I think pertain to like risk to children, but I

25 certainly think that it was one consideration that is

114

1 woefully devoid from this investigation, this analysis;

2 it should be included.

3 I notice that the EPA has proposed two

4 options to addressing residual risks that remain after

5 the implementation of the 1995 standards.

6 The first was do nothing and in my opinion,

7 that is not even an option.

8 The second was applying new or additional

9 requirements for identified uses. In looking at that

10 only option, I would hope that you would consider the

11 environmental justice implications. I hope that the

12 EPA in implementing new regulations or at least

13 implementing new standards would consider continued

14 monitoring after these additional controls are put in

15 place to at least insure that it will not take an

16 additional eight years to address any new problems

17 after the implementation of those standards.

18 The one thing that I believe that is

19 incredibly irritating to most environmental justice

20 communities is when they hear the term "acceptable

21 risk." Because when they hear acceptable risk, it's as

22 though their risk is -- it mirrors that of the general

23 population. That's not really the case.

24 If you take into consideration the Houston

25 Ship Channel, one community of the Houston Ship

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1 Channel, Channelview, has lung cancer rates 100 percent

2 above the national average.

3 I believe there was a study that was recently

4 done that showed that there's an elevated risk of

5 leukemia, childhood leukemia, in this particular

6 community.

7 So when you look at acceptable risks, whether

8 you talk of one in 10,000 or one in a million, are you

9 looking at the risk that is posed by these fence line

10 communities, these predominantly minority, low-income

11 communities, the risk that they face everyday, or are

12 we looking at a national acceptable risk? That is not

13 what is being faced by these communities, and I hope

14 that that's something that will considered.

15 We will sending in written comments that will

16 further expand on this, but I would like to thank you

17 for at least being here and for a very brief time

18 experiencing what the residents in this community

19 experience on a daily basis. If this will perhaps

20 guide your deliberations on new, more stringent

21 controls, I hope that an opportunity to walk in this

22 community and breathe the air that they breathe will

23 certainly guide you.

24 Thank you.

25 MR. DIGGS: Thank you. No questions.

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1 MR. HUSTVEDT: Where am I? Thank you.

2 MR. DIGGS: Thank you very much.

3 MR. HUSTVEDT: Our next two speakers are

4 Lauren Salamon and Councilman Peter Brown.

5 MS. SALAMON: Good afternoon. Welcome, and I

6 just want to say, I appreciate that ya'll are here. I

7 think I speak for everyone saying that we really

8 appreciate the opportunity to be heard.

9 Obviously, pollution affects us in a very

10 unique way in Houston, and I happen to be a native

11 Houstonian --

12 MR. HUSTVEDT: Say your name.

13 MS. SALAMON: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm Lauren

14 Salaman, and I'm vice president of Mothers for Clean

15 Air.

16 I'm very proud of my city and its booming

17 economy, but at what price are we enjoying this

18 economy. It seems as though our pollution problems are

19 now a deterrent to businesses coming here.

20 On a more personal note, at age four I was

21 diagnosed with asthma as was my sister. We don't in

22 the ship channel, but this is becoming more and more

23 common among the Houston population at large, even as

24 far out as Katy. It's not -- we're not immune to it

25 just because we're a little bit farther away. Neither

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1 of our parents had these issues. The difference now is

2 our air is more toxic now than it used to be, even in

3 the span of 30 years or more since our parents lived

4 here and were growing up.

5 It's the children's -- our children's

6 developing lungs that are the most sensitive to the

7 affects of the pollution, and it's our job to protect

8 them. My own five-year-old has shown asthma symptoms,

9 and it's my job to protect her. That's why I'm active

10 in Mothers for Clear Air. I'm trying to make a

11 difference and trying to get others to help make a

12 difference.

13 And then on another note, there's, of course,

14 the cancers. Now, sure, a lot of people argue that if

15 people live long enough, they're bound to get cancer of

16 some sort. Okay, sure, many people in their 80's do

17 succumb to cancer, and it's not an unexpected thing.

18 What I'm talking about is several mothers I

19 know my age or even younger in our 30's who have breast

20 cancer, lymphoma, my own healthy, formerly healthy, 21-

21 year-old cousin who contracted lymphoma. All of these

22 things are not normal, nor should they ever be accepted

23 as such. So we're imploring you to help us and help us

24 help our children.

25 Thanks.

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1 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you. Councilman?

2 COUNCILMAN BROWN: Thank you very much. My

3 name is Peter Brown, and I'm a native Houstonian, and I

4 am an at-large member of Houston City Council, Position

5 One, serving all 2.1 million people of the City of

6 Houston.

7 And I'd like to point out that it's very

8 clear to me and I would say to the Mayor and all of my

9 colleagues, at least the vast majority of them in City

10 Council, that we are going through a political and

11 economic transition in this city, and we have made a

12 decision, a political and economic and cultural

13 decision, that we want a green city, that we are fed up

14 with air pollution, we're fed up with public health

15 crises that we have, and we want some change.

16 And this is a very important threshold for a

17 city which I hope that you recognize that you have, the

18 EPA, has a critical role to play.

19 We support requiring high-tech control

20 devices. We support setting enforceable standards, not

21 more studies. You know we recently got a report from

22 the Greater Houston Partnership which essentially says

23 "we need to study the situation more." I can tell you

24 folks, politically, economically, we're fed up with

25 studies. That's a delaying tactic. We just don't need

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1 that.

2 And I believe that responsible businesses in

3 this community understand that, and they support that.

4 You know a cancer risk for fence line communities of

5 one per 10,000, that is -- that is a slap in the face

6 to public health. You know, the city, the Mayor has

7 put together a very capable group, and you may have

8 heard from them this morning, and we set a threshold of

9 one cancer risk per one million as where the threshold

10 of benzene and 1,3-butadiene, formaldehyde, et cetera,

11 should be set.

12 I would also point out that the largest cause

13 for admissions at Texas Children's Hospital is acute

14 asthma. I'm talking about admissions now. It's not

15 just going there and getting -- it's admissions, acute

16 asthma. More kids are admitted for that malady than

17 for any other type of sickness.

18 We've got a public health crisis in this

19 city, and everybody needs to recognize that. We need

20 some help. We're not getting help from TCEQ.

21 And I would just conclude that for -- this is

22 an issue of environmental justice; it is an issue of

23 public health, but it's also an economic issue which we

24 recognize very strongly in the city. People are not

25 moving their businesses to the City of Houston, because

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1 our air is dirty, and that's something -- we've got

2 five million people in this region. We need some help,

3 folks.

4 And so I just want to thank you all for being

5 here and, you know, if you have any questions, I'd be

6 happy to answer them.

7 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you very much. Okay.

8 COUNCILMAN BROWN: Thank you.

9 MR. HUSTVEDT: The next two speakers are Mary

10 Guerrera and Ramon Negrete.

11 I'd like to introduce our sessions chair,

12 Fred Thompson. He's the associate director of the

13 sector policy and programs division.

14 MR. THOMPSON: Hello, everyone. And please

15 first accept my apologies for being late. I was at the

16 mercy of American Airlines, so again -- but I want to

17 say that I'm extremely glad to be here.

18 Please, go ahead.

19 MS. GUERRERA: Well, my name is Mary

20 Guerrera. This is Mr. Ramon --

21 MR. NEGRETE: Ramon Negrete.

22 MS. GUERRERA: And we live about I say 125

23 feet from the Texas Recycling, and our problem has been

24 very severe since they started.

25 I lived here in the neighborhood for 25

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1 years. I had never had any problems with infection in

2 my nose, my ears and my throat, but in September I

3 started with these infections, and in fact I just had

4 gone to the doctor day before yesterday. And in my

5 left ear, it's really, really bad at this time.

6 The thing is that we don't know, we can't

7 figure what it is that they burned that it smells

8 terrible, and there's a dust. It's a weird kind of a

9 dust that goes -- that's even inside the houses. It

10 can sometimes when they're burning it, you can feel it

11 in your throat if you go outside.

12 I don't know if you're aware that about a

13 month ago, I was taking a picture by the Chronicle, and

14 you saw that I was wearing a mask. That's every time -

15 - I used to cut the grass, but I can't anymore because

16 of it, whatever it is that's -- powder that's affecting

17 my throat. And we really don't know what to do about

18 it. I know that this company is trying to help us out

19 I know, but I think that the ones that were more

20 affected are the ones that were closer to the company,

21 you know. So hopefully that we can come to an

22 agreement to see what it can be done, you know, before

23 it gets any further or gets worse.

24 So I don't know what Mr. Ramon would like to

25 see. He lives on the side of my house on the back end.

122

1 MR. NEGRETE: Hello, everybody. My name is

2 Ramon Negrete.

3 MR. THOMPSON: Can you spell your name

4 please?

5 MR. NEGRETE: R-A-M-O-N N-E-G-R-E-T-E, last

6 name.

7 I wish -- I would like to talk to you in

8 Spanish, because it's a lot better so you understand a

9 little better. Have you got any translators over here?

10 MR. THOMPSON: Translator, yeah. Where is

11 the translator? He'll be right here.

12 MR. NEGRETE: Thanks.

13 MR. THOMPSON: This gentleman needs you.

14 (The following testimony of Ramon Negrete was given

15 through the translator, Larry Stelly.)

16 MR. NEGRETE: My name is Ramon Negrete. I've

17 been living in this community for about 25 years.

18 The problem we have is being near the company

19 named Texas Port Recycling. The problems we experience

20 is related to smoke and to metallic powders in the air,

21 and in addition the vibration emitted by the heavy

22 equipment the company is using, and also the smothering

23 smokes that is being issued by the company, which

24 causes us headaches. Also the ferrous or metallic-

25 laden dust and powders in the air which causes

123

1 allergies, so it makes it impossible for us to go out

2 and do yard work for example.

3 The constant vibration on a 24-hour basis has

4 affected the structure of our homes leaving our doors

5 and windows at odd angles. And also we hear a constant

6 vibration from the chinaware in our cabinets on a 24-

7 hour basis. It sounds almost like Christmas music,

8 which of course it is not.

9 We'd like to know whether the city

10 authorities can do anything to prevent or diminish this

11 contamination in the future which is affecting the

12 health of ourselves, our families and everybody who

13 lives in the neighborhood.

14 For us, this is an emergency situation, and

15 we need the authorities to act because we find it

16 extremely difficult to impossible to live given the

17 contamination emitted by this company.

18 And my Ramon Negrete. And that is what I

19 have to say to you as a resident of this community.

20 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Mr. Negrete and Ms.

21 Guerrera.

22 Any follow up questions from the panel?

23 MR. HUSTVEDT: I have nothing.

24 MR. THOMPSON: Again, thank you both.

25 Okay, our next two, Dr. Bonnie New and Steve

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1 Lozano. Dr. Bonnie New and Steve Lozano, if you'll

2 please come forward.

3 Hello.

4 DR. NEW: Good morning.

5 MR. THOMPSON: Good morning.

6 DR. NEW: Thank you very much for allowing me

7 to speak.

8 I am Dr. Bonnie New, B-O-N-N-I-E N-E-W.

9 I'm a physician in Houston specializing in

10 environmental and occupational health, and I represent

11 Health Professionals for Clean Air, a coalition of

12 doctors, nurses and researchers in the Houston area who

13 are very concerned about the harmful health affects of

14 poor air quality.

15 Exposure to hazardous air pollutants, HAPS, H-

16 A-P-S, is a serious public health issue. The toxic

17 substances covered in this group are numerous and have

18 a variety of adverse health affects, including but not

19 limited to cancers.

20 Non-cancer health affects of concern include

21 reproductive, neurologic, endocrine, immunologic,

22 respiratory hematologic and developmental abnormalities

23 and account for a much greater disease burden than the

24 cancer end points alone.

25 So talking about health risks, whether one in

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1 a million, 70 in one million or one in 10,000 is

2 defacto and underestimate an understatement of the real

3 health risk of an exposed population. Counting

4 incidents of cancer health affects, cancer health

5 affects gives you a much smaller number than counting

6 incidents of non-cancer health affects. So the

7 cumulative disease risk for any exposed population is

8 considerably higher than cancer-based risks that

9 estimate would indicate.

10 In addition, the cumulative health risk is

11 further enhanced by communities being exposed to

12 numerous different HAPS, each in high concentration at

13 the same time. The health professional community in

14 Houston is very concerned about our citizens' exposure

15 to air toxics, because of high concentrations found

16 here and because the relative -- excuse me -- because

17 the related cumulative disease burden is significant.

18 The EPA's own data analyses and data modeling

19 shows that the Houston region is a hotspot for air

20 toxics compared to other U.S. cities. That within the

21 Houston region, there is some dramatic hotspots of

22 exposure, particularly here in the east end, and that

23 the air toxics in the east end come disproportionately

24 from nearby industrial sources such as the refineries

25 compared to other parts of the Houston region where

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1 other local sources and on-road vehicles contribute

2 more to the air toxics burden.

3 It's the health risk in these hotspot

4 communities like where we're sitting today that's of

5 particular interest and concern to the medical

6 community.

7 In its current refinery NESHAP proposal, the

8 EPA is calling a 70 in one million excess cancer cases

9 attributed to HAPS exposure acceptable. The Clean Air

10 Act established one in one million attributable cancer

11 cases as the appropriate benchmark, by EPA is now

12 saying for communities next to refineries such as this

13 one that 70 in one million is the appropriate goal;

14 that this level of risk is acceptable. The health

15 science community says this is not acceptable.

16 These hotspot neighborhoods here in the east

17 end of Houston are very low income and are

18 predominantly 90 percent plus people of color. There's

19 an entire discipline in the field of public health that

20 is focused on health disparities. Low income, low

21 resource, predominantly minority communities such as

22 these are of particular concern medically, not only

23 because they're living in exposure hotspots, but

24 because the total constellation of stressors in their

25 environment appear to enhance their susceptibility to a

127

1 variety of adverse health affects.

2 From a public health point of view, lowering

3 your standards to accept a higher level of health risks

4 for them is exactly what you don't want to do with a

5 vulnerable population.

6 On behalf of Health Professionals for Clean

7 Air, I urge the EPA to rethink and revise the current

8 two proposals that are on the table. Between proposal

9 one which offers no public health improvement at all

10 and proposal two which offers a very little

11 improvement, the latter is preferable. Health

12 Professionals for Clean Air recommends, however, that

13 the EPA return to the one in one million attributable

14 cancer-risk benchmark and apply it rigorously to the

15 most highly exposed communities such as these in the

16 east end of Houston.

17 Thank you.

18 MR. THOMPSON: Okay. Thank you, Dr. New.

19 Mr. Lozano?

20 MR. LOZANO: Yes. My name is Steve Lozano,

21 and I heard about this meeting on the radio, and I went

22 to 7494 Avenue E; is the police station over there. So

23 I called and found out where it was at, and here I am.

24 What I've got to say you might think is

25 hearsay, but I'm going to tell you it's the truth.

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1 I've been around asking several attorneys if I could

2 put together a class action suit against these big

3 companies here in my neighborhood, because if feel that

4 I'm dying.

5 I work in just over here off of Wallisville

6 Road for 20 years picking up salvage vehicles for a

7 recycler, and I've been in everybody's backyard. I've

8 been in every part of the city, and I've seen the

9 different areas and I've seen what they do when they

10 get a hotspot. They put up a fence and a little sign

11 that says, you know, "do not enter," and nobody ever

12 moves there, but everybody lives around it.

13 Well anyhow to save fuel I moved to the

14 Galena Park area, got a nice little house in a cul-de-

15 sac, beautiful canopied -- we have birds with eggs that

16 big. And I have a son and the best time of my life. I

17 got a cold that wouldn't go away. I went to see the

18 doctor, and he told me I needed to quit smoking. I

19 never smoked, and I told him that, and he laughed and

20 said "well that's not what your lungs are telling me."

21 Since then, within the last 10 years, I've

22 put on 100 pounds in weight. I need to sleep with a

23 machine. Here in the Houston area there's a new trend

24 going around, and it's sleep studies, people that can't

25 sleep at night, they put you on a machine and they

129

1 register -- well they count the number of minutes that

2 you stop breathing while you're asleep, and they call

3 that sleep apnea.

4 Well, I never had any of that kind of problem

5 before. And when I get up in the middle of the night,

6 I listen to my son when he's breathing, he's gurgling.

7 When we -- before my son was born, we lived in the

8 north side of town by Landmark Chevrolet, I mean he had

9 perfect breathing, and now, like I say, he gurgles and

10 chokes just like I do, you know, and there's nothing I

11 can do about it. I don't have any insurance, and the

12 only thing the insurance is going to do is put him in

13 some kind of study and mediate him and the whole, you

14 know.

15 So anyhow we moved from that area to another

16 house, and things have gotten better. I don't need the

17 machine as often to sleep. I feel like I'm getting

18 better. My son still isn't; he still gurgles and

19 chokes when he's asleep. But it's real. I had saved a

20 piece -- a newspaper where somebody came over here to

21 study our air, and they took the wrong turn and went

22 down 45 and measured the air there and said that our

23 air was bad. So when they finally got directed to 610

24 and 225, they refused to go down 225, because the

25 levels were too high, their machines were going off the

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1 rack, you know. That was on the front page of our

2 newspaper for a day.

3 I realize you guys have the hardest job in

4 the world, because you have careers and futures and you

5 step on the wrong toes or do something wrong, it can be

6 ended, you know. So we appreciate anything you can do

7 for us.

8 This other guy that was talking about this

9 dust that they're emitting from this junkyard over

10 here, well what it is is they don't use asphalt. They

11 use what's called slag. It's the molten part of the

12 steel. It breaks down into like little rocks. It

13 looks like rocks, and it doesn't wear out as fast, so

14 the heavy equipment can go over it, and that grinds

15 into little bitty, little bitty particles that we

16 breathe everyday.

17 Everybody over here that recycles aluminum so

18 the aluminum engines from these cards along with the

19 oil and sludge are melted down for the aluminum.

20 You guys, I guess for the last month or so,

21 things have been a little calm, so they must have known

22 ya'll were coming, but the best time to come around

23 here is about 3:00 o'clock in the morning. You'll get

24 a buzz. It's like paint smell.

25 The first few years I was here I would wake

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1 my family up and say "let's get out of here; this place

2 is fixing to blow." It was like noon. Those fires

3 that come out of those machines were so high that it

4 was like broad daylight. And my baby's mama said "No,

5 don't worry about it; that's just way it is; don't get

6 excited. It's like that all the time." That's

7 acceptable to all these poor people over here.

8 And these property values, man, I bought a

9 house -- I buy houses and for $20,000 bucks and the

10 appraisal was like seven grand, where are you going to

11 find a two-story house with an appraisal of $7,000. It

12 stayed that way for about six or seven years, but in

13 the last few years, they got wish to it and started

14 raising everybody's property values.

15 But I feel like if these companies can't do

16 anything about, you know, they should at least let

17 people that don't know about it know that there's, you

18 know, that there's a major risk of living within five,

19 five to 10 miles of them before they go in and move a

20 family in there.

21 I was fortunate; I could just get up and

22 leave, but I didn't believe that this was actually

23 happening because I'm pro-government, I'm pro-police.

24 I feel like there's somebody looking out for me, and

25 I've found out that these big companies are just like

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1 anybody else. They want to make a dollar.

2 And most of these guys that work here,

3 they're private contractors. If there's a leak in one

4 of those big pipes, well they call a guy that's

5 certified that went to HCC and got a certificate to

6 seal that leak, and he goes and hires me that knows how

7 to weld and a couple of my helpers, and we go over

8 there and fix the problem. We don't have any

9 insurance. Sure we get $45 bucks an hour, you know, to

10 do 10 hours work of work, and, man, we were happy to do

11 it. We're not going to say anything bad about our

12 employers or anything like that, because we want them

13 to call us again.

14 But where's our insurance in 10 years from

15 now when, you know, when guys like that develop cancer,

16 develop all different kinds of problems. There's no

17 old guys working there. They're all young bucks, and

18 they don't know what they're doing is selling

19 themselves, they're selling their lives out, because

20 they think the government's protecting them, and our

21 government -- I don't know, buddy, but I could keep you

22 here all day long, because I've been here, and you know

23 like I said, I'm a living dying man. I've got a 10-

24 year-old son that I probably won't see get to 20 or 30,

25 because of being over here.

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1 So if the -- if everyone knew what was going

2 on, this place would be flooded, but like at 3:00

3 o'clock in the morning, they're asleep because they got

4 to go work tomorrow, and everybody isn't working.

5 Look at me. I dropped what I was doing to

6 come over here. I was working. And that's why there's

7 so few people here. It's not because there's not

8 problem here, you know. Everybody's at work doing what

9 they have to do, because tomorrow's another day.

10 By anyway, thank you very much. My name is

11 Steve Lozano, and I'm here any time you need me.

12 MR. THOMPSON: And thank you both for your

13 testimony. Thank you.

14 Okay, next up is -- is it Maria?

15 UNKNOWN: Maira.

16 MR. THOMPSON: Maira Suarez?

17 UNKNOWN: Suarez.

18 MR. THOMPSON: And David Paulson.

19 MS. SUAREZ: Hello. My name is Maira Suarez,

20 S-U-A-R-E-Z, last name; M-A-I-R-A, first name.

21 I live about 50 feet from this recycling

22 company and I've been living in there about 14 -- 13,

23 14 years.

24 And the problem started this year, because

25 they started doing their recycling thing, especially in

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1 the morning, Monday, the smell is bad, bad, bad, bad.

2 In September when the smell was bad, my nose

3 started bleeding, and we called 311 for information

4 seeing if they come and check it, because the smell was

5 bad. I don't know if they came or not, but the thing

6 is the dust especially Monday morning, Tuesday,

7 Thursday and Friday.

8 I have four children. They start getting

9 sick. They never got sick before -- runny nose, the

10 throat. And without air conditioning, you can see the

11 dust over the blankets when they come through the

12 window. And they've been working 24 hours, seven days

13 a week, especially I think it's like [indecipherable]

14 to my house. We woke up in the morning, because they

15 start working at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning, and they

16 stop working with horn noise, a horn noise about 2:00

17 o'clock in the morning.

18 So it's difficult for my kids to get up to

19 school, because they say they have a headache from

20 smelling and from not getting plenty of sleep.

21 And I have a little girl; she's been getting

22 sick with fever, runny nose and a throat.

23 So it would be if you can come like once a

24 month or come and see Monday and smell, as you can

25 imagine how bad it feels to be smelling the smoke, and

135

1 you can be in our situation. And I guess come and see

2 other opinions.

3 It must be something there they can do.

4 That's all I got to say.

5 MR. THOMPSON: Okay, thank you.

6 MR. PAULSON: Welcome to our neighborhood.

7 Thank you for your time.

8 My name is David Paulson.

9 I am an environmental scientist with a

10 master's degree from the University of Houston at Clear

11 Lake. I'm an ordained minister with a doctorate in

12 theology, and I have a technical background in

13 instrumentation. I've worked in a lot of these plants

14 in the area. And also I'm an apartment owner in

15 Manchester here. And I've lived here for 32 years off

16 and on.

17 And the impact that I have seen from my life

18 experience have been through the old and the young.

19 The young residents of the neighborhood, a lot of them,

20 not all, will contract some kind of asthma or asthma

21 condition. And the older, the elderly develop some

22 type of lung disease, especially those which are

23 smokers, you know, of course.

24 And, you know, as by all these testimonies,

25 we're surrounding by fugitive emissions from the tank

136

1 farms on the east, the railroad tank cars that travel

2 through our neighborhood by the tens of thousands per

3 month, the ship channel, the emissions that come off of

4 the ships and the cargo vessels, whatever, not to

5 mention Highway 610 and the 225 interchange systems

6 around here which produce the automobile emissions.

7 Now we have a new neighbor which this lady is

8 testifying about the impact of that -- of the winds

9 that blow indiscriminately around in the area.

10 Many times I've noticed damaged freight cars

11 held in storage over in the Manchester Rail Yard, but

12 the people are my concern. The young and old are

13 affected by being encapsulated by all these emissions.

14 I applaud the Environmental Protection Agency

15 for its work in curbing the pollution in the United

16 States. I remember when Simpson Paper Company on days

17 would blow -- the wind would blow and it would just gag

18 you. And even our sewage treatment facility on the

19 other side of Lawndale, when the wind blew, it would

20 gag a maggot. I mean it was terrible.

21 Well, I have a couple of suggestions that we

22 start a program licensing technical monitoring

23 personnel that could go inside of the plants rather

24 than to rely on in-house monitoring which, you know, is

25 subject to discretion, and also monitoring of nighttime

137

1 and weekend emission parties when state and federal

2 agencies are not at work. Those are the gap areas of

3 the system that I see that need to be addressed.

4 I thank you again for this meeting, and you

5 are a blessing to our neighborhood.

6 MR. THOMPSON: And thank you both. I do have

7 a follow up questions for Mrs. Suarez. If you don't

8 mind me asking, how old are you? How old are your

9 kids, your children in ages?

10 MR. PAULSON: How old am I?

11 MR. THOMPSON: This lady.

12 MS. SUAREZ: There's three, 13, 15, 17 and

13 18.

14 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you. I thank you both

15 again for your testimony.

16 MR. PAULSON: You're welcome.

17 MR. THOMPSON: Okay, Eva Loredo. Eva Loredo?

18 Is Eva present? Hi, Ms. Loredo.

19 MS. LOREDO: Hi. My name is Eva Loredo, L-O-

20 R-E-D-O.

21 And I've lived in this area -- I'm 55 years

22 old, so I've been born, raised and lived in this

23 neighborhood and just across Broadway. And also I've

24 been an educator for 35 of those years. I just retired

25 this past year.

138

1 And I've seen many children come through the

2 clinics and the number has just grown throughout the

3 years, and all my years that I worked were out in this

4 neighborhood and so I started my career at Gerald

5 Harris down the street.

6 So, you know, I've seen the companies around

7 here grow and pollution grow more and more. And I just

8 want ya'll to help us with this air pollution. It's

9 gotten worse, and we have air pollution; we have noise

10 pollution; and we also have smell pollution. And it's

11 just worse, you know.

12 And I don't know if you were able to come

13 down Broadway and Navigation, but they have this new

14 recycling plant there that they're hammering those

15 parts at all hours of the night, and sometimes it's

16 3:00, 4:00 in the morning. I don't know, someone said

17 that they start up at 5:00, but I don't think so.

18 They're up all hours of the night. You can hear that

19 hammering going and sometimes your house shakes. And

20 so it just really looks bad there.

21 But, you know, we want to have more companies

22 out here, because I know that these are jobs for our

23 people, and but we just want ya'll to do something

24 about restricting, you know, their pollutants, like I

25 said, be it air, be it noise or be it smell. Sometimes

139

1 you can't even come in -- you can't come out and enjoy

2 your evenings because the smell is so bad. Sometimes

3 it's like a rotten egg smell, and so, you know, so

4 everybody that's, you know, building up, they all have

5 different types of airs that are coming out, and so I

6 think that they're just combustible and so they're

7 really bad for our elderly.

8 I've just developed asthma myself. You know

9 I was very healthy. I just started doing exercise and

10 walking, and the doctor says I have asthma. And, you

11 know, and so I said "Well I've lived here all my life,

12 and I guess I'm one of the victims that, you know, I

13 saw the children coming through the clinics, and so now

14 I guess I'm going to be one of the inheritors of that

15 too."

16 But also the dust is so bad. You know you

17 can go wash your car and by the morning the dust is so

18 bad on plants, on the trees and on your cars.

19 And so I'd just like for you to do something

20 to help out our community, because we love our east end

21 community. We have people that -- that believe in the

22 community that have been here many, many years. My

23 mother is 81 years old, and she does not want to leave

24 the community. As much as, you know, everybody else

25 has moved away, she says this is where she was born --

140

1 I mean not born, but this is where she lived, she

2 raised her children here, and she says for the years

3 she has left, she wants to stay here.

4 But the pollution is getting worse, you know,

5 and so when the wind blows, you know, if it blows this

6 way, well then we're all going to get it from all these

7 companies here.

8 So I don't know if -- I remember a few years

9 ago a gentleman came and said "Well they're going --

10 the stack is going to be a mile high so you won't get

11 the air here. You won't get the pollution." I said,

12 "What goes up must come down." So if we're not going

13 to get it here, someone else will.

14 But I thank you, and I hope you can just help

15 us out in this community.

16 MR. THOMPSON: Ms. Loredo, thank you very

17 much. Any questions for Ms. Loredo? No? Okay.

18 MR. HUSTVEDT: How long are we going to break

19 for. What about a break until 2:00?

20 MR. THOMPSON: Okay, so we'll break and

21 reconvene at 2:00 p.m. Thank you.

22 (Off the record from 12:48 p.m. to 2:02 p.m.)

23 MR. THOMPSON: -- these proposed revisions to

24 the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air

25 Pollutants from Petroleum Refineries.

141

1 I recognize that many of you have traveled

2 quite a distance to be here and we all appreciate that,

3 so thank you for being here this afternoon.

4 My name is Fred Thompson. I am the associate

5 director of the sectors policies and programs division

6 of the Office of Air Quality Plan and Standards, which

7 is part of EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, and I

8 will be chairing today's hearing.

9 As you know, refineries are complicated

10 facilities. We regulate refineries through a number of

11 standards which address different types of equipment

12 and processes. This includes two MACT standards

13 specific to petroleum refineries, one issued in 1995

14 and the other in 2002. Other types of equipment

15 processes commonly found at refineries are subject to a

16 number of other MACT standards.

17 In the second stage of developing air toxics

18 regulations, we revisit the MACT standards to examine

19 any remaining risk along with the state of technology

20 to determine whether the standards should be amended.

21 We examine the risk known as residual risk

22 one time eight years after the MACT standards are

23 issued. We do this to determine whether we need to

24 change a standard to address any risk remaining after

25 the MACT standard was implemented. We review available

142

1 technology every eight years to determine whether our

2 MACT standard should be updated to reflect technology

3 improvements.

4 It is the second stage of the process that

5 brings us here today. We are here to take your

6 comments on our September 2007 proposed amendments to

7 the first MACT standard for petroleum refineries.

8 Those amendments address both the residual

9 risk determination and the first technology review of

10 the first MACT standard which we issued in 1995. That

11 rule applied to storage tanks, equipment leaks, process

12 vents and wastewater collection and treatment systems

13 at petroleum refineries.

14 It is also applied to marine vessel loading

15 and gasoline distribution if those were operations are

16 located at the refinery.

17 Let me talk about the residual risk portion

18 of our proposal first.

19 First, we have to estimate the remaining risk

20 from an industry source category after implementation

21 of the MACT standard. In this case, the industry

22 source category is the petroleum refinery sources that

23 are subject to the 1995 MACT standard. We then

24 determine whether that risk is at the level the law

25 refers to as acceptable and whether the MACT standards

143

1 protect the population with an ample margin of safety

2 and protect against adverse environmental affects.

3 In the case of cancer, if the risk exceeds

4 approximately 100 in a million, we must establish

5 standards to reduce this risk no matter what such

6 reductions cost.

7 At the second step in the risk analysis, we

8 must evaluate whether further reductions of assuring an

9 ample margin of safety are feasible considering the

10 costs of such reductions.

11 In preparing to develop this proposal, we

12 conducted a careful review of emissions data from

13 petroleum refineries. Using this data, we estimated

14 the maximum individual lifetime cancer risk associated

15 with the 1995 petroleum refinery MACT source category

16 to be about 70 in one million. Because that level is

17 less than the 100 in a million, we then moved to the

18 second step in the analysis and looked at what further

19 reductions could be achieved and at what cost.

20 Based on these findings, EPA has proposed two

21 options for two different emission sources to address

22 residual risk.

23 First, for storage tanks we identified a

24 potential risk reduction option of additional controls

25 for fittings on storage tank roofs. We co-proposed to

144

1 either impose no additional controls or alternatively

2 to add this requirement. We're requesting your

3 comments on these two alternative options.

4 In addition for wastewater treatment units,

5 we propose specific performance standards and

6 monitoring requirements to insure that the level of

7 reduction in air toxic's emissions anticipated by the

8 existing MACT is being achieved. Again we co-proposed

9 both no additional requirements in this performance

10 demonstration. We'd like your comments on this as

11 well.

12 The technology review identified cooling

13 towers as a source of air toxics emissions that we did

14 not adequately address in the original MACT standard,

15 so we co-proposed two options to amend the MACT

16 standard to reduce emissions from these cooling towers.

17 Both are what are known as work practice standards and

18 are designed to detect and repair leaks from cooling

19 towers.

20 The first option we proposed for the cooling

21 towers is based on the performance of the best

22 refineries today.

23 The second option is more stringent than the

24 first. We are seeking comment on the cost

25 effectiveness of this second option.

145

1 While these proposed amendments to the

2 cooling tower standards are addressing a gap in the

3 underlying MACT standard, we also conducted the risk

4 review and concluded that no further risk-based update

5 is warranted after adoption of one of these options.

6 The original comment period on this proposal

7 closed November 4, 2007. We've reopened the comment

8 period, however, and will now take public comment until

9 December 28, 2007. EPA will sign a final rule by

10 August 21, 2008. We will conduct a similar review

11 later on for the second petroleum refinery MACT, which

12 we issued in 2002, along with reviews for other MACT

13 standards that apply to petroleum refinery emissions.

14 More details about the proposed amendments

15 and instructions for submitting public comments are

16 available in the registration area for outside.

17 And we also have prepared a list of topics in

18 the proposed rule on which we're seeking comment.

19 That's also available in the registration area and may

20 be helpful to you as you are commenting today or

21 submitting written comments later on.

22 Now let me turn to the comment portion of

23 today's hearing. We'll be preparing a written

24 transcript of today's hearing. The transcript will be

25 available as part of the official record for the rule.

146

1 Today's hearing will work as follows: I will

2 call the scheduled speakers to the microphone two at a

3 time, and I would to ask that you please remain at the

4 table until both speakers have completed their

5 testimony.

6 When it is time for you to speak, please

7 state your name and your affiliation. It will help our

8 court reporter if you also spell your name.

9 To be fair to everyone, we ask that you limit

10 your testimony to five minutes each. We have a

11 timekeeping system consisting of green, yellow and red

12 lights, and it's located on the table here. When you

13 begin speaking, the green light will come on. The

14 yellow light will signal that you will have two minutes

15 left, and we ask that you stop speaking when the red

16 light comes on.

17 After you finish your testimony, a panel

18 member may ask clarifying questions. And as I

19 mentioned, we're transcribing today's hearing, and each

20 speaker's oral testimony will become part of the

21 official record. Please be sure to give a copy of any

22 written comments to our staff at the registration table

23 right outside, and we will put the full text of your

24 written comments into the docket for you.

25 We will work hard to insure everyone has an

147

1 opportunity to comment. We are slated to stay until

2 9:00 p.m. tonight, but we'll stay later if necessary.

3 And, of course, we will take breaks periodically during

4 the afternoon.

5 If you would like to testify but have not yet

6 registered to do so, please sign up at the registration

7 table.

8 For those who have already registered to

9 speak, we have tried to accommodate your request for

10 specific time slots. We ask for your patience as we

11 proceed through the list. We may need to make some

12 minor adjustments as the day progresses.

13 Now I would like to introduce the EPA

14 representatives on our panel. From the Office of Air

15 Quality Planning and Standards, we have KC Hustvedt,

16 and KC is the group leader of the coatings and

17 chemicals group. And to my right, your left, we have

18 Dave Guinnup, and Dave is the group leader of the

19 sector-based assessment group. And in the audience, we

20 have from the Office of Air Quality Planning and

21 Standards, we have Brenda Shine, and Brenda is a senior

22 engineer in the coatings and chemicals group. From our

23 region six office in Dallas, we have Tom Diggs. Tom is

24 the associate director for air programs in the Multi-

25 Media Planning and Permitting Division. And in the

148

1 audience we also have Ruben Casso, who is the region

2 six air toxics coordinator. And Ruben may perhaps be

3 joining us later here behind me, later this afternoon

4 on the panel.

5 So in closing I would like to thank all of

6 you again for participating today, and with that, I'd

7 like to get started.

8 First we'd like to ask Alex Cuclis and Jane

9 Laping to please come forward. Thank you both for

10 joining us today.

11 MR. CUCLIS: Thank you. I'm ready to start.

12 My name is Alex Cuclis, A-L-E-X C-U-C-L-I-S.

13 I have background in chemical engineering and

14 analytical chemistry. I spent about 15 years at

15 Shell's Deer Park Refinery. I spent about five years

16 as a air quality researcher first at U of H and at the

17 Houston Advanced Research Center. And I am here

18 representing me and only me. (Go ahead and go to the

19 next slide, please.)

20 The things that I want to talk about -- I see

21 it's a little too fast there -- I want to look mostly

22 at that the VOC emissions issues in terms of what's the

23 under reporting that has been found and relate that to

24 the air toxics issues.

25 And first of all, talking about IR camera or

149

1 the Hawk or LSI camera, which has become very popular,

2 I went to recent IR camera users meeting which had

3 about 50 people from industry, and there were a few

4 people in that crowd that said "We have found

5 individual leaks that have saved us over a million

6 dollars a year." I can't get any of them to stand up

7 in front of you at EPA and say that, but those are the

8 rumors, and so that's what I'm calling them, a rumor.

9 If you take that and calculate that in terms

10 of pounds of ethylene at 40 cents a pound, and then

11 convert that to an annual number, that's 1,250 tons per

12 year of VOC's. If you compare that to what the

13 refineries and the Houston area have reported, that's

14 more than -- what any one of the over five refineries

15 have reported for their entire year for just that one

16 leak. Or if you're to look at for example the Exxon

17 refinery in Baytown reporting 2,400 tons per year, two

18 leaks would equal the entire amount that Exxon reports.

19 The reason that I'm presenting this is that

20 the folks in industry who are using these IR cameras

21 are very much aware that there are a lot of leaks out

22 there of VOC's that are not part of the inventory, and

23 they have seen that with their own eyes by using this

24 technology. It's not a question anymore among industry

25 or anyone else.

150

1 Go ahead and go to the next slide.

2 These clips I've taken directly from the TCEQ

3 website, the final rapid science census's report that

4 was published in August of this year. This is based on

5 the TCEQ 2006 field study, and it gives a number of

6 reports again about emission reporting underestimation

7 or under reporting.

8 On the left, those yellow slides are the

9 inventory numbers and they're presented in terms of

10 VOC's or ethylene to NOx ratios. In general we believe

11 our NOx numbers are pretty good in terms of what's

12 reported. It's the VOC's that look like they're off.

13 When we compare those ratios of that

14 inventory to what's measured, the measured numbers in

15 2006 are anywhere from 10 to 40 times higher than what

16 the reported numbers are. So again it's not, you know,

17 a matter of being off by 10 or 15 percent. We're

18 talking about a factor of 10 to 40, depending on the

19 area we're looking at.

20 A couple of other points to think about this,

21 and I have these quotes, these little boxes below are

22 direct quotes from the report, on page 51 that there's

23 a general consensus that there's been about a 40

24 percent reduction in emissions of VOC's from 2000 to

25 2006, so we've made a great deal of progress. But if

151

1 you think back, what that means is our previous

2 estimates of our 2000 report which said that emissions

3 may have been off by a factor three to 10 or even 10 to

4 40 were probably too low. Our emissions were off by

5 over a factor of 40 in order for us to have a 40

6 percent decrease to get to where we are today.

7 So we have done a lot of things in the

8 Houston area to get down there, so that should be

9 something to be considered at other refineries, other

10 locations that hasn't done what needs to be done to get

11 to reduce our emissions and to get closer to what the

12 inventory numbers are.

13 That other statement, repeated sampling,

14 suggests that they ethylene flex numbers have remained

15 constant within a factor of two. You know it's not

16 just a one time flyby that we read a high number. It

17 happens consistently.

18 These results have also been verified with

19 another test method called solar occultation flux,

20 which basically found the same thing. It's a different

21 analytical method using a truck that has an FDIR

22 mounted inside it and uses the sun as the light source,

23 but basically finding the same thing that no aircraft

24 found in terms of emissions.

25 Go ahead and go to the next page please.

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1 This page shows the results from 36 studies

2 of refineries by four different organizations using two

3 different analytical techniques. Most of them are

4 called differential absorption lidar. There are a few

5 up there that are referring to the solar occultation

6 flux, which what we had in Houston last year.

7 Basically what this is saying that I'm

8 reporting the emissions in terms of a percentage of

9 throughput. And roughly what this says is when they've

10 done any of these type of measurement studies, the

11 amount of VOC emissions are about .12 to .15 percent of

12 the total throughput of a refinery.

13 At the very bottom is this pink line, which

14 is what the typical or average report for the Houston

15 area refineries is about .012. Again, we're off by a

16 factor of 10 here that if we were to look at what

17 typical refineries measured other places are using

18 these different techniques. These techniques, dial and

19 saw [phonetic], have not been used for a refinery

20 specific analysis in the Houston area yet, but it --

21 and in other places is what is shown.

22 Go ahead and go to the next slide please.

23 So I just -- there's no reason to believe

24 that the air toxics are any different than the VOC's in

25 general. In order to identify what the maximum

153

1 achievable control technology really is, we need to be

2 able to measure what the emissions really are, and the

3 reported values don't reflect those actual emissions,

4 and we need to base our policies, whether it be air

5 quality, energy, global warming or going to war on

6 really good data or else we have a really good chance

7 of having really bad policies.

8 Go ahead and go to the next one.

9 You I'm -- I've exceeded here. Oops.

10 I just want to emphasize the importance of

11 using the knowledge that chemical engineers have to the

12 process that's going on and to not take an extreme case

13 of a really bad flare and extrapolate it to all flares

14 or cokers or tanks or whatever else, nor should you

15 take the ideal case of one that shows no emissions at

16 all, but we need to find out what the real typical

17 emissions are and do the math and find out what the

18 true emissions to extrapolate those to annual results.

19 The chemists need to use these best

20 technologies, dial and saw, for a couple of examples

21 that quantify as opposed to estimate what the emissions

22 are, and to have the protocols be accepted protocols

23 and the data shared openly.

24 We need operators also to be able to -- and

25 others within the plant to develop an environmental

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1 culture that's equivalent to what they have on personal

2 safety, personal safety meetings; they should have the

3 same sort of things for environmental meetings and, you

4 know, environmental suggestions just like safety

5 suggestions.

6 And finally they need to make -- we need to

7 make sure that we understand the economics that when we

8 develop the rules, whatever they be, that we look at it

9 from a total picture of let's make the greenest the

10 refineries the most profitable ones and not penalize

11 the guys who are doing the best job.

12 MR. THOMPSON: That should be it.

13 MR. CUCLIS: Thank you.

14 MR. GUINNUP: Alex, are you aware of any

15 information where studies like this have been done and

16 they actually speciated the volatile organic so that we

17 could focus in on individual hazardous air pollutants

18 like benzene for example.

19 MR. CUCLIS: Yeah, actually Spectrozine,

20 which is the company that's done most of these studies

21 now when they do their studies in Europe, they are

22 required to do benzene every single time.

23 MR. GUINNUP: Uh huh.

24 MR. CUCLIS: And so they have done that.

25 MR. GUINNUP: Did they publish some of that?

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1 MR. CUCLIS: You know they've published some

2 parts of it, and they'll tell me some ideas of, you

3 know, anecdotally, "gee, we found a lot of benzene in

4 certain places," but --

5 MR. GUINNUP: Any sort of preliminary data

6 would be great if you could help us get our hands on

7 it.

8 MR. CUCLIS: Okay.

9 MR. GUINNUP: Thanks.

10 MS. LAPING: Good afternoon, and thank you

11 for holding yet another public hearing in Houston. I

12 am, of course, referring to the eight-hour standard --

13 eight-hour ozone standard September 5th hearing that

14 was held in a posh hotel in the Galleria.

15 MR. THOMPSON: Ms. Laping, I'm sorry, could

16 you state your name and spell it for the court reporter

17 please.

18 MS. LAPING: Oh, yes, I was getting to that.

19 MR. THOMPSON: Okay.

20 MS. LAPING: Today's setting in a community

21 center within throwing distance of the Valero Refinery

22 is much more appropriate for the topic at hand.

23 My name is Jane Laping, L-A-P-I-N-G. And I

24 am the executive director of Mothers for Clear Air. We

25 are a local organization focused on children's health

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1 as it relates to air pollution in the Houston/Galveston

2 area.

3 And I am speaking today on behalf of our

4 1,400 members, several of whom live within a mile of an

5 oil refinery.

6 And I wish to make the following comments on

7 the proposed NESHAP rule for petroleum refineries.

8 According to a report from Environment Texas

9 earlier this year, Harris County where we are sitting

10 now ranks first in the nation in air emissions of

11 chemicals that cause cancer. The county also ranks

12 second for emissions of neurological toxins, third for

13 developmental toxins, fourth for respiratory toxins and

14 fifth for reproductive toxins.

15 The reason that Harris County ranks so high

16 in emissions of hazardous chemicals is because it's the

17 location of the largest petrochemical complex in the

18 country, and it is for this reason that we believe the

19 proposed NESHAP rule for petroleum refineries is not

20 adequate for the dense concentration of refineries and

21 chemical plants in this region.

22 Most importantly, it is not adequate for the

23 people who live near these refineries for the

24 lifetimes. As you can see, there are people who live

25 within a mile of the Valero Refinery that is just

157

1 outside this building. According to the 2000 census,

2 700 children under the age of 18, more than a third of

3 the population live in this small Manchester community.

4 Since they are only children, they cannot

5 possibly be exposed benzene or another hazardous air

6 pollutant for 70 years. However, even at their young

7 age, the health affects of living in such close

8 proximity to the petrochemical industry can be

9 documented.

10 A University of Texas School of Public Health

11 study found that children living within two miles of

12 the Houston Ship Channel have 56 percent higher rates

13 of acute lyphocytic leukemia than children who live 10

14 or more miles away. This same study also found an

15 association with higher 1,3-butadiene levels and

16 leukemias in children but not in adults.

17 Children are most at risk of the adverse

18 health affects of air pollutants, because they taken in

19 more air per body weight, they are more active when

20 they are outside, and their bodies are still

21 developing.

22 Just two miles east of Valero is another

23 refinery, Lyondell, with another community adjacent to

24 its fence line Mothers for Clean Air completed a two-

25 year air sampling project this summer that indicated

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1 elevated levels of several hazardous air pollutants

2 outside a home adjacent to the Lyondell Refinery -- no

3 surprise. Not much farther down the road is Shell

4 Refinery in Deer Park, a community of 150,000.

5 Continuing along the Houston Ship Channel, we

6 come across the largest refinery in the country, Exxon

7 Mobile in Baytown with 75,000 residents. Farther down

8 the coast is Texas City with three refineries, BP,

9 Marathon and Valero, and a population of 40,000.

10 These are all stable communities with long-

11 term residents and lots of children, but this is just a

12 snapshot of the Houston/Galveston area. Let's not

13 ignore refineries close to communities in Corpus

14 Christi to the south, the Beaumont/Port Arthur area to

15 the northeast, and many communities in Louisiana all

16 along the Gulf Coast.

17 EPA's procedure of using a different risk

18 level for people living near a facility compared to

19 people who live farther away is a clear environmental

20 justice issue.

21 People who live near refineries deserve the

22 same public health protection as those who live farther

23 away, and to deny that people live near refineries for

24 their lifetime is a case of not seeing the facts for

25 all the smoke.

159

1 Therefore, we believe that the current NESHAP

2 rules are not adequate to protect public health, and we

3 are asking EPA to revise the rules so that the health

4 of sensitive populations is protected with an adequate

5 margin of safety.

6 Although we agree with EPA's option two that

7 will add new requirements, we propose a third option

8 that includes option two, but makes the standard more

9 protective of public health. We need to do this to

10 even out the 100 full disparity and estimated risk for

11 people who live close to refineries and make it the

12 same for all individuals wherever they may live.

13 MR. THOMPSON: Any questions or follow up

14 questions?

15 MR. GUINNUP: No thank you.

16 MR. THOMPSON: Okay. Thank you, thank you

17 both.

18 Okay at this time I would to ask Lucy Randel

19 and Diane Morey to please come forward.

20 Okay, good afternoon to both of you. You may

21 proceed.

22 MS. RANDEL: My name is Lucy Randel, R-A-N-D-

23 E-L. I'm the research director for Industry

24 Professionals for Clean Air. We're a group of

25 individuals in the Houston area concerned about air

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1 pollution, and we all have background working in the

2 petrochemical industry.

3 I want to thank you for this opportunity to

4 comment on the proposed revisions to the NESHAP for

5 petroleum refineries. The rule has a very broad scope,

6 and at this time I would like to focus my comments

7 specifically on control requirements for storage

8 vessels.

9 Under the authorizing legislation of the

10 Clean Air Act, section 112, D(6), EPA is required to

11 review the technology based standards of the refinery

12 NESHAP and to advise them "as necessary taking into

13 account developments in practices, processes and

14 control technologies."

15 While EPA has considered some of these

16 developments, if you can believe, the proposal has gaps

17 that unnecessarily allow exposure risks to remain

18 excessive, particularly for those who live near

19 refineries.

20 Recent developments in states such as

21 California and Texas appear not to have been full

22 consideration. Both of these localities already have

23 in place standards that are stricter than those

24 proposed in this rule making. Since refineries in

25 these locales are already meeting or preparing to meet

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1 these standards, I believe they should be considered as

2 examples of best performing sources.

3 Southern California's standards require domed

4 roofs on external floating of tanks that exceed certain

5 emission and vapor pressure criteria. Domes roofs were

6 reviewed in this rule making but reviewed for reasons.

7 My understanding how is this a risk based not

8 cost based rule. Further exploration of this option

9 and it's impact on health risks should be pursued. The

10 Texas [inaudible] on the other hand are not referenced

11 at all in the rule making.

12 As I'm sure you are aware and you heard Alex

13 Cuclis talk in his comments before, extensive research

14 on air pollution sources and the activity has been

15 conducted in the Houston/Galveston region, most

16 recently with the TexAQS II Study begun in 2005. A key

17 goal of that study was to identify sources that were

18 under reported by emissions inventories. The study

19 data provided a foundation for new storage vessel

20 regulations promulgated in Texas this year as part of

21 its state implementation plan to meet ozone

22 requirements. TCEQ reported in a November 21, 2006

23 memo justifying that proposed rule making. "TexAQS II

24 Remote Sensing VOC Project Results indicate that

25 certain types of storage tank emissions including

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1 degassing/and landing loss emissions generally have

2 been unreported or under reported in the TCEQ emissions

3 inventory. Recent data analysis of landing loss

4 emission survey and other TCEQ studies indicate that

5 these unreported emissions could total several thousand

6 tons per year."

7 In fact not far from the location of this

8 hearing, very high local butadiene units were recorded

9 just last year that were later traced to tank cleaning

10 and degassing.

11 The Texas rules include work practice

12 standards to reduce emissions such as these. It is

13 unlikely that emissions from tanks in Texas vary that

14 much from those elsewhere in the country. It appears

15 the emissions inventories that form the basis for the

16 EPA risk analysis are inherently flawed.

17 Emissions inventories on storage vessels and

18 the EPA analyses typically use the EPA tanks program,

19 which is based on emissions factors and equations

20 developed by the American Petroleum Institute and

21 compiled in AP42, Chapter 7. This program creates a

22 standard method for companies to project emissions

23 during the permitting process. Although a useful

24 modeling tool for planning and for comparing different

25 facilities, I would venture that few consider it to

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1 represent actual emissions.

2 In particular one thing that the program does

3 not capture is the emissions when a leak is detected.

4 Therefore, I urge EPA to look very closely at the

5 TexAQS II results and consider their implementations

6 for actual emissions and actual risks.

7 And my written comments will provide more

8 detail on these standards.

9 MR. THOMPSON: Okay, thank you. Ms. Morey?

10 MS. MOREY: Good afternoon. I'm Diane Morey.

11 That's D-I-A-N-E M-O-R-E-Y.

12 I'm here representing only myself. I've

13 lived in Deer Park and areas nearby Deer Park since

14 1963. Right now I'm four-tenths of a mile south of

15 Highway 225 and five-tenths of a mile south of Shell

16 Refinery.

17 In the 1940's my dad's family moved to Avenue

18 Q, which is on Houston's east end. A few years later,

19 but still in the 1940's my mother moved to Avenue Q.

20 They met, they married, and when I was born in 1953,

21 that's 54 years ago, they were living on Rainbow Drive

22 which is between Lawndale and Griggs Road, your Forest

23 Park Cemetery.

24 In 1963 when I was 10, my family moved to

25 Deer Park. My mother is still in the house they built

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1 in 1963. I am a couple of blocks farther north. My

2 mother has neighbors across the street who have lived

3 there longer than she has. The neighbors next door to

4 her moved in a couple of years after we did. I've

5 lived in my house now for about 12 years. Most of my

6 neighbors have lived in their homes much longer.

7 I know of other families involving multiple

8 generations and small children who have lived in the

9 area for many years. I go to church with them. And

10 yesterday when I was going through McDonald's drive-

11 through, I spoke with one of their employees with whom

12 I went to high school, that's Deer Park High School.

13 I've heard the various news reports that the

14 air in the Houston area is supposedly getting better.

15 I'm not so sure of that. Sometimes it's okay;

16 sometimes it isn't, but even within these past few

17 weeks, I've had episodes of eye allergies that can be

18 attributed to what I believe are emissions from the

19 refineries. Yes, I've checked it out with my doctor.

20 She said other people were having the same problem.

21 I know what it feels like have eyes so red

22 and irritated I can hardly drive down the street. I

23 find it amazing that the farther I get from 225, the

24 better I feel. Within the past few weeks, there have

25 been episodes of pollutants coming through during the

165

1 night that are so strong the emissions wake me up.

2 Often I cannot go outside with my dog or take

3 walks in front of my house because the air is so bad.

4 What makes it worse is that the stuff does not blow

5 away. It comes inside the house and it stays. It

6 affects my sleep and my breathing. Home air purifiers

7 cannot and do not remove much of it.

8 I've had rheumatoid arthritis for nearly 25

9 years. I often wonder how it affects that. Other

10 people are able to have control over the rheumatoid

11 arthritis. For me it has been far more difficult.

12 Right now it isn't under control, and I often wonder

13 why.

14 Yes, I do call Harris County Pollution

15 Control quite often, but their hours are limited and

16 even when I do call, it seems as if their hands are

17 tied. They can only make reports based on what are

18 considered nuisance odors. Well, what do you call a

19 nuisance? How bad does it have to be to be a nuisance?

20 And why can they accept complaints only on the basis of

21 odors? I suspect that many of the emissions causing

22 problems are from emissions that have no odor.

23 Certainly that is the case with the eye allergies that

24 I just mentioned.

25 As I said earlier, I live about four-tenths

166

1 of a mile south of Highway 225 and about half a mile

2 Shell Refinery. I find it so interesting that so often

3 I can drive just a few blocks south of my home, and the

4 air and my eyes feel so much better. Don't say,

5 "Diane, that's you being sensitive." I've heard that

6 stuff before.

7 Last summer my dog, Candy, died. So many

8 times over the years, we have been sick at the same

9 time. On one occasion I was driving on 13th Street in

10 Deer Park and turned south onto Center Street. There

11 was a change in the wind currents, and a very marked

12 change in the air quality. Whatever pollutant we

13 bumped into was so strong it made the dog bark. In the

14 last few months of her life, Candy had a wheezy bark

15 due to lung irritation. What was she breathing that

16 caused that I wonder? Yes, she was old. Still there

17 were times even when she was much younger when she

18 suffered needlessly because of the bad air.

19 I am not opposed to the refineries, certainly

20 not. My dad was Shell retiree. My neighbors work

21 there. What the refineries do is necessary for all of

22 us to have a better quality of life, but they need to

23 be good neighbors again. If a dog misbehaves, you put

24 it on a leash. If it bites, you make it wear a muzzle.

25 The refineries need to be leashed or muzzled until they

167

1 learn how to behave again.

2 The air is not the way it was when we moved

3 to Deer Park many years ago. The air is far worse. So

4 often I can be driving home from church in Pasadena,

5 and I bump into a wall of bad air. So often I can

6 drive north on Center Street, and the closer I get to

7 Highway 225, the worse the air gets.

8 Yes, there is an air monitor on Durant Street

9 in Deer Park, but that's a very long way away from my

10 home. It's too far away to accomplish much of

11 anything. It's too far away to pick up what goes on in

12 my neighborhood.

13 I'm asking for the following: We need

14 stronger controls on emissions. We need better

15 enforcement and we need an air monitor north of 13th

16 Street and close to Center Street.

17 Thank you.

18 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, thank you both.

19 Okay next we would like to ask Jonathan Ward

20 and John Sullivan to please come forward -- Jonathan

21 Ward and John Sullivan.

22 Good afternoon, gentlemen.

23 MR. WARD: Good afternoon. My name is

24 Jonathan Ward, J-O-N-A-T-H-A-N W-A-R-D.

25 I am a professor at the University -- I'm an

168

1 environmental toxicologist and a professor at the

2 University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. I'm

3 the director of the division of environmental

4 toxicology and deputy director of the National

5 Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Toxicology

6 Center at UTMB.

7 A central focus of my research for the last

8 15 years has been to understand the mechanisms of

9 genetic toxicity of 1,3-butadiene in exposed humans and

10 in animal models.

11 In 2005 I served as a member of the Houston

12 Mayor Bill White's Task Force on Health Affects of Air

13 Pollution. I was also a co-author of the report "The

14 Control of Air Toxics, Toxicology Motivation and

15 Houston Implications," which evaluated the science

16 supporting the risk assessments developed for four

17 hazardous air pollutants, benzene, 1,3-butadiene,

18 diesel particulate and formaldehyde.

19 The opinions I express today are solely my

20 own based on many years of experience as an

21 environmental toxicologist. They do not represent the

22 views of my employer or other colleagues.

23 I'm concerned about the appropriateness of

24 basing an acceptable lifetime exposure to hazardous air

25 pollutants on a attributable risk for cancer mortality

169

1 of one in 10,000 for persons living in the vicinity of

2 the emitting industrial facilities.

3 The proposed NESHAP for petroleum refineries

4 proposed rule states that this benchmark risk level was

5 originally developed for the benzene NESHAP in 1988.

6 The EPA risk assessments associate this level of risk

7 with exposures to benzene of between four and 14 parts

8 per billion and with exposures to butadiene of about

9 1.3 parts per billion.

10 I have several concerns about the use of the

11 one in 10,00 risk level as an adequate margin of safety

12 for several reasons.

13 First, in the industrial areas of Houston, as

14 you can see right here, we have industrial facilities

15 in residential communities in close proximity placing a

16 large population living near a facility. So a one in

17 10,000 risk level almost guarantees that some

18 individuals will be harmed. This does not provide an

19 adequate margin of safety.

20 Second, the number and variety of facilities

21 in the Houston Ship Channel result in the simultaneous

22 emission of multiple air toxics into the air shed. If

23 several one in 10,000 risk levels are added together,

24 they sum to an even less acceptable level of health

25 risk.

170

1 Third, the people living near the facilities

2 that release toxic air pollutants predominantly have

3 lower incomes and represent ethnic and racial

4 minorities more than the population of the Houston

5 region as a whole. They are co-exposed to cumulative

6 risks associated with poor living conditions, diet,

7 lifestyle, working conditions and access to medical

8 care that place them at further risk of serious medical

9 conditions.

10 Finally, there is simply an issue of social

11 justice. Why should individuals living near industrial

12 facilities be expected to tolerate exposures to risks

13 that 100 times greater than the risk level one in one

14 million that the proposed rule states is a goal for the

15 greatest number of persons.

16 General background exposure levels for the

17 Houston metropolitan area are at levels that are

18 consistent with estimated lifetime risks of about one

19 in 100,000.

20 In the almost 20 years since the benzene

21 NESHAP was developed, we have learned a great deal

22 about the mechanisms of toxicity of benzene, butadiene

23 and other toxic air pollutants, and we are continuing

24 to learn more through advances in biomedical research.

25 I believe it would be a serious mistake for the EPA to

171

1 rely on 20 year old science to establish a rule that

2 may be made obsolete by continuing research in the near

3 future.

4 I urge you to reconsider the use of the one

5 in 10,000 risk benchmark and develop an approach that

6 can be sustained in the future.

7 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you.

8 MR. SULLIVAN: Good afternoon. My name is

9 John Sullivan, J-O-H-N S-U-L-L-I-V-A-N.

10 And I would like to thank the EPA for framing

11 this event by having it here in Manchester. Echoing

12 what Jane Laping referred to, this is an environmental

13 justice community. It fits the paradigm very closely,

14 and everybody gets a chance to see one if they haven't

15 ever been in one.

16 I grew up in Oil City, Pennsylvania, which

17 was the home of the very first John D. Rockefeller

18 petrochemical complex, Pennzoil and Quaker State it

19 ultimately became. And I know what it's like to live

20 in a community where the air smells like it often does

21 here, and where you're exposed to multiple sources,

22 multiple point sources in a chemical stew that you --

23 this is your ambient air; this is how you live.

24 And I'd like to once again thank the EPA for

25 all the work they put into environmental justice,

172

1 because I'm just paging through insuring risk reduction

2 in communities with multiple stressors, which is

3 something we use a lot in our work. I work with Dr.

4 Ward at UTMB, but also you developed a cumulative risk

5 index analysis, the environmental load profile, the

6 risk meaning environmental indicators, RSEI tool, the

7 environmental justice geographic assessment tool, and

8 now the new EJ seat, the strategic enforcement and

9 assessment tool.

10 These are great things, and we do use them,

11 especially this idea of vulnerability. And

12 vulnerability is something that we are surrounded by

13 here in this community. And this vulnerability that's

14 based on susceptibility, it's based on differential

15 exposure because people here really do have a different

16 level of constant and daily exposure than people in

17 other parts of Houston.

18 Differential preparedness, and this is where

19 we look at the social indicators of health. Many of

20 those social indicators don't look so good in

21 communities that are on the fence line of a

22 petrochemical refinery neighbor. And that has to be

23 considered when you're setting NESHAP standards.

24 And the last thing, the differential ability

25 to recover from the kinds of environmental assaults

173

1 that you get on a daily basis, it is much more

2 difficult for an individual, for a family and for a

3 community to bounce back from such a thing.

4 And I do believe that to be consistent with

5 all the fine work the EPA has put into EJ, and really

6 you are, you know, sort of the state-of-the-art in many

7 ways in that concept in this nation. It would behoove

8 you to factor more of that into the NESHAP standard. I

9 would like to know how much of that actually was

10 factored into it. How many environmental justice

11 indicators were considered when you were setting the

12 idea that these people here don't deserve a more

13 scrupulous and stronger standard of regulation than

14 people living elsewhere who maybe don't need it as

15 much.

16 And, you know, this is something you really

17 have to focus on, because you look at a place like West

18 Port Arthur. West Port Arthur has a lot of problems

19 with constant emissions, but also safety and huge

20 emission events happening quite regularly, and I don't

21 think this standard would be adequate to protect them.

22 This happens here, not as often, but it

23 happens here also. So I would really like you to think

24 about that, when you're taking this back and chewing on

25 all the commentary you've gotten from public, maybe

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1 this could be something that would guide you in setting

2 the NESHAP.

3 Thank you.

4 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you both Mr. Sullivan

5 and Mr. Ward. Thank you both.

6 Gentlemen, if you'd hold on please. There's

7 one question.

8 MR. HUSTVEDT: Mr. Sullivan?

9 MR. SULLIVAN: Yes?

10 MR. HUSTVEDT: Could you provide information?

11 You talked about emission events in the Port Arthur

12 area that you felt were especially bad. Can you -- and

13 provide comments, provide information on that for the

14 record?

15 MR. SULLIVAN: I'll put you in contact with

16 Hilton Telly, who is the executive director of

17 Community and Power and Development Association. He

18 not only catalogues these events, but he's often out

19 there going through the community to alert people,

20 because they don't have a care line. They don't have

21 an adequate way of informing each other that

22 something's happened. And I do -- what was it,

23 Jonathan -- how long ago that the huge butadiene leak

24 happened and there was an ethylene-butadiene fire?

25 What was that three weeks ago?

175

1 MR. WARD: Yes.

2 MR. SULLIVAN: Okay. This is a fairly

3 regular phenomenon. I wouldn't mention it otherwise,

4 but I will provide that for you, sure.

5 MR. HUSTVEDT: Okay, thank you.

6 MR. THOMPSON: Okay, again, thanks.

7 Next we'd like to ask Robert Levy and David

8 Marrack. Please come forward. David Marrack.

9 MR. LEVY: Good afternoon, gentlemen.

10 MR. THOMPSON: Good afternoon.

11 MR. LEVY: I'm Robert Levy. That's spelled L-

12 E-V-Y.

13 And I represent Industry Professionals for

14 Clean Air, which is Houston group of petroleum industry

15 professionals who are concerned about the quality of

16 our region's air and the slow pace in making

17 improvement. I personally an a chemical engineer with

18 a doctorate and worked in the oil industry for my

19 entire career.

20 Over the past few years, our group has

21 focused on emissions from industrial flares which we

22 believe are major and underestimated source of

23 pollutants. Our group wishes to point out that EPA has

24 failed to do what is needed in developing a NESHAP rule

25 making with regard to flares. They have not analyzed

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1 recent developments and controls and management

2 practices nor have they required refineries to use the

3 controls and practices that have been proven successful

4 in some of the best performing refineries.

5 The current MACT allows refineries to use

6 flares as control devices for vent gases from storage

7 vessels, wastewater, equipment leaks, gasoline loading

8 racks and tank vessel loading. EPA failed to evaluate

9 any more stringent flaring limits. This is despite,

10 one, more stringent flaring regulations in Texas, the

11 Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the South

12 Coast Air Quality Management District where 37 of the

13 country's 145 operating refineries are located.

14 Secondly, EPA's own recommendations for flaring

15 alternatives in its 1999 episodic reduction initiative.

16 Third, numerous recent flaring incidents -- I'm sorry -

17 - numerous recent EPA consent decrees that require

18 flare minimization plans and root cause analysis of

19 flaring incidents. And fourth, the success of a number

20 of refineries at reducing flare emissions through

21 recovery and recycling of vent gases and the use of

22 specific flare management practices and minimization

23 plans.

24 At a minimum EPA had an obligation to

25 evaluate these developments and practices and processes

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1 and control technologies and to explain any

2 determination that such developments should not be

3 incorporated into the refinery MACT standards.

4 Certainly no review of refinery emission

5 controls is adequate without a review of technological

6 alternatives to flaring such as recovery and recycling

7 of excess gases, the use of flare minimization plans

8 and root cause analyses to reduce flaring and

9 monitoring techniques for more accurately estimating

10 emissions and their associated health risks.

11 It was essential to reduce the volume of case

12 going through a flare in order to minimize flaring

13 emissions. Therefore, for existing and new sources,

14 the refinery MACT should require installation of

15 sufficient case recovery system capacity to recycle

16 excess gas from base load operations, including vent

17 gases, routine shutdowns and modest upsets. Flaring

18 should be limited to emergency upset conditions.

19 Many existing refineries have installed and

20 use flare gas recovery systems. As of 2002, 25 of the

21 bay area's 31 flares had compressors. A number of

22 states require the use of flare gas recovery systems.

23 And EPA itself has recognized that routine flaring

24 should be eliminated.

25 Here are some examples of successes.

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1 Tesoro's Golden Eagle Refinery installed two flare gas

2 compressors in 2003 that reduced routine flaring by 90

3 percent and reduced emissions by 94 percent.

4 Flint Hills Resources installed flare gas

5 recovery in addition to implementing flare gas audits

6 and slower startups and shutdowns and reduced flare

7 time by 88 percent over approximately four years.

8 The South Coast estimated it's Rule 1118

9 would reduce flare emissions including associated HAP

10 emissions by over 50 percent. Flare gas recovery

11 systems are clearly practical methods for reducing

12 hazardous emissions and should be included in any

13 refinery MACT. Yet, EPA failed to even consider

14 requirements for installation of adequate flare gas

15 recovery capacity and limits on flaring in this

16 refinery residual risk rule making.

17 The refinery NESHAP should require refiners

18 to develop flare minimization plans. Such plans are

19 currently required both by the South Coast and the Bay

20 Area Air Quality Management Districts. The Bay Area

21 rule prohibits flaring as consistent with refinery

22 flare minimization plan unless the flaring is caused by

23 an emergency and the flaring is necessary to prevent an

24 accident, hazardous or the release of vent gas directly

25 to the atmosphere. The plans are subject to public

179

1 comment and Bay Area approval, Bay Area Air Quality

2 Management approval.

3 The South Coast District requires refiners to

4 development similar flare minimization plans if flare

5 emission limits are exceeded in any year.

6 The refinery NESHAP should require refiners

7 to develop and comply with flare minimization plans.

8 The plans should include all feasible flare reduction

9 measures including operational procedures such as solar

10 vessel depressurization.

11 A number of states require refineries to

12 conduct root cause analysis of their flaring events.

13 EPA itself is requiring investigations, reporting and

14 corrective action for refinery hydrocarbon flaring

15 events in its refinery new source consent decrees. The

16 refinery NESHAP should require refineries to conduct

17 root cause analysis and to implement corrective actions

18 for all flaring events.

19 Our written comments will include additional

20 details and appropriate references.

21 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you.

22 MR. MARRACK: I'm David Marrack, M-A-R-R-A-C-

23 K, a physician, retired this year after 60 years in

24 practice. I served in clinics in Deer Park and

25 Pasadena.

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1 The problem of impact of air pollutants on

2 the communities is very August when you work there. I

3 also noticed it from many occasions driving to those

4 clinics, coming from the West Loop, 610 West Loop.

5 The statistics you have about impact or air

6 pollutants on children and adults are grossly

7 fallacious, because for the simple reason, there's no

8 record that these clinics have. They don't keep

9 records for your benefit. They have no insurance.

10 They pay cash or pay nothing. They'll get medications

11 either the result of buying them or from donations

12 generously made by pharmaceutical companies as samples

13 which we give out.

14 So you have no data as to what in fact is

15 going on. It is absurd to set a one in a 10,000 or a

16 one in a 100,000 as a criteria for health affects, one

17 in a million. You can't go outside and shoot someone

18 in this state without getting caught and paying a

19 penalty. This should not be occurring.

20 And what's more healthy individuals and

21 workers are not the appropriate individuals to be

22 studying. You should be studying fetuses. They're

23 much more sensitive to toxic chemicals giving rise to

24 mental retardation problems, low birth weight and

25 interestingly enough there's some evidence accumulating

181

1 that practically all the cancers in children under a --

2 or younger people under 18 -- are associated with

3 poisoning in the uterus.

4 The data for this to extend beyond the age

5 18. It may be that others out there beyond are also

6 affected, but the accumulating evidence are that those

7 exposures are responsible for many of the children

8 cancers and teen cancers.

9 The problem that these two things you need to

10 address specifically are the cooling towers for

11 ethylene, propylene and butadiene plants or units.

12 These things are commonly volcanoes of reactive VOC's,

13 and the reason being that the heat exchangers leak,

14 leak badly often and nothing is done about it.

15 Many plants their monitoring of the

16 concentration of VOC's in the water going to the

17 cooling tower is insensitive to pick up what in fact is

18 happening when the flow is 250,000 gallons or more per

19 minute. You need detectors that look at the .1 PPB on

20 a routine basis. That's doable, but it's not used but

21 basically.

22 The whole process of cooling towers needs to

23 be reviewed. There are ways of reducing those

24 emissions either by having backup compressors and heat

25 exchangers. Bay Area or you may want to degas the

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1 liquid water going to the tower before it gets to the

2 cooling tower, the partition co-efficient for VOC's is

3 ethylene, propylene et cetera is about one to -- or two

4 to 98 percent in favor of going into the air.

5 The flare problem, this is utterly absurd.

6 EPA study of flares is an utter disgrace. They used

7 only one fuel. They used no way -- and wanted

8 conditions like cross winds or mixed fuels, and in fact

9 their figure of 98 percent efficiency is absolutely

10 false. Practical levels would be and flares in the

11 reality may be around 90 percent, and when the wind

12 blows, it goes down to 75 or 80 percent. We need

13 proper monitoring of what goes into the flare, the

14 chemistry. We need proper flow monitors near the

15 flares so you know what the mix is from the various

16 units putting gases into the flare. You need FDIR to

17 make what is in the flare coming out and also cameras

18 to see when the thing is smoking. You shouldn't see

19 operators going outside to see when it's smoking. They

20 can't do that in life in any case. This is what goes

21 on.

22 What you do is, one, you don't flare.

23 There's a way Dr. Levy pointed out it can be reduced

24 about 90 percent. The first thing you do is require

25 every flare, flaring event to be reported in this state

183

1 to TCEQ in writing within 48 hours as to why you had to

2 flare to protect the plant. There were no other

3 alternatives. There is no reason for these enormous

4 amounts of flaring.

5 The other part of this is we need proper

6 analysis of what in fact is burnt. That we don't have

7 today either.

8 The problem of floating tank, storage tanks,

9 there was a federal suit in Corpus Christi against one

10 of the plants because the emissions from their storage

11 tanks with floating roofs with no cover over the top.

12 It's been known for years, and it's absurd that you

13 still permit tanks without covers over them and removal

14 of the gases as they occur in the top there. And you

15 don't flare them. You either put them back into the

16 process heater as a part of the fuel or alternatively,

17 go into the feedstock. The situation is not

18 acceptable and there's no reason for it.

19 The problems of fugitive emissions and for

20 that matter all emissions from flares and cooling

21 towers should be included in the permit limit for the

22 plant, and they should be enforced.

23 The situation in a flare at Exxon a few years

24 back, which I reported in the paper a few years back,

25 is utterly absurd. It should never have occurred. The

184

1 plant should be shut down. You don't want to shut the

2 plant down. The answer is put in proper backup

3 systems.

4 The complaint of industry or whine of about

5 having only six months to get things in order, they've

6 had 35 years and six months. That was when the Clean

7 Air Act was passed. They should have plan B and plan C

8 in place and operated them many decades ago. The

9 situation is unacceptable, and you have not done your

10 job either. You need to get cracking on cutting down

11 these emissions that happens to exist in areas

12 particularly bad, and you need to use fetuses as your

13 standard.

14 The other problems, all fugitive emissions

15 must be included within the permit limit, and I'll be

16 pleased to answer any questions.

17 MR. THOMPSON: Any questions from the panel?

18 Okay. Thank you for your comments, sir.

19 Okay, we'd like to ask now that Carlos Adames

20 and Rhonda Radliff please come forward.

21 Good afternoon to you both.

22 MR. ADAMES: Good afternoon. My name is

23 Carlos Adames, A-D-A-M-E-S.

24 I am here to seek out EPA justice. I don't

25 have a speech like the others that come forth, and I'm

185

1 just going to put it in simple words.

2 I've been a resident here for at least 30

3 years. I'm trying to give you some kind of insight

4 that we're experiencing here. In fact I live about two

5 blocks down. I'm in the battle zone.

6 We've been seeking justice through the city.

7 We went through the fundamentals, calling the 311

8 system, getting the city to come out, the city

9 inspectors, to go ahead and look into our situation.

10 It's a slow process.

11 And we ask the EPA to help us in any way that

12 you can. Now it's a cat and mouse game because every

13 time they come out and everything else, the local

14 refineries when they act up and knowing that somebody's

15 trying to look on them to see if they can monitor them

16 and everything else, they slow down their production

17 rate or they shut it down completely. So it's kind of

18 hard to catch them.

19 And we have one particular recycling company

20 which we are in the process through the civil club to

21 try to resolve them. We know we've got to be good

22 neighbors with them and everything else, and I'm on the

23 other refineries as well. They have contributed to the

24 community as well. So it's not really all negative,

25 but in the same token, they are polluting the air.

186

1 Now of the residents are experiencing upper

2 respiratory infections skin irritations, mild

3 headaches, eyes, things of that sort. And depending on

4 the cross wind and everything else, how the wind blows.

5 Some days you've got good days; it doesn't bother you

6 that much, but then the bad days. You have smoke that

7 actually come out to the streets. You have vibrations

8 of a recycling company that is continuously crushing up

9 automobiles. It has a bad smell of we say oil and

10 transmission and radiator, all this. And we have city

11 inspectors, they not only cited them once but twice,

12 and as far as we know by hearsay, yeah, we have cited

13 them; we have talked to them, but we're only issuing

14 warning citations.

15 Also as well the noise itself, it's

16 unreasonable. They have worked after business hours

17 and continue throughout the night. We called through

18 the 311 system. They refer us to HPD. HPD comes out

19 and says "okay, we have a noise meter," that's fine,

20 but not very many police officers have that. And then

21 they say again "we cannot cite a company; we can't cite

22 a personal person -- an employee there to be held

23 responsible." So that's a dead end for us.

24 So we're asking ya'll to help us and continue

25 helping us. We're asking the news media to continue.

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1 We're doing everything that we can, and it's a long

2 process. We know it's a long fight. So we ask of

3 ya'll to do anything that you can help us in this

4 community.

5 A lot of people here do not have health

6 insurance. They're getting sick and everything else.

7 And it's true, its going and going further out. It's

8 hitting our schools and it's not fair to them that they

9 have to go to school and play on the playgrounds and

10 everything else, why should they be exposed to this

11 even though they might be exposed here in our

12 neighborhood and they cannot go and say right now it's

13 not our problem because it's not affecting us. It'll

14 be their problem the day after, because it's not only

15 exposing this area like the speakers ahead of us, it's

16 going out, further out.

17 And we've got to address this because we're

18 getting other people from other civic clubs coming out

19 to our civic meetings and everything else and saying

20 "let's do something about it."

21 So we ask for justice and we ask you to help

22 us any way you can. Thank you very much.

23 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you for comments, thank

24 you.

25 MS. RADLIFF: Good afternoon.

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1 MR. THOMPSON: Good afternoon.

2 MS. RADLIFF: My name is Rhonda Radliff, R-H-

3 O-N-D-A R-A-D-L-I-F-F.

4 I'm a native Houstonian. I'm here today to

5 speak for more stringent implementation of the Clean

6 Air Act regulations to reduce risks associated with

7 refinery pollutants.

8 I am in favor of the most stringent options

9 of the proposed amendments, but it's not enough.

10 Effective EPA monitoring enforcement is a must. Laws

11 that are not fully implemented are a crime against the

12 people.

13 Today is a very important day in my life.

14 November 27th will be remembered like the day my

15 daughter was adopted or my graduation from Georgetown.

16 Today is the first day of my chemotherapy treatment for

17 a form of leukemia that some say can be caused by

18 exposure to benzene.

19 The DNA I was born with comes from a long

20 line of folks who lived well into their 90's. However,

21 they didn't live in one of the nation's localized areas

22 of concern to use your term or a chemical hotspot.

23 Now after decades of exposure to benzene and

24 other toxins, my DNA has been changed. Pieces of my

25 DNA have actually swapped places creating leukemia.

189

1 Most likely this leukemia will kill me. I feel like

2 this is rape at the DNA level.

3 Having a system that functions properly has

4 been taken away from me by a possibly exposure to toxic

5 chemicals. For about 20 years I have had tumors in my

6 breast with some requiring surgery. I have also had

7 three uterine tumor surgeries taking away my ability to

8 have children. I have also had three pre-cancerous

9 tumors removed from my colon before I was 42.

10 Since our bodies don't know what to do with

11 toxic chemicals, we begin to create tumors and odd

12 dysfunctions.

13 I have never worked in a factory or a

14 refinery nor have I worked with heavy machinery, diesel

15 engines, cars or at gas stations.

16 How was I exposed? I was raised in Houston,

17 and until I went to college I lived in the same house

18 about three miles from the ship channel. I attended

19 public schools in Houston. Milby High School, just

20 around the corner from here, and Deady Junior High

21 about half a mile from there.

22 My childhood home and my schools were about

23 three miles or less from Milby Park, a known hotspot

24 for benzene and other pollutants in Harris and Houston

25 area.

190

1 Now I know that children living within three

2 miles of the ship channel have a 56 percent greater

3 chance of getting leukemia. The air quality in our

4 Houston region is much worse than the EPA standards.

5 Data proves that our toxic air causes 70 new cancer

6 patients to be diagnosed per one million persons.

7 Therefore, in our area of five million people, we can

8 expect 350 of us to get cancer caused by our

9 outrageously bad air toxins. I believe I am one of

10 those 350 people.

11 The impact of cancer both physical and

12 financial is magnified by the psychological impact of

13 having one your midst who is suffering. When I suffer,

14 my daughter suffers. My family and friends and I

15 believe my community.

16 Speaking for each of this year's 350 new

17 cancer patients caused by toxins, we have hundreds of

18 people who love us and who are suffering with us. We

19 are bearing the physical burden and the financial

20 burdens of cancer caused by the lack of effective

21 action by the industries creating pollution and the EPA

22 to force compliance with laws that already exist and

23 that began in 1963, such as the Clean Air Act.

24 When I miss work as the sole provider of

25 income in my home, which refinery will help me pay the

191

1 bills. When chemo takes my energy, and I can't make it

2 to my daughter's basketball games, who will be there

3 for her? When I'm getting bone marrow tests, vials and

4 vials of blood drawn, x-rays and exams, who is paying

5 for them or finishing my responsibilities at my job or

6 at home. It won't be the energy companies, and it

7 won't be the EPA. But who is protecting the bottom

8 line? The energy companies.

9 My illness and sickness and the deaths of

10 thousands are calculated risks that polluters,

11 politicians, regulators acknowledge and seem willing to

12 accept and as using your term, the ample margin of

13 safety.

14 The EPA representatives have been quoted as

15 saying they are here today to address issues of public

16 health technology and listen to public opinion. Does

17 the public really know about all the risks? I bet if

18 you took a walk through my old neighborhood, 99 percent

19 of them do not know that their children have a 56

20 percent greater chance of getting leukemia just because

21 of where they live.

22 To make matters worse, it seems that the

23 Louisiana refineries are operating barrel-for-barrel

24 than the Texas refineries. If the technology is out

25 there and it's known how to operate cleaner, how can

192

1 we, an American and the EPA, still could be accepting

2 less than the best available technology?

3 Houston was known for innovation, space,

4 energy, biotech and an entrepreneurial spirit of people

5 who took on challenges and sent lesser folks packing.

6 I don't think we got to the moon by accepting less than

7 the best. Houstonians and our government accepted a

8 challenge and got to the moon. Innovative people and

9 technology rose to the occasion. Why is ridding the

10 toxins from our air any different?

11 Trust me, I want great minds solving the

12 mystery of cancer, and in fact my life depends upon it.

13 But more importantly, I want great minds and people

14 with great integrity to address and resolve the issues

15 of air toxins. Cleaning our air and environment will

16 reap far more benefits for the generations to come than

17 curing my personal cancer.

18 Really? It's been 40 years since the Clean

19 Air Act, and we are still trying to measure the problem

20 so we can trade stocks and pollution and blame each

21 other for whose polluting belongs to whom?

22 Growing up I heard many times that the plants

23 would be better if the presidents and CEO's of the

24 companies had to live at the entrance of the plant.

25 Everyone would laugh knowing that that wouldn't happen.

193

1 As a kid, I never understood why one person's family

2 was more important than another's family, and I still

3 don't.

4 I'm not demonizing the energy business. But

5 effectively the refineries and the port businesses have

6 moved the cost of not improving their toxic emissions

7 over to the citizens, to me. Waiting to make

8 improvements may save the bottom line and increase

9 profits of the oil and gas industry, but it will cause

10 me and my family to go into bankruptcy within 12 months

11 of getting leukemia. I am paying the tax and the fine

12 for the companies to have a better bottom line while I

13 wait in line to see the cancer specialist.

14 With soaring profits and a seemingly ever

15 increasing demand for energy, I'm must admit I find it

16 hard to understand why the EPA is willing to allow

17 industries so many regulatory extension. It always

18 seems to be in the favor of the industry rather than

19 the people.

20 I remember talking about the Clean Air Act in

21 grade school and celebrating what it would do for our

22 community, the community that your sitting in. Soon we

23 thought there would be improvements, and there may have

24 been some, but we should be ahead of the curve 40 years

25 later, not still below the minimum standard.

194

1 Jonathan Ward was quoted in the Houston

2 Chronicle as saying "People living in industrial areas

3 bare a risk of cancer that is 500 to 1,000 times higher

4 than the goals set in the Clean Air Act. Of course,

5 for those of you who don't live in these areas, you can

6 have a risk as low as only 200 times higher than the

7 goal set out in the Clean Air Act. Is this our best?

8 Is this our legacy for our children?

9 My parents wrote letters, talked to

10 representatives, held meetings and were told that the

11 plants were only emitting steam. It was a very common

12 and predictable response. It's just steam.

13 We also heard "our facility is in compliance

14 with the appropriate regulations" for 40 years. We as

15 a whole community, myself included, have not done

16 enough to reduce the risk of cancer caused by

17 pollutants. I don't believe that the plants will close

18 or move, because they're required to do what's right to

19 protect the community, the workers and the generations

20 to come. I don't believe that any of us would want our

21 stocks or retirement funds to have greater profits that

22 sacrifice lives and communities for an extra 25 cents

23 per share. I believe we, the taxpayers, the plant

24 workers, managers, politicians, regulatory agencies and

25 stock owners can do better so the children can play

195

1 outside without risking their life.

2 I believe that necessity is the mother of

3 invention, so if industries require regulations, fines,

4 laws and lawsuits to make improvements, so be it.

5 Please toxic air is violently stealing my

6 future and most likely yours as well. Implement the

7 strictest regulations and do not grant extensions on

8 deadlines. Act now and don't wait another 40 years and

9 allow thousands of lives to be disrupted by air toxins.

10 Thank you for your time.

11 MR. THOMPSON: Ms. Radliff, thank you for

12 your testimony.

13 At this time we'd like to ask Representative

14 Ana Hernandez to please come forward.

15 Good afternoon.

16 REPRESENTATIVE HERNANDEZ: Good afternoon.

17 My name is Ana Hernandez, A-N-A H-E-R-N-A-N-D-E-Z.

18 And I am the state representative that

19 represents this area.

20 But first I'd like to start with my personal

21 story. I grew near here in Pasadena. Pasadena is just

22 down 225, and I invite each one of you before you leave

23 if you'll take a drive down 225 before you head to the

24 airport, so you can see first hand what our community

25 has to live through.

196

1 Pasadena is surrounded by refineries. As a

2 matter of fact, my dad works at a refinery. So I

3 understand that a lot of the constituents work at these

4 refineries and their livelihood depends on these

5 businesses, but I think we need to have a proper

6 balance with business and public health and protecting

7 the public, and I think that is has been lax in the

8 last years. And I'm kind of astonished that it's been

9 12 years since these regulations have been reviewed.

10 12 years where there has been new technology, pollution

11 controls and yet the option one, the recommendation is

12 to make no change, and I just don't understand that.

13 After hearing all of the testimony we've

14 heard today from the community when we at the office

15 received a lot of phone calls from constituents

16 complaining about the air quality that they can't go

17 outside; that their children can't play outside; that

18 they have respiratory problems. And we encouraged them

19 to come today to share their stories with you about how

20 -- what their life is like living on the fence line.

21 A lot of them were hear earlier, but a lot of

22 them have to work all day, maybe even two jobs and

23 can't be here. So I'm their voice today to emphasize

24 the importance that everyone be treated fairly.

25 And I'm also astonished that they have a

197

1 different standard, because they live on the fence

2 line. I understand if you have buffer zones in maybe

3 communities that don't live so close, but you can see

4 outside, I mean, you know, like I said, if you drive

5 down 225, you'll see how close these communities live

6 to the refineries and lived there for generations.

7 I said I grew up in Pasadena and in this

8 community and plan to continue in this community and

9 raise my children in this community. I want it to be

10 safe for them. I want them to be able to go outside

11 and not have to worry about the air that they're

12 breathing.

13 Now at the state level, we are trying the

14 best that we can to pass legislation to implement more

15 stringent standards for effective screening levels, for

16 fence line monitoring. Nothing has passed through the

17 legislature. I mean the political wall is just not

18 there right now. We don't get hearings on our bills.

19 And this important; I mean important enough that you've

20 had a hearing here; important enough that the national

21 media has covered it. Anderson Cooper at CNN did a

22 story here in the Manchester community. I mean if it's

23 gotten national attention on how bad the air quality is

24 here, I think we need to make some change.

25 I agree with option two, but we need more.

198

1 But you see the clusters at facilities that are nearby,

2 I mean these are affecting people's lives, the air.

3 You cannot review just one facility in isolation. You

4 have to review the total impact, the cumulative affect

5 that it has on the community here as well.

6 I really feel for my constituents in that

7 they have to continue living here. They don't have

8 options. You can't say well why don't they move. You

9 heard earlier the statistics that MACT gave in that

10 they have a higher percentages of families living here

11 in Manchester with children in their homes. The lady

12 that was here this morning said she had five children

13 under the age of 18 living at home and the average

14 household income being $31,000. That means a lot of

15 these families don't have health insurance. If their

16 child has respiratory problems, leukemia, they have

17 nowhere to go.

18 So imagine that. As you make your

19 recommendation, think of the families that you've heard

20 stories from today and how it is affecting their lives.

21 One in one million, one in 10,000, they're not just

22 numbers. They are lives, and I'm here asking you to

23 please save those lives.

24 Thank you.

25 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you.

199

1 Okay, at the time we currently do not have

2 any speakers scheduled, so if there's anyone here who

3 would like to speak, you're welcome to do so now.

4 Otherwise, we'll take a break. Anyone? Okay, and

5 we'll break for how long, Kelly? Okay, well break time

6 it is.

7 (Off the record from 3:22 p.m. to 4:09 p.m.)

8 MR. THOMPSON: At this time we'd like to ask

9 Loren Raun and Mayor Bill White to please come forward

10 at the table here. Thank you.

11 Good afternoon, and thank you both for

12 joining us.

13 MAYOR WHITE: Sure. And if you could,

14 perhaps I'll make a brief statement and turn it over to

15 Dr. Raun, and we're available to answer any questions.

16 MR. THOMPSON: Sure.

17 MAYOR WHITE: I really thank the EPA for

18 holding this field hearing.

19 This is a very important topic for this

20 community. We asked the scientist, the health

21 scientist in this community, examine the literature

22 that existed, and identify for us the chemicals that

23 were present in our air where they believe that there

24 was a definite risk to human health. We found a lot of

25 chemicals, a couple of hundred different chemicals that

200

1 were in the air, and they identified about a dozen in

2 that category.

3 Some of our air toxics, in particular, we

4 have focused on 1,3-butadiene and benzene that we feel

5 are chemicals that are found in excessive quantities in

6 our air, and we believe that using modern processes and

7 process chemical engineering plant operations, some

8 relatively modest and concrete changes could be made in

9 the operation of certain facilities that would bring

10 down the level of benzene and 1,3-butadiene emissions

11 to levels that are within an acceptable health risk of

12 our community.

13 We note that the great industry where you're

14 right near the heart of the American process industry

15 is important and in our national interests. We know

16 that it is important for the standard of living for

17 Americans, and too often the industry is demonized for

18 selling products that consumers want.

19 But we also know that, for example, when we

20 had the statute in the early 1990's and there were some

21 rules on air toxics, that we saw a significant

22 reduction in the ambient concentration, for example,

23 benzene in this air shed, and that we have not seen any

24 sort of the reduction leveled out over the last seven

25 years, and we need to do better. And that's simply

201

1 based on reported sources, and we know from work that

2 you've probably heard about that there are many cases

3 where we exceed the permitted levels and there are, you

4 know, intra-day and intra-hour levels of emissions that

5 are unacceptable.

6 At this site across from us you're near a

7 Valero facility where there has been a tremendous

8 amount of upgrading and improvement that have resulted

9 in a reduction in the emissions.

10 I know; I was the chairman of an engineering

11 construction company that did a lot of work in the

12 refining/petrochemical industry. I'm not demonizing

13 that industry at all, but I do know this, that there's

14 no chemical or process engineering chart that I've ever

15 seen which says that you must vent benzene into the

16 atmosphere.

17 You know there's plenty of charts that show

18 that you use, you know, you've got to use something and

19 reduce atmosphere as the input gas. So, you know, with

20 an oxidization direction, you're going to have some

21 compounds like NOx. Right?

22 But nothing says you've got to vent benzene

23 into the atmosphere, and that's a recoverable

24 substance. And I think the industry is capable, given

25 some time and some standards for doing better. The

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1 ambient air monitoring data that Dr. Raun I know will

2 talk in part about shows that we have a problem.

3 Now I know that you are collecting some data

4 about our MACT standards. I'll just make a couple of

5 comments. There's atmospheres, there's air toxins,

6 there's human organs such as the skin and the lungs. I

7 don't think we have biological markers that segregate

8 substances by their permitted source. Do you?

9 So, if we're going to say we're about doing

10 things based on science which many people in the

11 industry, including me when I was in public -- or, you

12 know, I agreed with industry's position that we ought

13 to have more science-based regulation in certain

14 aspects -- but if we're going to use science and our

15 brains to dictate a regulation or rule making and we

16 have some data showing what the cumulative affect of

17 large volume concentrated emitters are in a fairly

18 small area that can be detected by one monitor where we

19 -- and we can model the air currents -- then we should

20 not stick our head in the sand and ignore what the

21 cumulative impact of multiple sources of benzene some

22 of the HAPS are.

23 That's not to say that every source that may

24 contribute to ambient levels within the air shed need

25 to be considered if the methodology is too cumbersome

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1 or that there are other issues in other proceedings,

2 for example, fuel formulation standards, café

3 standards, engine standards, that may govern the amount

4 of benzene and other olefins or air toxins from mobile

5 sources, but when we're dealing with stationary

6 sources, unless we're just going to say this is, you

7 know, pretend world, we ought to look at the science of

8 what's in the atmosphere, where does it come from,

9 where you have an abundant of that, as we do in this

10 community concerning the variety of sources.

11 Finally, we have a variety of controls in

12 place throughout this country. There are best

13 practices. You can have available information that we

14 certainly have about what the emissions per barrel a

15 day throughput are on various refining/petrochemical

16 facilities in places in which there are stricter state

17 standards than Texas.

18 And I challenge you or challenge anybody to

19 say that that -- and you can make adjustments for the

20 complexity of the refining process or for the product

21 slate. People within the industry that are good people

22 who will obey and from senior management will try to

23 abide by the rules which are set by regulators, have

24 said publically that the reason for some of those

25 discrepancies between the amount of benzene emitted per

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1 barrel a day throughput here and in other jurisdictions

2 is a difference in a regulatory standard. That's what

3 you would expect.

4 And in considering what the best practice is,

5 I think we ought to use the dictionary to look at

6 "best." The laws of physics are no different than

7 Louisiana and New Jersey and California, neither are

8 the processing engineering, chemical engineer rules.

9 And so whatever is done in facilities which are able to

10 produce less, ought to be the standards, and that

11 includes looking at what we can do for flares and other

12 sources that we know where we may need to tighten up.

13 Thank you very much.

14 MR. THOMPSON: Mayor White, thank you.

15 MS. RAUN: I'm just going to begin with the

16 analysis of the data. And I want to remind you, to set

17 the background a little bit, about our data sources

18 here in Houston and the Houston region.

19 The two constituents that are greatest

20 concern to Houstonians are benzene and 1,3-butadiene,

21 as you know, and they're both class A carcinogens.

22 MR. THOMPSON: Pardon me, Ms. Raun, could you

23 just state your name and spell it for the court

24 reporter, please?

25 MS. RAUN: Okay. Loren Raun.

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1 MR. THOMPSON: Spell.

2 MS. RAUN: L-O-R-E-N R-A-U-N.

3 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you. Please continue.

4 MS. RAUN: Okay. They're both class A

5 carcinogens.

6 And in our area we have more monitoring data

7 than any equivalent spacial location in the United

8 States to our knowledge.

9 We have 17 sites of high quality one-hour

10 auto-GC data. 12 are currently active, and 21 sites of

11 auto-GC data in Texas that collect data every hour.

12 Two of the sites in Houston have been running

13 for 10 years consistently. So we have one-hour data

14 stretching for 10 years at two locations, an additional

15 site for seven years, and seven of our sites have five

16 hears of hourly data, and then we have a couple of

17 newer sites that have three and four years of data.

18 This is a huge step of statistical data available.

19 First, I want to point out the most obvious

20 downfall of a system of evaluating facilities

21 individually and not the area as a whole, and that is

22 the spacial distribution of the facilities.

23 As you can see in this figure that is in

24 front of you, the first figure, the geographical

25 distribution of the 153 sites which were evaluated in

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1 the residual risk assessment, they were chosen because

2 of the emission capacity and the type of source. And

3 of those sites, of the 153 Texas has by far the

4 greatest amount. We have 30 sites in Texas, and

5 actually our county, Harris County, has more sites than

6 almost all the states in the assessment. We have five.

7 This is restricted to only sites that qualify

8 for the MACT NESHAP's residual risk assessment. We

9 actually have, according to TCEQ and EPA emission

10 inventory, we have actually 24 sites in the Harris

11 County region that emit benzene at greater than 10 tons

12 per year, and we have 16 total sites in Harris County

13 that do that. So the five is only a small -- or a

14 subset of that.

15 In addition to the spacial location of the

16 analysis, we have the geographical distribution in

17 terms of the highest concentrations from the residual

18 risk assessment. The highest risks were in our county.

19 If you look at the top 10 MIR numbers and the

20 residual risk assessment, you'll see that 50 percent of

21 those are in Texas. So those are the obvious downfalls

22 of looking on a facility-by-facility basis instead of a

23 more spacial basis.

24 The next thing I'd to address is more in

25 terms of the ambient data. What does the data tell us

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1 about the actual risk Houstonians are incurring?

2 There's a cumulative figure of the percent of year

3 benzene concentrations in ambient air in Dallas and

4 Houston in 2007 year-to-date exceed the one times 10

5 minus five risk level, and that risk level is from

6 OAQPS using the unit risk values.

7 You can see that in Houston, which are blue

8 bars, 40 something percent of the year can be exceeded

9 the 10 minus five risk level is exceeded.

10 And just for comparison purposes, you see

11 Dallas numbers in there. And the reason why we compare

12 ourselves to Dallas is because of the size of our

13 cities and also the vehicle miles traveled is

14 equivalent. Therefore, that when you look at the

15 difference between the concentrations of ambient air in

16 Houston in terms of benzene and in Dallas, the portion

17 that's represented by on-road mobile or vehicle miles

18 traveled is the Dallas concentrations.

19 Another slide, this is another slide showing

20 just exactly what the ambient air indicates to

21 Houstonians and people in our region are being exposed

22 to benzene and/or 1,3-butadiene exceeded the one times

23 10 minus fifth risk level, up to 80 percent of the year

24 based on the monitoring data.

25 The green bars are actual monitoring

208

1 locations that are in the City of Houston. The other

2 ones are near our city or in our region. The highest

3 concentration for this total exposure is at Milby Park,

4 which is actually a park.

5 The next slide is the maximum of the 2007

6 year-to-date benzene concentration. I really -- I did

7 any analysis of all 10 years of benzene ambient data

8 and 1,3-butadiene data. I'm showing here today, right

9 now, the 2007 year-to-date data, because we're talking

10 about current impacts and looking at the, you know, the

11 efficacy of the NESHAP's MACT.

12 With the NESHAP's in place, our maximum at

13 Lynchburg Ferry is 912 parts per billion by volume.

14 The health level 10 to minus five health level is .4.

15 The 10 to minus four point risk level is four, and the

16 10 to minus six is .04. The red line on that chart is

17 the 10 to minus four risk level.

18 The next chart is the mean benzene

19 concentration ambient air in Dallas and Houston. This

20 is the 95th upper confidence limit of the mean, and

21 this is simply to show you again the .4 point, which is

22 the 10 to minus five risk level is exceeded at the blue

23 sites, the blue bars in Houston and the green is

24 Dallas. It's, you know.

25 Okay. That's where we are in terms of the

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1 ambient concentrations and the risk associated with

2 those concentrations.

3 Now I want to talk about what the data tells

4 us about the impact of MACT NESHAP's on the ambient

5 concentration trend, because the residual risk

6 assessment was really about determining if MACT

7 controls helped or were a solution to emissions of

8 hazardous air pollutants and benzene being our

9 priority.

10 The first slide is the benzene emissions as

11 self-reported over time. And what you see in 1988 to

12 2005 is you definitely see a decrease. Between say

13 2000 and 2005, there is not statistically significant

14 decrease in self-reporting emissions.

15 The next slide you're looking at is the 2007

16 mean benzene concentration with a five-year trend. Now

17 I'm showing the five-year trend data, because I think

18 in a five-year window if we were seeing improvements in

19 concentrations associated with MACT controls, we would

20 sees downward trending in the five years.

21 What this -- this chart has several pieces of

22 information on it. The bars represent the 2007 year-to-

23 date benzene concentration and in the mean, so just the

24 concentration is the mean.

25 The color of the bar represents whether that

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1 monitor showed a downward trend in concentration in the

2 past five years. This analysis was done using a non-

3 parametric statistical trend test, which is the

4 appropriate test to do for environmental data, and it

5 was conducted at the, you know, 95 percent air rate

6 level.

7 What this indicates is that we don't see any

8 downward trend, no statistically significant trend in

9 sites like Lynchburg Ferry and actually Channelview,

10 and you can read the blue lines, okay. The gray lines

11 indicate monitors that we have in place which we don't

12 have enough data to evaluate a statistical trend. And

13 the green indicates some improvement.

14 Now when we look at the health of an air

15 shed, what we do is we look at the -- not just the

16 mean, not just the 95th UCL, because we're very

17 interested in the out-layers. This trend analysis and

18 these statistics take into account assessment of seven

19 statistical indicators. The 95th over-competence

20 limit, the median, the maximum, the percent of the year

21 above the 10 to minus five level, the percent of the

22 year above the 10 to minus four level, the percent of

23 the year below the 10 to minus six level, and the

24 median of the upper tail, of the 10 to minus five risk

25 level, what was the median above that level.

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1 Now when all those indicators are evaluated

2 individually with trend tests, if they all showed a

3 downward trend, then that would be wonderful, but the

4 green bars on this chart indicate any of those seven

5 indicators showing an improving, any. And the blue

6 bars indicate absolutely zero of the seven indicators

7 showing a downward trend.

8 So I think that's -- the next slide I wanted

9 to show you was an assessment of the NESHAP's

10 concentrations.

11 We heard some testimony today about the --

12 the residual risk assessment is in terms of modeling,

13 air modeling, a scientifically correct method except

14 for the one main flaw, which is the emission inventory,

15 the use of emission inventory data, not just because

16 it's self-reported, but because it's just necessarily

17 known, the emissions from each of these facilities.

18 So the better use would be to look at the

19 ambient data. The residual risk assessment showed --

20 you'll see the column that says "Risk" and the benzene

21 concentration that was modeled from the emission

22 inventory. That's in the column "Modeled Residual

23 Risk."

24 Okay, let me just tell you how I did it.

25 Basically I have a chart -- yeah, that's it, okay. The

212

1 measured concentration around the monitors was

2 spatially weighted by distance. And so I developed an

3 ambient concentration that was representative of each

4 of the five facilities that were evaluated in the

5 residual risk assessment, and then calculated the risk

6 based on that.

7 Now when you look at the ambient

8 concentrations around the facility versus the

9 concentrations that we use in the risk assessment, both

10 the concentrations and the risk, since they're a one

11 area relationship, are off by somewhere between one in

12 10 times. So the risk we estimate to be at most, based

13 on this analysis, 10 times greater than that posed in

14 the residual risk assessment.

15 The issue with using the ambient data

16 directly is that it does include on-road mobile. So if

17 you subtract out the Dallas concentration as a baseline

18 and you then calculate the risk for Houston from major

19 sources and put those five sources that are in the

20 residual risk assessment, the multiplier of air changes

21 from, you know, 10 being the maximum to six, so it's

22 about six times too low in the residual risk

23 assessment.

24 And if you have questions regarding any of

25 that, I'm available. We've written a report on these

213

1 findings, and we can make that available to you.

2 MR. GUINNUP: Do you have information that

3 suggests that the mobile emissions in Dallas are really

4 comparable to mobile emissions in Houston or --

5 MS. RAUN: Yes. Yes, we do. As a matter of

6 fact, that's something I didn't mention.

7 I did a non-parametric trend analysis for all

8 the indicators, because that is what is appropriate for

9 these kinds of statistics. However, if you look at the

10 slope using like sand slope estimator of the decrease

11 of emissions over time, because as the LEV and the new

12 sources are coming online and the retiring of the old

13 sources, we see emission reductions.

14 The emission reductions for a 10-year trend

15 in Dallas and in Houston, Houston's 10-year trend, we

16 have about two times faster slope for 10 years, because

17 we have the major sources that were greatly reduced

18 like you saw. If you look at the five-year trend, our

19 CERTS are exactly the same. The reductions that are

20 occurring in Dallas because of the vehicles are the

21 same as those that we pick up in our reductions in

22 Houston implying that those are the only reductions

23 that are occurring.

24 MR. GUINNUP: So at any rate, I'm --

25 MS. RAUN: Back to your original question, we have the

214

1 same vehicle miles traveled, yeah, and using on-road

2 mobile, mobile six, that that's -- I don't do that

3 modeling. Carl Pepley of our office does, but yes.

4 They're comparable.

5 MR. GUINNUP: And we do our NATA modeling on

6 some of those emissions as well, mobile estimates for

7 on-road and off-road for benzene, and so we can compare

8 those two. I hadn't thought of doing this, but this is

9 very, very interesting.

10 MS. RAUN: No, I'm very familiar with the

11 NATA modeling, and I --

12 MR. GUINNUP: Okay.

13 MR. THOMPSON: Any other questions? Anything

14 else from the two of you?

15 MAYOR WHITE: I'll just say this that the one

16 purpose for having a public hearing is to lay eyeballs

17 on people and do it in public where you get some

18 comment.

19 The City of Houston is not an interest group.

20 We're the nation's fourth largest city --

21 approximately 2.2 million people within this city, over

22 five million in this metropolitan area.

23 We know our role and appreciate the role that

24 the process industry plays in our economy. The plant

25 that succeeded in bring down it's 1,3-butadiene

215

1 emissions very significantly, after we retained counsel

2 as part of the settlement agreement, is a plant that

3 was built on quick order by our country when we ran out

4 of rubber when there was wartime -- in the events

5 preceding Pearl Harbor. If someone wanted to harm our

6 national interest, we know and other parts of the

7 federal government are very aware that we consider this

8 part of the critical infrastructure of our economy.

9 I have invited anybody to comment to me at

10 any time and to show me some data that they would not

11 be able to stay in business here in America and in

12 Houston if they didn't do a better job of reducing

13 benzene. Nobody has taken me up on that offer.

14 We have had public hearings in which, you

15 know, it would be good for us, it would be sort of like

16 I guess you'd say traditional Chamber of Commerce

17 stuff, if the data said to us that there's no problem.

18 Our charge to the scientist is just to call them like

19 you see them. And that's why people who are on the

20 public payroll, that's why our brothers and sisters,

21 the co-workers in EPA, and the career professionals

22 within our state agencies, we want people to help us

23 figure out what the right thing to do is. I think that

24 the people of this community will support that right

25 thing, and I appreciate your being here.

216

1 MR. THOMPSON: Again, thank you both. Thank

2 you very much. Thank you.

3 Okay next I'd like to ask Suzanne Beck and

4 Linda Leatherwood to please come forward. Suzanne Beck

5 and Linda Leatherwood, please come forward.

6 Good afternoon, ladies. Please.

7 MS. LEATHERWOOD: Good afternoon. Do we

8 share the five minutes?

9 MR. THOMPSON: No, you each get five minutes.

10 MS. LEATHERWOOD: Okay.

11 All right, my name is Linda Leatherwood, L-E-

12 A-T-H-E-R-W-O-O-D.

13 And I'm just a concerned citizen, and I'm

14 worried about our air quality.

15 EPA -- I think the "P" stands for protection.

16 What are you protecting? I was naive enough to think

17 it was the people, but I'm beginning to wonder if it

18 isn't the petroleum industry.

19 Certain parts of our industry have made hand-

20 over-fist money. They have plenty of money, millions

21 and millions and billions of dollars now, with all our

22 energy increases that they could be putting some of

23 this money into the safeguards that we need for our

24 citizens.

25 Our citizens are suffering. All we're doing

217

1 here is asking you to do your job to enforce the Clean

2 Air Act; that's all we're asking. If this is not a

3 country of laws, then we are out of luck. We need some

4 help.

5 Now you've heard from the mayor and all those

6 statistics and everything, but what we need is someone

7 to have the courage to enforce the laws so that we

8 don't have to suffer.

9 Now I don't live exactly in this area, but

10 I've seen the recent documentary on the people that

11 live here in Manchester, and they're right next door to

12 this, and they're suffering.

13 But I live further away, and I'm a former

14 science teacher. So I know when you talk about parts

15 per million, you know, the students' eyes glaze over;

16 you know what's that. So you try and given them

17 example like, you know, marbles in a jar or something.

18 Think of a million of them. One of those is one part

19 per million. And maybe 21 one of those is enough to

20 kill you or something, you know, to try and drive it

21 home to them.

22 So this isn't something that we can just put

23 into the air and it just goes away, you know. We're

24 breathing it all the time. And I had science students

25 up there doing little experiments, and I'm 40 miles

218

1 away. I'm out in the country. You think the air is

2 clean, the sky is blue, but they were detecting

3 pollution way up there with simple little pads, you

4 know. And we've got all kinds of fancy monitoring

5 stations around here now that are giving you the data.

6 And another thing I would like to address are

7 these trails of chemicals that we see coming from

8 airplanes. And I don't know if anyone has noticed

9 this, but it is something that is very, very concerning

10 to me. And they have become -- called "chem trails,"

11 and they're coming out of military planes, and it seems

12 to be a big conspiracy, a big secrecy about this, and I

13 would just like to know what is going on. Is it

14 weather modification or something more sinister? It's

15 been analyzed to contain a lot of aluminum and barium

16 and some biological agents. And this raining down on

17 us constantly. You'll see the big "X's" up there.

18 They hang in the atmosphere for a long period of time.

19 They don't just go away. They're not con trails.

20 They're chem trails; they're chemical trails coming

21 from military planes, and I would like someone to

22 answer for that. What is that? What are they dumping

23 on us? Do any of you know?

24 MR. THOMPSON: No, we don't, but again we're

25 here to listen to you, but --

219

1 MS. LEATHERWOOD: Uh huh. Well if you get it

2 on Yahoo.com, chemtrailtrackingUSA.com is a Yahoo

3 group. I mean I got 11,000 e-mails recently. Citizens

4 are becoming aware of this. It's not just happening

5 here. It's happening in every city in the country and

6 in other cities around the world. And I would just

7 like to know what it is that they're spreading around

8 up there.

9 Lately, they've been disguising it. They'll

10 go through a cloud spraying it, they'll cut it off;

11 you'll see it. And then they go into another cloud and

12 start spraying again and then cut if off. So what is

13 that? I would just like to know and a lot of other

14 people would like to know.

15 A lot of people have asthma and different

16 kinds of diseases because of all this bad air. We just

17 really would like to know, and we would like it

18 stopped.

19 Okay, thank you.

20 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you.

21 MS. LEATHERWOOD: Did I take all the time?

22 MS. BECK: Good afternoon, and once again I'd

23 like to thank all of you for being here. It makes me

24 as a citizen here and a lifelong resident of the

25 Manchester community. I've been in this community 59

220

1 years.

2 MR. THOMPSON: Ms. Beck, I'm sorry, could you

3 please state your name for the court reporter and spell

4 it please?

5 MS. LEATHERWOOD: Suzanne Beck, S-U-Z-A-N-N-E

6 B as in boy-E-C-K.

7 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you.

8 MS. LEATHERWOOD: Thank you.

9 There's so much that I would like to say, but

10 I will say this, from the time I was born, the 9200

11 block of East Avenue L to the current town, I'm still

12 on East Avenue L, three blocks down. I went to school

13 in this area. My dad retired from the OCAW. He worked

14 right here.

15 I have gone from father calling my mother

16 "Get the kids in the house. Get the kids in the house.

17 They just let off something." I haven't heard that in

18 years. It's not that it's not going on, but it has

19 quieted down so much. So much has been done to a plus

20 here in Manchester.

21 I have seen the streets go from a cloudy mist

22 in the morning time that lasted until the afternoon to

23 where we couldn't go outside. Everyone was scared to

24 let their kids go outside. I'm not afraid to let my

25 grandchildren go outside and play. I encourage it.

221

1 They come right here to this park. I'm not afraid of

2 it. I know that ya'll are doing as much as you can,

3 and that you are keeping a watch on it, but I would

4 like a little closer watch, just a little closer,

5 because there are things that are still being let out

6 that don't need to be in our area.

7 I don't know -- I'm not a scientist, I'm just

8 a high school clerk at Milby High School. That's all I

9 know to do. But when they said they was going to have

10 this, I called Mr. Newhouse, and I said "Will my voice

11 be listened to?" He said, "Yes, ma'am, it will." He

12 has never closed her door on me or anyone else in this

13 community. He has let us know. He sends out

14 newsletter. We know what's going on. We have a drill

15 every week. We know about this drill. Our young

16 children, my two-year-old grandson, he hears the "toot,

17 toot," he knows that it's noontime, because the plant's

18 telling him that.

19 We need to educate our children so that they

20 can step up and take you guys place. Education is the

21 main factor about getting our air clean. We have to

22 educate. We have to research. I wish I could, but I'm

23 not going back to school right now to do it. I'm going

24 to send my children to school to do it.

25 I just want ya'll to know that the air

222

1 quality in this ends of town has changed so

2 dramatically that it makes you just want to, you know,

3 jump up and shout. No, it's not up to standard, but we

4 could still be in the dark ages. You guys have helped

5 that. The plants have helped there. They're

6 constantly trying to rebuild, to get -- we need

7 community action. Educate, educate, that's all I can

8 say. Right, Ms. Leatherwood? Educate?

9 MS. LEATHERWOOD: We may differ a little bit

10 on this point.

11 MS. LEATHERWOOD: You guys, thank you, for

12 all that you do for every one.

13 I'd like to thank the companies here in this

14 neighborhood. Now I'm concerned about the new one down

15 here. What's he going to put in the air. Keep a close

16 eye on him please.

17 But thank you much. I can't say that enough,

18 because if you guys were not here, we'd all be falling

19 over with whatever, you know. Cancer, sure some of

20 this stuff causes cancer. My daddy worked out there

21 for 30 years. Did he die of cancer? Yeah, but it

22 didn't have anything to do with that. It wasn't that

23 kind of cancer, because my mama was ready to sue the

24 devil out of somebody, but it wasn't that.

25 Yes, it causes diseases. We need to make

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1 sure that we ourselves take care of ourselves. Report

2 things that happen. Don't be scared to open your

3 mouth.

4 Thank you, Valero. You've done a wonderful.

5 It could be better, and it needs to be better, but

6 thank you for what you've done.

7 MR. THOMPSON: Any questions? Thank you

8 both. Thank you very much.

9 Okay next we'd like to ask Jose Chavez and

10 Dr. Stephen King to please come forward.

11 Hello, gentlemen, and welcome.

12 MR. CHAVEZ: My name is Jose Chavez, J-O-S-E

13 C-H-A-V-A-E-Z.

14 I don't know where quite to being, but I've

15 been in this community since 1985, moved out due to

16 health concerns, and I don't know if this had anything

17 to do with it, but as of late, I've heard a lot of

18 information and a lot of inquiries on websites about

19 this area, and perhaps it was it; perhaps it wasn't,

20 but no one ever told that "hey, you need to move out of

21 there" type of thing, but I can say that when I did

22 that, when I moved out to the far west side out in

23 Katy, two weeks into it I felt like I've never felt

24 before. You know I see clearer.

25 When I was here, I actually had the Lasix and

224

1 the Lasix done to my eyes and I don't have to wear any

2 glasses. I went over there, and I saw better than I've

3 ever seen before.

4 I suffered from constant nose bleed. I was

5 just coughing all the time, mucus and all other nasty

6 stuff. I went over there, and just everything seemed

7 to be fixed up.

8 And now last year or two years ago, my

9 father, which you guys that were here this morning

10 heard him talk, he got cancer. And, of course, he has

11 beaten it so far. I'm not sure exactly where it's at,

12 but we have a constant struggle going back to forth to

13 Mexico, because, you know, the healthcare here is

14 pretty expensive. But we're getting through that.

15 I don't know if that's another issue or not,

16 but I like the fact that there is people being -- I

17 mean there's, you know, government is actually taking

18 the time to come here and analyze it and, you know, try

19 to ferret out this data and what not.

20 But as I look here, I don't see a lot of

21 people that live here, which, you know, is kind of sad,

22 because I know there's a lot of people that have a lot

23 of issues. I've talked a few of them, and "why don't

24 you come by?" And "for what, they're not going to do

25 anything. What am I going to say? I don't know what

225

1 to say. Can I send them an e-mail?" You know, stuff

2 like that.

3 I'm not a public speaker, but I know what I

4 have on my mind, and I know what is going on. Just --

5 I don't know, I don't know what to think, I don't know

6 what to say. I've been trying to get them out of here

7 since before this happened, but they won't come with

8 me, so not that I'm a bad son, but just don't want to

9 go so far away I guess.

10 So just I thank the federal government, the

11 EPA, and don't have anything against the oil companies,

12 because my career as a computer scientist has basically

13 been 95 percent in the oilfield, so I can't dog that at

14 all.

15 But definitely making sure that they're up to

16 standards and they're doing their job and abiding the

17 law, you know, the Clean Air Act or whatnot. I think

18 we'll -- I think we just got a good way to go, but, you

19 know, I think everybody's doing a good job and I want

20 to thank you guys and keep doing the good work and make

21 sure these -- you know, the company and the atmosphere

22 is up to standards.

23 Thank you.

24 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Mr. Chavez.

25 MR. CHAVEZ: Thank you.

226

1 DR. KING: Good afternoon. My name is

2 Stephen King, S-T-E-P-H-E-N K-I-N-G.

3 I'm a toxicologist and epidemiologist in

4 Houston.

5 My purpose in speaking today is on behalf of

6 the Citizen's League for Environmental Action Now,

7 where I serve as a member of the board of directors.

8 As one who has lived in the Houston

9 metropolitan area for over 30 years and one who is a

10 scientist who studies adverse health affects among

11 people living in our area and plus in other areas, I'm

12 intimately familiar with many of the facilities up and

13 down the Houston Ship Channel and throughout Texas, the

14 Corpus Christi area, the Beaumont/Port Arthur area,

15 Texas City facilities. I've investigated upsets,

16 releases and adverse health affects among people living

17 in all these various communities over the last 10 to 15

18 years.

19 I really appreciate the opportunity to follow

20 the mayor and his designate, the other speaker, who --

21 the representative of the city with her statistical

22 analysis. They perform, because I don't have to go

23 through that kind of data again, but I will say this,

24 that I totally agree that you cannot rely upon the TRI

25 data as an accurate means by which to judge the levels

227

1 of exposure, only ambient air levels.

2 The measurement of substances in the air is

3 really the only real way to determine what the public

4 is being exposed to, not some numbers industry

5 estimates in some cases, because I've spoken to company

6 representatives and they have flat told me in some

7 cases they pretty well estimate it based on their input

8 and throughput and output data and their mass balance

9 and so forth, they come up with this.

10 But let me just tell you something, one of

11 the major concerns I wanted to point out, aside from

12 the TRI data, is what I see and what I've investigated

13 and what I've seen in company-related documents from

14 several of the industries, is the issue of fugitive

15 emissions. This is a problem that really adversely

16 affects communities, because those are ongoing all the

17 time. And quite frankly, when you look at some of the

18 exposure levels, the fugitive emissions at point

19 sources within the refineries or petrochemical

20 facilities, they're in some cases very high levels

21 being emitted that crosses the fence lines

22 cumulatively.

23 That's one area I think there needs to be a

24 greater degree of improvement in the standards. I know

25 the particular standards we're talking about, the MACT

228

1 standards with regard to stationary sources like tanks

2 and so forth. The tank issue has always been a

3 problem, and releases of toxics into the atmosphere.

4 But I think, and I will reiterate what the mayor says,

5 we really don't need benzene in our air. And but not

6 only benzene, but 1,3-butadiene, styrene, vinyl-

7 chloride, toluene, xylene.

8 I don't know if you gentlemen are aware of

9 the fact but a recently published study indicated an

10 increased risk of cancer in humans from exposure to

11 toluene and xylene, individually and in combination,

12 and has nothing to do with the fact that benzene is

13 typically a constituent or a contaminate in technical

14 grade xylene or toluene. So with all of that in mind,

15 I wanted to say that I believe that you have to look at

16 like the mayor says the cumulative affects or

17 cumulative mixing of the substances.

18 The real world is when people walk outside

19 these doors, they're inhaling the ambient air. In that

20 air is not just benzene and 1,3-butadiene, we have a

21 combination of many substances, and I think

22 realistically the EPA, the TCEQ in Texas needs to

23 approach it from that standpoint, very realistic, very

24 pragmatic approach in looking at the totality of the

25 substances in the air, and then look at the individual

229

1 substances we know are members of the HAPS or under

2 section 112 of the Clean Air Act and reduce those

3 exposures.

4 I'm always one of those who likes to look at

5 historical things. I have a copy of an air study done

6 sponsored by the Houston Chamber of Commerce in the

7 1970's. If you were to look at that data 30 something

8 years ago and compare it to the data today, you'll say

9 a lot of things haven't changed quite frankly. In some

10 areas they have, but overall some substances are even

11 being released in greater amounts or that is the

12 ambient air levels are greater today than they were 30

13 years ago.

14 And I don't know if you look at that kind of

15 data, but I do. I want to look at comparisons, not

16 short term going back to 1988 or 2005. I want to go

17 back as far as we can.

18 But as one who studies adverse health affects

19 in humans, I can tell you based upon the literally

20 hundreds of pages of peer reviewed epidemiologic

21 studies that have been performed in the United States

22 and worldwide, there's an increased risk of cancer

23 among people living in proximity to these type of

24 facilities because of the releases of toxic substances.

25 And that's our concern with the recently published

230

1 study of this community, the Manchester community, of

2 increased risk of childhood cancers. That ought to be

3 a, you know, a signal that we have issues that we need

4 to deal with.

5 And so I see the red light, and I want to

6 thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today.

7 Thank you.

8 MR. THOMPSON: Any questions?

9 MR. GUINNUP: Dr. King, I hadn't heard about

10 the toluene and xylene link to cancer. Could you make

11 sure you send that report to the docket?

12 DR. KING: Certainly, I'll be more than happy

13 to.

14 MR. GUINNUP: Thank you. Thank you very

15 much.

16 DR. KING: You're welcome.

17 MR. THOMPSON: At this time, we would like to

18 ask Victor Flatt and Dan Axton to please come forward,

19 Victor Flatt and Dan Axton.

20 Good evening, gentlemen, and thanks for

21 coming.

22 MR. FLATT: Thank you. My name is Victor B.

23 Flat, V-I-C-T-O-R, middle initial B as in boy, Flat, F

24 as in Frank-L-A-T as in Tom- T as in Tom.

25 I'm the A.L. O'Quinn chair in environmental

231

1 law at the University of Houston Law Center and the

2 director of the environment, energy and natural

3 resources center at the University of Houston Law

4 Center. I'm also one of the co-authors of "The Control

5 of Air Toxics, Toxicology Motivation in Houston

6 Implications," which was a joint report prepared by the

7 Houston Endowment which examines the particular issues

8 posed by the high concentration of hazardous air

9 pollutants in the Houston area. I'm one of the

10 nationwide specialists in hazardous air pollutants and

11 air toxics.

12 Along with Winnie Hamilton from Baylor

13 University and Jonathan Ward from the University of

14 Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, who I believe you've

15 already heard from today, we will be submitting written

16 comments on petroleum refinery residual risk issues.

17 However, I wanted to speak today just to

18 emphasize a few larger points that may not be drawn out

19 as well in the written comments.

20 The first of these deal with the legal basis

21 for the rule making itself. It is my opinion that the

22 EPA's proffered legal interpretation concerning whether

23 the 1989 benzene NESHAP rule making governs the

24 determination of residual risks is incorrect. I don't

25 read section 112 in the same way that the EPA does and

232

1 nor do I think that there would be deference under the

2 Chevron standard for that interpretation.

3 However, even if one does accept the 1989

4 benzene NESHAP rule making as controlling under section

5 112 for the determination of residual risks, I do not

6 believe that the document as set forth, the petroleum

7 refinery residual risk standard interprets that

8 correctly.

9 Namely, that document notes that it would

10 define the greatest number of people to be protected as

11 460,000, that is the most exposed individuals. But the

12 reading of the benzene NESHAP would indicate that the

13 most exposed individuals should try to get as close to

14 zero as possible and that 460,000 is an unreasonable,

15 and I would arbitrary and capricious number, for that.

16 Similarly the one in 10,000 risk that the EPA

17 decided to settle on in this residual risk is not an

18 adequate margin of safety, particularly when the

19 factors of the benzene NESHAP are applied; that is the

20 1989 benzene NESHAP requires an examination of

21 cumulative risks and multiple sources.

22 In the rule making as pointed out Loren Raun

23 from the city, the EPA does know that the exposures

24 that they are basing this on are under reported. Given

25 that that is under reported, this would call for more

233

1 rather than less protection, which would indicate that

2 the one in 10,000 residual risk would not be

3 acceptable.

4 Next, the report references the congressional

5 -- the EPA report to Congress in 1999 on residual risk

6 after the establishment of the benzene MACT's. And in

7 that report EPA proposed a one in 100,000 residual risk

8 standard. However, the reason for rejecting the one in

9 100,000 residual risk standard to adopt the one in

10 10,000 was not addressed in the rule making. And since

11 the rule making relies on the congressional report, it

12 strikes me that it must be addressed or otherwise that

13 would be considered arbitrary and capricious as well.

14 I would to close by emphasizing the

15 uniqueness of the situation in Houston. We have the

16 greatest concentration of stationary benzene sources in

17 the country. We have the greatest concentration of

18 aggravating chemicals working in conjunction with those

19 resources. We also are a location that has no zoning,

20 which allows people living close by to these sources

21 which increases the risk of exposure. Moreover, the

22 State of Texas, unlike several other states, has not

23 set ambient residual risk standards to protect the

24 particularly vulnerable population.

25 Executive Order 13132 requires the EPA to

234

1 consider any federalism implications of its decision.

2 In the proposed rule making, EPA claims that there

3 aren't any federalism considerations, and that it is

4 thus complying with Executive Order 13132. However,

5 given that state governments could address the residual

6 risk, and in this case, in this case of Texas, do not,

7 there are federalism implications. And the EPA,

8 meaning the EPA should take greater action for the risk

9 in Houston.

10 Due to the problems with the data, the under

11 reporting, the patterns of the residences here, I

12 believe the only to meet the statutory requirement to

13 fully understand and control the residual risk, which

14 is required by section 112, would be to measure the

15 exposure and compare it to an ambient standard. And I

16 believe that ambient standard should be set at one in

17 one million since that protection will not be reached

18 in any event because of other sources and other

19 chemicals. But I believe that is the only one that

20 reflects the ample margin of safety that's required by

21 section 112.

22 Thank you.

23 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Mr. Flatt.

24 Mr. Axton?

25 MR. AXTON: Hi. My name is Dan Axton. I'm

235

1 the vice president of the Pecan Park Civic Association,

2 which is a neighborhood of about 20,000 people about

3 two miles from here southwest.

4 And I don't have a lot of statistic and, you

5 know, I'm not very educated on this subject. I'm just

6 a guy on the street kind of thing, but I mean ya'll are

7 the -- there's a lot of children that live in our

8 neighborhood. We're not a gentrfied neighborhood. You

9 know it's lower, middle income people. I mean the

10 street, my street is running with kids everyday. It's,

11 you know, like we grew up. There's kids everywhere.

12 And I know that children are particularly

13 susceptible to a lot of these pollutants, so I mean

14 it's basically just a plea to a protection agency.

15 Please, you know, protect these people. I mean I'm

16 anti-corporation. I'm not, you know, anti -- I mean I

17 like the free enterprise, free market.

18 It's, you know, people choose live around it.

19 There's certain risks involved when you, you know, make

20 decisions like that, but there's got to be a balance.

21 I mean if we let these people sort of do what they

22 wanted, of course, there wouldn't be much. So I think

23 your role is very important to protect these people.

24 And I mean the average person in my

25 neighborhood is not going to show up tonight and

236

1 testify and, you know, so I mean that's basically it.

2 I do know I want to say one case of somebody I know

3 that got leukemia at age 27 that grew up less than a

4 mile from my house, and, you know, that was the 80's,

5 and I think the pollutants were real bad, but I know

6 there's a positive correlation between benzene and

7 leukemia. I mean luckily she's -- two years later

8 she's in remission, but, you know, who's to say.

9 So that kind of struck me close to home like,

10 you know, we are at risk here and any, you know, if you

11 can address this a little bit. I mean I think as time

12 goes on, you know, humanity should move in the right

13 direction. We're not talking, you know, instantaneous

14 changes, but if we're amending in the direction of, you

15 know, stricter standards, then would seem to be

16 progress.

17 Also the word on the street is that, you

18 know, these people over here that run these chemical

19 plants, I'm not saying they're bad people, but I think

20 they are violating a lot of the current regulations.

21 I've heard they blow the flares off. You know of, you

22 know, backing that up with statistics, but I've known a

23 couple of people that worked in the plants, and they're

24 kind of like "Well, yeah, you know, they do what they

25 can to get, you know, to get away with what they can.

237

1 They know what they can get away with."

2 So I mean at least I don't think the

3 enforcement is very strong is what I've understood.

4 It's one thing to have a set of rules, but if they're

5 not being enforced, there's a lot of cases of that,

6 that their worthless. So please if you at least, you

7 know, enforce them, monitor them, you know, and just

8 protect the people.

9 That's it.

10 MR. THOMPSON: Okay, gentlemen, thank you

11 both. And, Mr. Axton, if you would please, could you

12 just spell your name for the court reporter? Repeat

13 and -- we do have a question, but, KC if you could

14 just hold you -- KC, could you just -- for the court

15 reporter's sake, just say, repeat your name again and

16 spell it for the court reporter.

17 MR. AXTON: Oh, I'm sorry. Dan Axton, A-X-T-

18 O-N.

19 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you. KC?

20 MR. HUSTVEDT: You presented some legal

21 theories I'm not that familiar with, and I would

22 appreciate it if you expand on that and if you're

23 providing written comments so we can see that there's -

24 - I heard some new things, and I'd like to learn more

25 about them in your comments.

238

1

2 MR. FLATT: I will be doing that in the

3 written comments, and I just wanted to I guess make the

4 point, even though I'm going to go into detail on the

5 written comments, and that's one of the reasons we're

6 here to figure out if the agency is following the

7 statutory mandates. And it's a complicated statutory

8 mandate, as you all know.

9 I just wanted to emphasize though that I

10 think it is complicated, and it deserves a very close

11 look, and I will be making that in the written

12 comments.

13 MR. HUSTVEDT: Okay, thank you.

14 MR. THOMPSON: Okay, anything else? Again,

15 thank you, gentlemen.

16 At this time, we currently do not have any

17 speakers signed up, so if there's anyone in the

18 audience once again who would like to speak, you're now

19 more than welcome to do so. If not, we will break

20 until the next set of speakers arrive.

21 No speakers? Okay, then we'll break until

22 the next speakers arrive. Thank you.

23 (Off the record from 5:10 p.m. to 5:46 p.m.)

24 MR. THOMPSON: -- start up again, so if

25 everyone could just grab seat, and while you're looking

239

1 for a seat, I'd like to at this point invite Councilman-

2 Elect James Rodriguez and Sharon Hohl to please come

3 forward.

4 And again, if you could start by stating your

5 name and spelling it for our court reporter, that would

6 be great.

7 MR. RODRIGUEZ: Sure.

8 Gentlemen and members of the panel, I thank

9 you for having me today.

10 My name is James Rodriguez, J-A-M-E-S- R-O-D-

11 R-I-G-U-E-Z.

12 I am council member-elect. I was recently

13 elected about three weeks ago to this district.

14 And thank you for coming to town and to

15 District I.

16 I'd like to start off by saying thank you for

17 giving our community an opportunity to share it's

18 unfortunate experiences with hazardous air pollutants.

19 As a lifelong member of the east end community, I know

20 first hand about the struggle against refinery

21 emissions that cause illnesses from severe headaches to

22 leukemia amongst children and adults of all ages.

23 For years this community, Manchester, and its

24 neighbors have fought for air standards that would

25 protect them from carcinogens such as benzene and

240

1 butadiene.

2 Our mayor and city council and the current

3 council member, Carol Alvarado, the legal department

4 and environmental team have done a great job

5 encouraging refineries such as Valero and Texas

6 Petrochemicals to enter into voluntary agreements to

7 reduce emissions.

8 Unfortunately at the state and federal level

9 have fallen on deaf ears. TCEQ, our state

10 environmental agency was kind enough to confirm the

11 high levels of carcinogens specifically in the east

12 end, but our legislators didn't see the urgency in

13 strengthening the guidelines currently in place for

14 TCEQ to enforce.

15 For the past two legislative sessions, our

16 Houston state delegates have filed legislation

17 mandating TCEQ to adopt emission standards, but to no

18 avail.

19 In 1995 the EPA adopted refinery standards at

20 the federal level but only did so to comply with the

21 Clean Air Act. It also required the EPA to review and

22 strengthen those standards in eight years if they were

23 needed to protect the health environment of our

24 residents.

25 It was no surprise when you did not see it

241

1 necessary to strengthen those standards in 2003, which

2 March the 8th is your deadline. I urge to make today

3 a milestone in Houston to recognize Houston as an

4 industrial city that it is and to protect Houstonians

5 from the hazardous air pollutants that have clouded our

6 air for years.

7 Option one to not do anything is wrong and

8 unjust to Houstonians. You can provide healthier

9 living conditions for everyone by taking your second

10 option and strengthening it into an option three to

11 include controlled requirements for storage vessels,

12 wastewater and cooling towers as soon as possible, but

13 no later than 18 months for the rule adoption,

14 recognition of the real health risks to the public and

15 particularly fence line communities from refineries.

16 People live in this area and they will and nor should

17 they move in -- or move, thus creating a lifelong

18 exposure to these toxins, additional refinery pollution

19 controls requiring refineries to implement pollution

20 controls at least as stringent as the current industry

21 best practices.

22 And as I close, elimination of the startup,

23 shutdown, malfunctions exemption. Large quantities of

24 toxic pollution are admitted during SSM and harm public

25 health.

242

1 So, again, I thank you for your time, and I

2 thank you for coming to District I.

3 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Councilman

4 Rodriguez.

5 MR. RODRIGUEZ: I certainly thank you.

6 MS. HOHL: Yes, gentlemen, I would thank you

7 all so for being here. It's a privilege to be able to

8 have the EPA here so that we can express our opinions.

9 I'm Sharon Hohl, S-H-A-R-O-N H-O-H-L.

10 And in a way I'm not quite sure why I'm here.

11 I was just doing my job and getting Christmas presents

12 and cards ready, and a friend told me about the EPA

13 having this hearing, and since I'm concerned about air

14 quality, I wanted to come, though not without fear and

15 trepidation in case I was actually going to speak.

16 I asked myself what I wanted to say, and the

17 answer was speak from your heart. Well in my heart I

18 say EPA please do your job. But also in my heart, I

19 know we live at a time in our beloved country's history

20 when people who ask the wrong questions of political

21 figures get zapped with Tazer guns. So fear is factor

22 when expressing one's opinions and perhaps in doing

23 one's job even in the EPA if there is pressure to

24 conform.

25 Perhaps I've seen too many movies such as

243

1 Erin Brockovich and Silkwood, but if everything is

2 being done that needs to be done, why is asthma on the

3 increase?

4 I'm concerned that air quality is not being

5 monitored in every meaningful or aspect.

6 I too am concerned about the spraying by

7 military planes that besmirches our skies and sickens

8 us, and the fact that no public official has ever seen

9 them or knows anything about them, which brings me back

10 to the idea of fear.

11 My sense is that people are fearful of coming

12 to meetings like this. My point, and I do have one, is

13 that we must once again heed Franklin Roosevelt's

14 admonition that "We have nothing to fear but fear

15 itself."

16 Because whether we believe in God or are

17 atheists, to be fully human is to take responsibility

18 for ourselves and our planet. And when we do so, we

19 affect the world rather than being affected by it.

20 Friends, let us have courage to take the

21 first step from wherever we are. And my I suggest that

22 the first step be to watch the skies and learn to

23 determine the difference between con trails and chem

24 trails.

25 Thank you.

244

1 MR. THOMPSON: And thank you for having the

2 courage, Ms. Hohl. Thank you.

3 Thank you. We do have another speaker who's

4 in the lobby currently, so we'll just give him a few

5 seconds. Barry Lefer will be in momentarily -- oh,

6 he's here, wonderful.

7 MR. LEFER: Thank you very much.

8 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you for being here.

9 MR. LEFER: My name is Barry Lefer, L-E-F as

10 in Frank-E-R.

11 I am a citizen of Houston, but I also work in

12 Houston. I'm a professor at the University of Houston

13 in the Geosciences Department. My training is in

14 atmospheric science. I'm an atmospheric chemist, and I

15 specialize in photochemistry, so ozone pollution is my

16 field of research.

17 So I'm coming here really as a citizen of

18 Houston. I'm not a chemical engineer, so I can't tell

19 you about new control technologies to help clean up the

20 chemical and oil refineries in Houston. And I'm not an

21 epidemiologist, so I can't tell you how many citizens

22 of Houston, how many fewer cancer cases we're going to

23 have by reducing the emissions of toxic chemicals from

24 these facilities.

25 So I'm really here today as a parent and as a

245

1 citizen of the community to say -- to really encourage

2 you, so there's really one question I have and that is

3 why there's two standards? Why is there a standard for

4 people that live further away from these facilities,

5 and a standard for the people that closer by. I know

6 for the air quality, the five EPA-regulated air quality

7 ozone, particulate matter, there is just one standard.

8 And so in my view the atmosphere is something that's

9 well mixed, and if -- depending on where you live on a

10 certain day, you're going to be receiving polluted air.

11 So I have just two recommendations. One is

12 to strengthen the regulations. You know this

13 difference between one in a million to 70 or 100 in a

14 million seems like a huge disparity to me. So I really

15 encourage you if you can to strengthen the regulations.

16 And the second is to enforce the regulations. And this

17 is what the EPA's is is to both get the experts in the

18 U.S. and the world to identify what is an achievable or

19 maybe even not achievable at this time, but a health,

20 what the health data says is the acceptable levels of

21 these toxic chemicals and then really to enforce them.

22 And that's all I have to say. Thank you for

23 your time.

24 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you. Any questions?

25 Okay, at this time, we're going to take our

246

1 dinner break, and we will reconvene at 7:30 p.m.

2 (Off the record from 5:56 p.m. to 7:27 p.m.)

3 MR. THOMPSON: -- emission standards for

4 hazardous air pollutants from petroleum refineries.

5 I recognize that many of you have traveled

6 quite a distance to be here and I and we all here

7 appreciate that.

8 My name is Fred Thompson. I am the associate

9 director of the sectors policies and programs division

10 of the Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards,

11 which is part of EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, and

12 I will be chairing today's session.

13 Before we being, I would like to briefly

14 describe the proposed rule that is subject of today's

15 hearing and provide you some context.

16 Such 112 of the Clean Air Act established the

17 way in which we at EPA must address air toxics

18 emissions from industries such as petroleum refining.

19 The law requires that we list categories industries to

20 be regulated, such as petroleum refineries. It also

21 establishes a two-stage process for developing those

22 regulations.

23 In the first stage, we have to establish

24 standards based on the emission levels achieved by the

25 best controlled sources in the industry. These

247

1 standards are known as the maximum achievable control

2 technology or MACT standards.

3 As you know, refineries are complicated

4 facilities. We regulate refineries through a number of

5 standards which address different types of equipment

6 and processes. This includes two MACT standards

7 specific to petroleum refineries, one issued in 1995

8 and the other in 2002. Other types of equipment and

9 processes commonly found at refineries are subject to a

10 number of the other MACT standards.

11 In the second stage of developing air toxic

12 regulations, we revisit the MACT standards to examine

13 any remaining risk along with the state of technology

14 to determine whether the standards should be amended.

15 We examine the risk known as residual risk

16 one time eight years after the MACT standards are

17 issued. We do this to determine whether we need to

18 change a standard to address any risk remaining after

19 the MACT standard was implemented. We review available

20 technology every eight years to determine whether our

21 MACT standard should be updated to reflect technology

22 improvements.

23 It is this second stage of the process that

24 brings us here today. We are here to take your

25 comments on our September 2007 proposed amendments to

248

1 the first MACT standard for petroleum refineries.

2 Those amendments address both the residual

3 risk determination and the first technology review of

4 the first refinery MACT standard which we issued in

5 1995. That rule applied to storage tanks, equipment

6 leaks, process vents and wastewater collection and

7 treatment systems at petroleum refineries.

8 It is also applied to marine vessel loading

9 and gasoline distribution if those operations are

10 located at the refinery.

11 Let me talk about the residual risk portion

12 of our proposal first.

13 First, we have to estimate the remaining risk

14 from an industry source category after implementation

15 of the MACT standard. In this case, the industry

16 source category is the petroleum refinery sources that

17 are subject to the 1995 MACT standard. We then

18 determine whether that risk is at the level the law

19 refers to as acceptable and whether the MACT standards

20 protect the population with an ample margin of safety

21 and protect against adverse environmental affects.

22 In the case of cancer, if the risk exceeds

23 approximately 100 in a million, we must establish

24 standards to reduce this risk no matter what such

25 reductions cost.

249

1 As a second step in the risk analysis, we

2 must evaluate whether further reductions assuring an

3 ample margin of safety are feasible considering the

4 cost of such reductions.

5 In preparing to develop this proposal, we

6 conducted a careful review of emissions data from

7 petroleum refineries. Using this data, we estimated

8 the maximum individual lifetime cancer risk associated

9 with the 1995 petroleum refinery MACT source category

10 to be 70 in one million. Because that level is less

11 than the 100 in a million, we then moved to the second

12 step in the analysis and looked at what further

13 reductions could be achieved and at what cost.

14 Based on these findings, EPA has proposed two

15 options for two different emission sources to address

16 residual risk.

17 First, for storage tanks we identified a

18 potential risk reduction option of additional controls

19 for fittings on storage tank roofs. We co-proposed to

20 either impose no additional controls or alternatively

21 to add this requirement. We are requesting your

22 comments on these two alternative options.

23 In addition for wastewater treatment units,

24 we propose specific performance standards and

25 monitoring requirements to insure that the level of

250

1 reduction in air toxics emissions anticipated by the

2 existing MACT is being achieved. Again we have co-

3 proposed both no additional requirements in this

4 performance demonstration. We'd like your comments on

5 this as well.

6 The technology review identified cooling

7 towers as a source of air toxics emissions that we did

8 not adequately address in the MACT standard, so we co-

9 proposed two options to amend the MACT standard to

10 reduce emissions from these cooling towers. Both are

11 what are known as work practice standards and are

12 designed to detect and repair leaks from cooling

13 towers.

14 The first option we proposed for the cooling

15 towers is based on the performance of the best

16 refineries today.

17 The second option is more stringent than the

18 first. We are seeking comment on the cost

19 effectiveness of this second option.

20 While these proposed amendments to the

21 cooling tower standards are addressing a gap in the

22 underlying MACT standard, we also conducted the risk

23 review and concluded that no further risk-based update

24 is warranted after adoption of one of these options.

25 The original comment period on this proposal

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1 closed November 4, 2007. We have reopened the comment

2 period, however, and will now take public comment until

3 December 28, 2007. EPA will sign a final rule by

4 August 21, 2008. We will conduct a similar review

5 later on for the second petroleum refinery MACT, which

6 we issued in 2002, along with reviews for other MACT

7 standards that apply to petroleum refinery emissions.

8 More details about the proposed amendments

9 and instructions for submitting public comments are

10 available in the registration area.

11 And we also have prepared a list of topics in

12 the proposed rule on which we're seeking comment.

13 That's also available in the registration area and may

14 be helpful to you as you are commenting today or

15 submitting written comments later on.

16 Now let me turn to the comment portion of

17 today's hearing. We will be preparing a written

18 transcript of today's hearing. The transcript will be

19 available as part of the official record for the rule.

20 Today's hearing will work as follows: I will

21 call the scheduled speakers to the microphone two at a

22 time. Please remain at the table until both speakers

23 have completed their testimony.

24 When it is time for you to speak, please

25 state your name and your affiliation. It will help our

252

1 court reporter if you also spell your name.

2 To be fair to everyone, we ask that you limit

3 your testimony to five minutes each. We have a

4 timekeeping system consisting of green, yellow and red

5 lights, which you'll see located in the little blue box

6 on the table. When you begin speaking, the green light

7 will come on. The yellow light will signal that you

8 will have two minutes left. We will ask you to stop

9 speaking when the red light comes on.

10 After you finish your testimony, a panel

11 member may ask clarifying questions. As I mentioned,

12 we're transcribing today's hearing, and each speaker's

13 oral testimony will become part of the official record.

14 Please be sure to give a copy of any written comments

15 to our staff at the registration table. We will put

16 the full text of your written comments into the docket

17 for you.

18 We will work hard to insure that everyone has

19 an opportunity to comment. We are slated to stay until

20 9:00 p.m., but we'll stay later if necessary. And we

21 will take additional breaks periodically throughout the

22 evening.

23 If you would like to testify but have not yet

24 registered to do so, please sign up at the registration

25 table.

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1 For those who have already registered to

2 speak, we have tried to accommodate your request for

3 specific time slots. We ask for your patience as we

4 proceed through the list. We may need to make some

5 minor adjustment as we progress this afternoon.

6 Now I would like to introduce the EPA

7 representatives on the panel. From the Office of Air

8 Quality Planning and Standards, we have KC Hustvedt,

9 who's to my left, and KC is the group leader of the

10 coatings and chemicals group. And also to my left is

11 Dave Guinnup, and Dave is the group leader of the

12 sector-based assessment group. In the audience, we

13 have from the Office of Air Quality Planning and

14 Standards, we have Brenda Shine, and Brenda is a senior

15 engineer in the coatings and chemicals group. And from

16 our region six office in Dallas, we have -- Ruben. I

17 almost said Tom. Tom was with us earlier. We have

18 Ruben Casso. Thank you, Ruben.

19 Okay, again, I would like to thank all of you

20 again for participating tonight, and with that, let's

21 get started.

22 Okay, before I call up the first two

23 individuals, I have a note here that says "Please ask

24 Dr. Peter Bishop to come to the desk to retrieve a lost

25 item." So if Dr. Peter Bishop could -- I would imagine

254

1 they mean the desk out in the lobby, the front desk.

2 There's a lost item there for you.

3 Okay, with that, I'd like to ask Robert

4 Duffield and Jose Morales to please step forward.

5 Robert Duffield and Jose Morales. And either of you

6 could begin.

7 (The following testimony of Jose Morales was given

8 through the translator, Larry Stelly.)

9 MR. MORALES: Good evening to everyone

10 present.

11 I know that all of us who are here present

12 have the same concern to provide an improved air

13 quality for our city. For those of us who are

14 associated with the refineries are at greater risk due

15 to our proximity to those refineries.

16 MR. THOMPSON: State his name.

17 MR. MORALES: Jose Morales.

18 MR. THOMPSON: Could you spell it?

19 MR. MORALES: J-O-S-E, B middle initial,

20 Morales, M-O-R-A-L-E-S.

21 The concern I have is that those of us who

22 work at the refineries are better protected than those

23 of us who live in the townships and communities near

24 the refineries.

25 It may sound somewhat contradictory, but

255

1 those of us who actually work within the premises of

2 the refineries are better protected for two reasons.

3 We have protective elements that we work with, and

4 secondly, when there is a leak, we are informed much

5 more -- in a much more timely fashion than those who

6 don't work there.

7 Those of us who are not working inside the

8 refinery do not know exactly from where even if we hear

9 the signal, the siren, we don't know exactly where the

10 leak comes from nor do we know the classification of

11 the substances that have leaked.

12 I would propose that now that we're

13 considering various approaches to improving air quality

14 and protection that various monitoring devices be

15 located in various parts of the neighborhoods so that

16 we can locate and hopefully identify in a more timely

17 fashion leaks of various substances that are dangerous

18 to us.

19 We know that there are certain substances

20 that when they leak can bring instant death to those in

21 the vicinity of the leak.

22 And there are also those who have had maybe

23 for 15 years cancer, been victims of cancer.

24 Well, that's all that I have to say on the

25 subject.

256

1 Thank you for giving the time to express my

2 concerns.

3 Thank you. Thank you.

4 MR. DUFFIELD: Okay, my name is Robert

5 Duffield. I'm here as a private citizen. Robert is

6 spelled R-O-B-E-R-T. Duffield is spelled D-U-F-F-I-E-L-

7 D.

8 The focus of my testimony tonight will be

9 about the concern about the dual standard of 10 to the

10 minus four for neighborhoods near the refinery, and 10

11 to the minus six for areas farther away.

12 Here in Houston we have the largest

13 petrochemical complex in the world. We're proud of

14 that. We do a good job of producing gasoline and all

15 sorts of other petrochemicals for shipment everywhere

16 and for use here locally.

17 As a result though, we do have potential

18 exposure to chemicals, including petrochemicals and

19 cancer-causing chemicals that's far greater than

20 anywhere else in the nation, and especially for the

21 neighborhoods right next to the refineries, because not

22 everything goes as planned all the time, and sometimes

23 there are releases. And even when things are going as

24 you expect, there are fugitive leaks within the

25 complexes and just a general level of vapor that

257

1 escapes during the process.

2 As a result those local neighborhoods receive

3 more exposure than say the neighborhoods that are

4 farther away. So it is strange that the protective

5 standard would be less for the neighborhoods close,

6 because those people need it the most, because they are

7 closest to the source of the problem.

8 So I would say as a comment that it is

9 socially and environmentally unjust to have this

10 separate standard. There ought to be one standard to

11 protect all American citizens from the risk of

12 additional cancers due to exposure to toxic chemicals.

13 Here in this country we've got a long history

14 starting with the Declaration of Independence of

15 assuming that all men are created equal. Those

16 particular words didn't make it into the constitution,

17 but the idea that all men were equal before the law

18 certainly did survive the transition.

19 So in the -- with the idea that there is some

20 line you can draw say right down the center of this

21 room, that center line on the aft court there. Now we

22 on this side of this line are protected to the level of

23 one additional cancer in a million.

24 You folks over there in the cheap seats, you

25 guys can have 100 people in a million get sick, and

258

1 that's still okay. That sort of a law violates the

2 basic understanding of the equality in America.

3 So I, therefore, suggest that there ought to

4 be one standard for all Americans, for all

5 neighborhoods, for all geographies that would protect

6 all Americans to the same level. And seeing has how

7 most of Americans are protected to one in a million, I

8 suggest that one in a million is the appropriate

9 standard to protect all Americans, even those who live

10 closer to the sources of the potential risk.

11 Since you are the Environmental Protection

12 Agency, you are who we turn to to protect us from risks

13 of this type. That's how the government is currently

14 arranged, and we turn to you to when we look to be

15 protected from these risks that we can't discover and

16 regulate on our own.

17 So, that's pretty much what I have to say. I

18 urge you to go to one standard and to use 10 to the

19 minus six as that standard.

20 And one more point not on the same subject is

21 that even if we -- even if there is some reason to have

22 a line down the middle of the world that says you're

23 okay here and you're not okay there, and that's all

24 right under the law, the physics of reality don't work

25 that way. The air is this same room is all mixed up.

259

1 We're all breathing the same stuff, so having a

2 standard that says there is bright line for which air

3 is good on one side and bad on the other, just makes

4 the EPA look like they don't understand the way the

5 world works.

6 So in addition to the concerns for equal

7 justice under the law, I think equal respect for the

8 laws of physics and mathematics and the way air moves

9 around, the EPA would look a little -- looks a little

10 more credible when they have one standard rather than

11 two.

12 Thank you for the time.

13 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you for your testimony.

14 At this time I'd like to ask Dr. Harold

15 Farber and Bryan Parras to please come forward.

16 DR. FARBER: Thank you so much. I'm Dr.

17 Harold Farber. I'm a pediatric pulmonologist. That's

18 a specialist in the care of children's lung disease.

19 Although I'm speaking --

20 MR. THOMPSON: For the court reporter.

21 DR. FARBER: Harold, H-A-R-O-L-D, Farber, F-A-

22 R-B-E-R.

23 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, sir.

24 DR. FARBER: My degree is an M.D. I'm a

25 specialist -- I'm a pediatric pulmonologist. That's a

260

1 specialist in the treatment of children's lung disease.

2 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you.

3 DR. FARBER: Although I am here as an

4 individual private citizen, I also hold appointments as

5 an associate professor in the section of pediatric

6 pulmonology for the Baylor College of Medicine, and

7 I've recently joined Baylor.

8 Previously I was working as a pediatric

9 pulmonologist with Kaiser Permanente in Northern

10 California. So I've seen quite a number of areas. And

11 I did my fellowship with the Tulane University in New

12 Orleans. I guess somehow I've been in many areas with

13 concentrations of refineries.

14 As you well know, refineries emit well known

15 and highly toxic carcinogens of which benzene is

16 perhaps the most well characterized, as well as number

17 of less well characterized hazardous air pollutants.

18 A one in 10,000 cancer risk is not an

19 acceptable level of risk. We put huge levels of

20 resources; we put millions of dollars to attacking

21 diseases with similar levels of risk; for example,

22 cystic fibrosis. And if we don't accept this for

23 diseases such as that, why should be accept it for

24 refinery-caused cancer?

25 Clearly option one doing nothing in this

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1 situation is completely unacceptable. Your option two

2 is a little bit better, but in reality, it's still not

3 enough. Excluding startup, shutdown and malfunctions

4 as well from emissions regulations also continues to

5 put the public at an unnecessary risk.

6 Also as I was sitting back there looking at

7 the math, as our previous speaker said, well one

8 refinery, one in 10,000, I was driving down here and

9 well two refineries, that's one in 5,000, but no we've

10 got probably four or five refineries just in this area.

11 And now we're really talking about very

12 serious health risks for people who live in this area.

13 And reality is throughout this country, many people

14 live near refineries. Where I just moved here from in

15 Northern California, we see school yards and

16 residential neighborhoods approaching refinery fence

17 line.

18 Certainly we have much in the way of

19 residential areas here within fairly close proximity to

20 the refineries. And as I started driving in here over

21 the freeways, I started to get close and I could start

22 to feel the eyes burning and the chest getting tight

23 from adverse affect from the pollution that at least on

24 casual inspection appears to be caused by the

25 refineries here.

262

1 And, again, here in Houston where my current

2 clinical practice is, I see many children who live

3 right near the refineries, and it seems to be a

4 disproportionate number who come to me from this area

5 who come to me with coughing, wheezing and recurrent

6 pneumonia that again come right from this area of the

7 refineries, and I can't help but think is contributed

8 at least in some part to -- by the pollution that

9 they're exposed to on a daily basis.

10 Now where I did my fellowship at the Tulane

11 University in Louisiana, there was a large refinery and

12 petrochemical complex just a little bit up on the

13 Mississippi River. I guess somehow we had a sick joke

14 that we would call that cancer alley directly from our

15 own experience with what came out of that area.

16 And, again, although looking at the published

17 research on health risks associated with living in

18 proximity to refineries, although this is certainly

19 limited and not of the breadth and depth that I think

20 is truly needed, they have found increased risks of pre-

21 term delivery, low birth weight, asthma and cancer

22 associated with living in proximity to oil refineries.

23 Given this, I would like to call on the EPA

24 to, one, recognize the real health risks that oil

25 refineries poses to the public; that people living near

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1 refineries deserve just as much protection as others;

2 that the EPA should implement pollution controls at

3 least as good as current best practice, if not better;

4 that fence line monitoring is important to better

5 assess health risks; and that I would also plead with

6 you to eliminate the startup, shutdown and malfunction

7 exemptions as releases even in these situations do

8 cause significant health risks to the public.

9 Thank you very much.

10 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you.

11 DR. FARBER: Okay, thank you.

12 MR. PARRAS: My name is Bryan Parras. That's

13 Bryan with a Y. Last name is spelled P-A-R-R-A-S.

14 And I had some notes basically on comments

15 that folks had made earlier in the day, so I'm going to

16 jump around a lot.

17 But first of all, I'd like to reiterate what

18 a lot of folks have said, and that is to do your job.

19 And when I say that, I mean to think about your own

20 personal ethics and morality and make a judgment with

21 yourself as to what you think really should be done,

22 and if you don't think that that's possible, I would

23 encourage many folks in the EPA to step down like Eric

24 Shaffer has done. I think it's the right thing to do,

25 and I think we really need to go for what we know is

264

1 right.

2 Having said that, I'll just go through a

3 couple points. First off, if there is a do-nothing

4 category, I really would expect there to be a do-

5 everything category, and I guess what I'll talk about

6 are what do-everything is.

7 Under reporting, first point, under reporting

8 because of self-reporting, I think that that's an

9 absolutely ridiculous way of coming up with your rules.

10 Where in any sort of criminal investigation or any

11 police matter would we allow someone to report their

12 crimes to you.

13 On top of that, where would we redefine the

14 term "crimes" and make it such so that it seems more

15 acceptable. For example, we call chemicals that are

16 leaking out "fugitive emissions" as though they've

17 escaped on their own terms and they're running away

18 from the company and they can't catch them. No, these

19 are by fault of the company's equipment, and I think

20 that we need to look at it as such and not allow them a

21 discounted measure of accountability for that.

22 Now I understand that there are no limits on

23 some hazardous air pollutants, and I think that that is

24 absolutely ridiculous too, and I would encourage the

25 U.S. to really look at starting to adapt the

265

1 precautionary method and really have a better

2 understanding of each chemical before anyone is allowed

3 to put that out into the world and the atmosphere.

4 Third point, different standards for people

5 living near the plants. To me, that is just absolutely

6 outrageous and I understand that the ratio is one to

7 every 100, and it's very reminiscent of how slaves were

8 treated as part human, and I don't that as anything

9 other than racist. It's classes. And I don't think

10 that that should be applied, as many people have said,

11 anywhere. We're all human, and while we have a

12 different genetic makeup and can metabolize some

13 chemicals and not others, I think that we have to have

14 standards that are equal across the board.

15 We've heard a lot of politicians, local and

16 state, that have implored you to come and help out. I

17 think that that is very sad representation of where we

18 are here in Texas. And it is the federal government's

19 job to make sure that the states is doing what it's

20 doing, and if not, they need to come in.

21 And you've heard from officials, from

22 citizens, from scientists that they are not doing their

23 job. And I would expect that the EPA would do their

24 job and come in and force them to do that.

25 Monitors, people have said that we need more

266

1 monitors. TCEQ likes to point out that we have more

2 monitors here in the Houston area than anywhere else in

3 the country. Well there are many more here for a

4 reason, but I would say that the monitors that we do

5 have do not detect all of the chemicals. They look for

6 only a few, and I think it's fair to expect that we

7 know what all the chemicals are and what quantities are

8 they out there. So I would encourage more monitors.

9 I had an issue with the whole terminology of

10 risk and how people think that, you know, just because

11 you are living in an area where there are chemicals

12 that there is a risk and we should expect and be okay

13 with a certain amount of deaths. And I would say that

14 these are not risks; these are deliberately put there

15 and used by the companies, and that they should be held

16 accountable for keeping those chemicals contained.

17 And it should not be risk. These are

18 assaults, and if anything, it is a lack of good faith

19 or negligence on their part for not keeping track of

20 them. It's not a risk. I shouldn't expect these

21 things to be out there. Certainly from cars and things

22 like that, yes, but, again, those are regulations that

23 you guys need to come up with.

24 Best available control technology -- I don't

25 necessarily agree with that either. I think we need to

267

1 go beyond that and look at what we really want and not

2 just rely on what is out there right now, you know.

3 Would we have ever gone to the moon had we just

4 depended on the technology that we had currently? No,

5 we always have to be pushing the envelope and be

6 expecting more from ourselves. And so I would

7 encourage that to be the very bare minimum of what we

8 expect from companies in costs.

9 I know that you said you look at the

10 financial cost of whether or not the best control

11 technology can be used, and I would say to consider the

12 human cost and not just how many people die from

13 cancer, but their overall health and their quality of

14 life. And that certainly should come into determining

15 what sorts of regulations you come up with. And if you

16 don't then I think that, you know, again you're missing

17 an opportunity to do all that you can to go to that do-

18 everything option.

19 I think that's it. Thank ya'll for your

20 time.

21 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you.

22 Okay at this time, we'd like to ask Valentin

23 Briagas to come forward.

24 MR. BRIAGAS: I'm just going to sit with --

25 MR. THOMPSON: Right, with his father. Oh,

268

1 his dad's over there. Okay.

2 MS. BRIAGAS: Okay, we'll both sit with him.

3 MR. THOMPSON: Sure.

4 Hi, Valentin.

5 VALENTIN BRIAGAS: My name is Valentin

6 Briagas. I go to Jay Hurst Elementary. My name is

7 spelled V-A-L-E-N-T-I-N. My last name is spelled B-R-I-

8 A-G-A-S.

9 What I want from the refineries to them to

10 move it somewhere else where there's no plants, no

11 trees, no humans, no animals.

12 I have leukemia, but I don't want it to

13 happen to other kids. I have leukemia because the

14 refineries on this side and that's why I don't want it

15 to happen to all the other kids like I did.

16 I was six when I got it and it ended when I

17 was eight or nine.

18 That's all.

19 MR. THOMPSON: Well, thank you so much. Any

20 questions for Valentin?

21 MR. HUSTVEDT: I don't have no questions.

22 Thank you for sharing that.

23 MR. THOMPSON: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

24 At this time we'd like to ask Janette Sexton

25 and Grant Baily.

269

1 Hello.

2 MS. SEXTON: Hi. Can you hear me?

3 MR. THOMPSON: Yes.

4 MS. SEXTON: Okay. My name is Janette Sexton

5 and that is spelled J-A-N-E-T-T-E S-E-X-T-O-N.

6 I became a resident of Pasadena nearly 20

7 years ago. My home is situated only a few miles south

8 of Highway 225, which is also known as refinery row.

9 37 years ago, the Environmental Protection

10 Agency was founded to protect the environment. The

11 results have been mixed to say the least. Greed and

12 money concerns appear to trump good health and quality

13 of life at every turn.

14 The EPA must set stricter emission standards

15 to protect the health of residents of this region at

16 the level promised by the Federal Clean Air Act. It

17 would be unconscionable for the EPA to allow the Gulf

18 Coast area petrochemical industry to continue

19 postponing attainment of Clean Air Act standards.

20 Additionally the EPA should insure that the

21 Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, also known

22 as TCEQ, is adequately enforcing air pollution

23 regulations by assessing fines that are warranted and

24 carrying out enforcement in a timely manner. The EPA

25 should investigate TCEQ's failure to implement timely

270

1 and adequate enforcement.

2 Voluntary emission reduction plans, such as

3 VERP, V-E-R-P, and TERP, T-E-R-P, do not work.

4 Pollution has increased rather than decreased as the

5 industry grossly under reports the amount of toxic

6 material it spews out into the air. Our health and

7 well being are severely at risk. I demand that you do

8 your job. I demand that you do the job you were

9 mandated to do 37 years ago and start protecting the

10 environment and the health of every Gulf Coast

11 resident.

12 Reduced standards for citizens living in

13 close proximity to the plants are totally unacceptable.

14 We must have environmental justice for all.

15 Thank you for the opportunity to address you

16 this evening. I will be happy to answer any questions.

17 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you.

18 MR. HUSTVEDT: I'm not familiar with the

19 acronym, the VERP and the --

20 MS. SEXTON: That was the plan that George W.

21 Bush put into place in Texas before he became

22 President.

23 MR. CASSO: Is it the Voluntary Emissions

24 Reduction Program for VERP. It's the voluntary

25 program. And the Texas Emission Reduction Program for

271

1 diesels.

2 MR. HUSTVEDT: Thank you.

3 MS. SEXTON: You're welcome. Any other

4 questions?

5 MR. HUSTVEDT: NO, thank you very much.

6 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Ms. Sexton.

7 MR. BAILEY: Hi. My name is Grant Bailey.

8 That's G-R-A-N-T B-A-I-L-E-Y.

9 I'm appearing on my own behalf as a -- of a

10 private citizen.

11 And I suppose to the matter of giving you

12 feedback on your two proposals, I would have to in all

13 cases endorse option two of the plans you've laid out,

14 although I believe that in many cases that option two

15 is insufficient to the point of illegality.

16 I'd like to quote the EPA, although I don't

17 have the source on this, but this is an EPA document.

18 "Our review of the data indicates that there may be low

19 bias in reported emissions from many facilities. It

20 appears that data from several processes and operations

21 are not included in the reported emissions from many

22 facilities. These include exclusion of upset,

23 malfunction, startup and shutdown events, as well as

24 emission -- of emission sources that are unexpected,

25 not measured or not considered in inventories. The

272

1 uncertainty in the underlying emissions data which are

2 generally thought to be biased low based on recent

3 studies indicating that emission points such as cooling

4 towers and wastewater treatment units are historically

5 underestimated or even omitted from petroleum refinery

6 emission inventories."

7 So that is in the -- in your own words as it

8 were. And many people have already spoken to the fact

9 that the 100 in one million standard is inherently

10 unethical and deviates from the traditional one in one

11 million standard that the EPA has used for assessing

12 risk.

13 The TCEQ air quality studies in 2000 and 2005

14 and 2006 documented that emissions are greatly

15 underestimated by over 100 percent. So it would seem

16 that the option one proposal or even the premises on

17 which it was hatched are essentially an underestimated

18 pollution emission from petroleum refineries and an

19 unfair standard for health affects on the population.

20 So it's really disappointing on both ends,

21 that is, on the data it's predicated on and the

22 standard that it hopes to meet. We would really hope

23 for more.

24 The public, the general public has to rely on

25 you. There is no one else. There is no one else that

273

1 can curtail what industry is allowed to do. And there

2 are certainly funds that, you know, are available,

3 although it shouldn't even be a criteria. I know that

4 certainly for ozone emissions that Congress ruled that

5 only public health was a criteria for assessing what

6 level would be attainment or non-attainment. That is

7 what level would be an acceptable amount. And it seems

8 that that should really universally be the criteria and

9 that the cost of implementing new measures shouldn't

10 really be considered.

11 I know that one major that hasn't really made

12 into the -- made it into your plans is fence line

13 monitoring using Fourier Transform Infrared

14 Spectroscopy, which I think could be very useful. And

15 I know that it's implementation at Texas Petrochemical

16 here in Houston showed them significant improvements or

17 allowed them to make significant improvements in the

18 emission of 1,3-butadiene. And I think that that

19 technology has been out and available for several

20 years, that it really should be required as a

21 supplement LDAR.

22 And I guess again conclusion, I really would

23 challenge the EPA to drive the development of new ways

24 to measure and to control emissions from refineries.

25 If there are not more technologies available or more

274

1 technologies being developed to control what refineries

2 do to the environment and to the local population, it

3 could only be because there are insufficient pressures

4 to encourage the development of those technologies.

5 MR. THOMPSON: Any questions? Okay, thank

6 you very much, both of you. Thank you.

7 At this time we'd like to ask Dr. Stuart

8 Abramson and Juanita Diaz to please come forward.

9 Hello.

10 DR. ABRAMSON: Good evening. My name is Dr.

11 Stuart Abramson, S-T-U-A-R-T A-B-R-A-M-S-O-N.

12 I'm an associate professor of pediatrics at

13 Baylor College of Medicine, and a board certified

14 allergist immunologist at Texas Children's Hospital.

15 And I have a long-standing interest in the

16 health affects of environmental pollution, in

17 particular with regard to inhalation exposures.

18 And I'm speaking today on behalf of the

19 American Lung Association as a long-standing volunteer

20 and member of their local leadership counsel.

21 I'm here today to testify from a healthcare

22 provider perspective regarding the proposed rule on the

23 national emissions standards for hazardous air

24 pollutants from petroleum refineries.

25 In 2005 and 2006, I served on Mayor White's

275

1 eight-member task force charged with assessing and

2 reporting on the health affects of air pollution in the

3 greater Houston area. We published a report entitled

4 "A Closer Look at Air Pollution in Houston" identifying

5 priority health risks. In this report we identified

6 and categorized air pollutants by health risk as

7 definite, probable, possible, unlikely or uncertain.

8 And as you may know, many of pollutants from refineries

9 in our area made the list of definite and probable

10 risks based on their toxicity and the amount of

11 exposure our population endures.

12 In the top 10 of the definite risk list with

13 refineries as a major source includes 1,3-butadiene,

14 benzene and formaldehyde. The risks not only include

15 cancer but respiratory and developmental problems.

16 When I testified in September at ozone

17 standard hearing in Houston, the mandate was to focus

18 only on health affects not costs in setting the

19 standard. Well protecting health is costly and how

20 well we protect the health of our must vulnerable

21 citizens via more protective standards is an ethical as

22 well as political decisions. It is clear that there

23 are disparities in our population with regard to

24 vulnerability to adverse health affects that can occur

25 at or below levels of exposure to chemicals defined by

276

1 TLV's or the threshold limit values.

2 In addition, our potential exposures to

3 carcinogens are greater than almost all areas of the

4 country. Four counties, Harris, Galveston, Brazoria

5 and Jefferson ranked in the top five in 2004 for most

6 carcinogenic emissions. We are at the very high end of

7 all places.

8 And I'm very concerned that the EPA is

9 considering one case of cancer attributable to a

10 pollutant in an exposed population of 10,000 as

11 acceptable risk.

12 The implementation of option one requires no

13 revision to the MACT rule, and this would be in my view

14 a travesty of protection, the middle word in EPA. The

15 MACT, the maximum achievable control technology

16 standard, set in 1995 are not sufficient for 2008 and

17 beyond. We have made many new developments in

18 technology controls in the past decade.

19 Implementation of option two according to the

20 EPA document may only prevent one case of cancer in 50

21 to 100 years, and I think I read that correctly. This

22 is also unacceptable. We must work to prevent many

23 more cases of cancer. The risk standard is wrong and I

24 believe as did my colleagues on the mayor's task force

25 that one in one million risk standard should be

277

1 maintained as the cutoff for consideration of an

2 exposure causing cancer as unlikely.

3 Our assessment of risk is only as good as our

4 scientific data, and our data is lacking in terms of

5 adequate monitoring of environmental exposures as well

6 in the need for better environmental health tracking of

7 disease. Emission monitoring data has been found to be

8 under reporting exposures by up to tenfold by various

9 ambient air monitoring and other emission monitoring

10 tools. More comprehensive and strategic monitoring is

11 needed to get to the true impact of HAP emissions.

12 I hope that you will consider a rule revision

13 that provides more protection from health affects of

14 hazardous air pollutants, an idea that was described in

15 the original spirit of the Clean Air Act that requires

16 a more stringent policy than those described in the EPA

17 proposed rules for storage vessel and cooling tower

18 emissions.

19 Is 100 cancer cases per million due to

20 pollution an acceptable risk not to mention other

21 numerous health affects? The answer is no. And I urge

22 you to restore the one in one million exposure standard

23 for protection.

24 Thank you.

25 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

278

1 MS. DIAZ: Hello. My name is Juanita Diaz, D-

2 I-A-Z, J-U-A-N-I-T-A.

3 I'm here and I have been living here close to

4 30 years. I have never seen so much going on with this

5 chemical plants, refinery plants, and now it's a

6 recycling plant which might be causing a lot of

7 sickness in this community first starting with

8 earaches, itchy throat, coughing, nose dripping,

9 itching skin. Even the cars have black film and

10 sometimes carries [indecipherable].

11 All of these have been not only that I

12 thought it was only me, but with other people. I have

13 been hearing since I have been coming to these

14 meetings, I have been hearing the same problem like I

15 have.

16 Before it used to be more or less okay, but

17 now it's getting worse. Sometimes itchy skin bother

18 us. We can't go outside. We cannot open the windows,

19 because the dust go inside.

20 And I'm just hoping you all can help us. We

21 need help and see what can be done to help us.

22 MR. THOMPSON: Well, thank you both for your

23 testimony. Thank you.

24 MS. DIAZ: Thank you.

25 MR. THOMPSON: At this time we'd like to as

279

1 Luis Diaz and Winifred Hamilton to please come forward.

2 (The following testimony of Luis Diaz was given through

3 the translator, Larry Stelly.)

4 MR. DIAZ: Good evening. My name is Luis

5 Diaz, L-U-I-S D-I-A-Z.

6 I am here to inform you gentlemen that I have

7 been living here for 29 years about one block removed

8 from this company, this new company, that has been

9 started.

10 I arise at 5:00 o'clock every morning, and

11 while I'm warming up my car, I drive around the

12 neighborhood and I perceive an aroma that I cannot

13 identify. It's a very unpleasant odor. I feel an

14 unpleasant sensation in my throat as if it was filled

15 with dirt or something like that. It makes one sneeze.

16 At first I thought it was something transient. I

17 didn't pay a lot of attention to it.

18 Everyday I arise I had never before smelled

19 something so terrible or horrible. I no longer in that

20 direction. I go to the park instead, because this

21 terrible smell that I detect I'm sure is something that

22 affects not only me but other people equally.

23 At the beginning my family and I were talking

24 about moving, but we decided not to because I've

25 invested a great deal in my home, and I don't think

280

1 that I'd be able to get back all of my investment if we

2 were to move.

3 I would like to know whether or not you are

4 going to be doing anything about it or how this entire

5 situation will end.

6 And that's all I have to say. Thank you.

7 MR. DIAZ: Hi.

8 MR. THOMPSON: Hi.

9 MR. DIAZ: My name is Winifred Hamilton, W-I-

10 N-I-F-R-E-D, Hamilton, H-A-M-I-L-T-O-N.

11 I'm an assistant professor at Baylor College

12 of Medicine and I'm director of the environmental

13 section of the Chronic Disease Prevention and Control

14 Research Center.

15 Thank you so very much for scheduling this

16 hearing here in Houston here in the community of

17 Manchester. As I'm certain you are aware, the

18 residents of this inner city neighborhood are

19 disproportionately affected, as was highlighted by the

20 last two speakers, by any decisions that the EPA makes

21 with regard to how much toxic emissions the refinery

22 industry is allowed to release.

23 Many before me have spoken about numerous

24 technical aspects of the proposed amendments. They

25 have spoken about the legality of a two-tier system of

281

1 risk which indirectly and effectively says that those

2 most affected, usually the poor, are not equal and are

3 not entitled to equal protection under the law from the

4 horrible affects of toxic air emissions.

5 They have spoken about questioned premises

6 and models upon which these amendments are based,

7 amendments that appear to disregard the persistent

8 under reporting of refinery emissions, the lack of

9 inclusion of accidental or maintenance releases, nearly

10 a daily occurrence here and the disproportionate burden

11 of risks placed on the Houston community relative to

12 other communities in the U.S.

13 Others have spoken about the lack of

14 reasonable consideration of cumulative and multi-

15 pollutant exposures from other hazardous air

16 pollutants, as well as from hundreds of poorly

17 understood chemicals and particles that are neither

18 being reported nor measured, nor do they take into

19 account the benzene emissions from the gas station door

20 and for one's attached garage or from the 20 percent

21 who still smoke and expose their children and others to

22 side stream smoke or from the trains that move to and

23 from the port continuously or from our gargantuan

24 freeway system, all of which disproportionately affect

25 the poor who are often as well most susceptible to the

282

1 carcinogenic and other affects of benzene and other air

2 toxics.

3 Your calculations say that an extra cancer

4 for every 10,000 persons is okay here. This seems

5 fairly callous to me, but okay let's say that I get

6 cancer because I live in the inner quarter of Houston

7 downwind of industry, which I do.

8 But what about increased risk of neuro-

9 degenerative diseases like Parkinson's or autoimmune

10 diseases? And what of the stench, as that gentleman

11 pointed out, that seeps into our homes? What of the

12 noise of the flares that makes test taking in our

13 schools impossible? What of the stress of shelter and

14 place? What of the right by common law to a reasonable

15 quality of life? But, again, you have heard all this.

16 I wish to raise a more general concern, that

17 is that the EPA is not reasonably protecting public

18 health or insuring equal opportunity for a healthy

19 life. I don't entirely blame the EPA. Our system

20 encourages profit by industry, by the medical

21 establishment, by entrepreneurs, and our federal

22 regulations are complexly driven by these profit

23 margins. Well, listen, prevention of illness makes

24 little money in the United States, although in

25 countries with more integrated environmental and health

283

1 laws, saving money and creating health go hand-in-hand.

2 Here, unfortunately, only people who happen to live in

3 states or municipalities that care about wellness and

4 who have the money and the time to safeguard wellness

5 are likely to be spared the thick toxic fumes of

6 industry, the 20 lanes of freeway or a next door dry

7 cleaners.

8 Despite this, Houstonians are a remarkable

9 lot, diverse in color and culture and proud of it and

10 generous like no other community I've ever known. We

11 deserve equal protection under the law. We will make

12 the nation's fuels, but we need help to do it cleanly.

13 I will end with an example that I think

14 typifies the sad state of our nation in the realm of

15 creating health, productive, competitive and a well-

16 educated populous of equality. Around 1908 numerous

17 medical experts testified that no child to ever be

18 exposed to paint or any other substances with lead.

19 They said back then that lead caused irreversible

20 neurologic damage in children. The League of Nations

21 and most of Europe banned lead-based paint by the late

22 1920's. The U.S. refused to join the League of

23 Nations' ban and okayed the use of lead in gasoline

24 about the same time. The U.S. didn't ban lead in

25 household paint until 1978 or in gasoline until 1996

284

1 despite overwhelming evidence that there's no safe

2 level of lead in children and that exposure leads to

3 cardiovascular and neuro-generative disease and

4 premature death in adults.

5 A few states such as Rhode Island and

6 Massachusetts are eliminating exposure now, but where

7 is our federal government? Why do nearly 50 percent of

8 the nation's children have lead levels high enough to

9 be associated with learning problems? Why are our

10 jails filled with persons with high lead levels? Why

11 do the poor, once again disproportionately affected,

12 bear an unnatural degree of this burden. We all

13 suffer, we all pay when our brothers and sisters are

14 poisoned or made sick by choices of the nation as a

15 whole.

16 The concept of a two-tiered residual risk for

17 exposure to benzene and other air toxics fundamentally

18 supports an inequality and hurts our nation as a whole.

19 The EPA needs, I feel, to step forward on issues of

20 lead exposure and exposure to air toxics and other

21 pollutants and push forward nationwide policies that

22 insure that all Americans share risks and wellness

23 equally.

24 Thank you for this opportunity to speak.

25 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Ms. Hamilton.

285

1 Okay at this time we'd like to ask Jose

2 Moreno and Jesus Garza, Jr. to come forward.

3 How are you doing, gentlemen?

4 MR. MORENO: Oh, fine.

5 My name is Jose Moreno, M-O-R-E-N-O.

6 Today I come by to speak on some of the

7 issues that we have in our neighborhood. I live in the

8 neighborhood down the road.

9 I've worked construction for eight years. A

10 lot of stuff -- I mean have we learned anything from

11 the explosions of Phillips 66, BP?

12 I mean a couple of years back in 1990, there

13 was a gas leak from one of the flares, the flares did

14 not burn. The gases and stuff started coming out like

15 liquid. We were downwind. 250 went to Hermann

16 Hospital. They said we were fine; you're okay. How do

17 we know? Because a lot of stuff that they send to

18 those flares is, you know, carcinogens and all kinds of

19 other stuff.

20 I quit that, because I was, you know, a new

21 father. As the little boy earlier came here to say he

22 had leukemia, I mean he is one of the reasons I kind of

23 said, you know, step back away from construction. I

24 don't want my family, you know, to get sick or

25 anything.

286

1 But now that we're finding out that, you

2 know, there is a lot of pollutants and we need more

3 technology to monitor these toxics.

4 I speak to my neighbor. He says he has

5 throat, his throat itches, his eyes are getting watery.

6 He can't come out of his house. He's got all kinds of,

7 you know, problems. I mean I feel sorry for him that

8 he can't really enjoy life.

9 I mean, like I said, what kind of equipment -

10 - or do ya'll monitor what kind of equipment these

11 refineries have? I mean because I remember when I used

12 to work refineries, we had a radiation device and to

13 make it work, we had to kick it. It wasn't that, you

14 know, that's the kind of stuff that was just not right.

15 But we had to, you know, we had to use it. Nobody made

16 a stink about it, you know. We just said, "Hey, keep

17 going. You know, we have to get the job done."

18 So we would like to see if we can get more

19 technology to monitor our, you know, air, our plants.

20 Like I said, BP blew up a while back. I had a nephew

21 that worked at BP, lucky that he wasn't working that

22 section. I just -- I wish that ya'll would stronger

23 on, you know, laws to make this stuff, you know, make

24 them be aware that, hey, this is happening.

25 And that's all I have to say.

287

1 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Mr. Moreno.

2 MR. GARZA: Okay, my name is Jesus Garza,

3 Jr., J-E-S-U-S G-A-R-Z-A, Jr., J-R.

4 I'm on behalf of a resident here at

5 Manchester for over 27 years.

6 Also, I understand that the EPA is an air

7 protective agency. I have also worked in and around

8 according to the EPA laws, I was a automotive

9 technician mechanic for over 22 years. My theory is

10 today is about like they say let's nip this in the bud.

11 We know petroleum is the primary source of gasoline,

12 which we put in our current vehicles every single day.

13 Not only do we drive them, we use them for travel, for

14 leisure, for anything, family environment, everything.

15 Not only has EPA have gotten tougher and

16 stricter on automotive as far as reducing the emissions

17 it caused for cars, trucks and everything else, why not

18 get tougher on the petroleum companies that produce

19 this -- the gasoline for our everyday use.

20 I see here in your agenda here as far as

21 storage tanks putting on more fittings and stuff like

22 that, I see that it would be, you know, pretty much a

23 necessary project to if there is more that can be done

24 more to enforce that, then that's fine; that's what we

25 need to do.

288

1 Also, like I said, throughout the course of

2 the years that I have worked in the automotive

3 business, I also have seen throughout Houston -- as we

4 all know, Houston is one of the most high pollutant

5 cities around the world and around the nation -- and

6 there have been monitors -- I have seen monitors where

7 vehicles drive by and they monitor the emissions coming

8 out of the vehicles. Not only is that visible or, you

9 know, for one to see, okay, my car is producing this

10 much emissions.

11 As far as companies and petroleum companies

12 around here, I think that would be, like I say, more

13 monitoring device as far as many people can see or any

14 of you saying, okay, if we have, like for terrorists we

15 have a red, we have a yellow, we have a green, fair

16 medium. I don't see why we cannot do this for

17 petroleum companies, you know. I'm pretty sure it

18 wouldn't be too much cost effective for them; needless

19 to say that they are making a good profit marginal. As

20 we know, Exxon had reported a great profit, which is

21 one of the largest nations.

22 Another thing deeply concerning is also in

23 this community that I lived here is we have seen more

24 growth and development in chemical companies than we

25 have seen in residential, number one, being maybe it's

289

1 because of the cancers, so we know that it is because

2 of the cancers.

3 In the past three years that I have lived in

4 this community, I have seen more growth in the chemical

5 companies just around here. Across the way we had

6 another recycling company. There's no telling what

7 they're releasing. There's no telling what they are

8 doing, because everything that goes in there is -- are

9 crushed vehicles. Some have tires, some have gasoline,

10 some has -- we don't know what they're being

11 controlled. We know that EPA controls these chemical

12 companies behind us.

13 Also, again, like I said, there's more growth

14 in the chemical companies and no growth in the

15 community. Like I said, most of the residents that

16 have lived here have lived here for numerous years, and

17 we have not seen no growth. There is no growth here,

18 just the chemicals do come out of here on special

19 occasions for night outs and stuff like that, but we

20 would also like to see new development in the community

21 itself, more, you know, more new housing, more new

22 residents, you know, more development in the community

23 itself, not just so much in the chemical companies

24 trying to take away everything that most people already

25 own here.

290

1 And that's, you know, that is one of my main

2 concerns. Other than that, I have nothing else much

3 more to say. And I just wish that, you know, you would

4 look into that type of, you know, in the bigger

5 picture, not just in the broader sense of the chemical

6 company, but also as far as the community that's why

7 it's not being more developed, why there's no

8 development along the community itself.

9 And that's all I have to say this evening.

10 Thank you very much for listening.

11 MR. THOMPSON: Okay, thank you for your

12 testimony. Thank you.

13 At this time we'd like to ask Tetsuo McFall

14 to please come forward.

15 MR. McFALL: Hello.

16 MR. THOMPSON: Hi.

17 MR. McFALL: My name is Tetsuo McCall. Last

18 name, M-C-F as in Frank-A-L-L.

19 I didn't get to hear a lot of the testimony

20 before me. I'm assuming everybody kind of went over

21 all the studies that exist, and it's no secret that

22 gases are being let out in this neighborhood, and it

23 particularly targets -- it doesn't target, but it

24 affects young children, seniors. And it's something

25 that's been going on for a long time. And we've been

291

1 talking about doing something for a really long time,

2 but we haven't, you know, nothing's had teeth. It was

3 like "Oh, you can't clean up your air, maybe we can

4 give you a little more time." And I guess, you know,

5 it's just kind of like it's hard, because I think a lot

6 of these people out here they probably said this story

7 a bunch of times, and even now, I mean, it's kind of

8 sad, because I mean I want to come here and want to

9 support this cause, but I kind of also kind of feel

10 like maybe it's not going to do anything.

11 And so I just want to tell you about myself.

12 I'm a recent graduate of the University of Houston.

13 I'm working two jobs, so I couldn't do a lot of

14 homework on this.

15 And I'd just like -- I just wish, you know, I

16 can go home and just relax. And, you know, my home is

17 a big deal to me, because I've been living there a

18 couple of years. But when I first tried it out when I

19 went to the place, it seemed like a nice place, no

20 problems, and then all of a sudden I started having

21 problems like I feel like I have post-nasal drip.

22 There's no cold or anything. And I'm thinking, no,

23 it's just some weird allergy, and I'm just getting used

24 to the neighborhood.

25 My girlfriend comes over; she keeps getting

292

1 frequent headaches, and I knew about the Port of

2 Houston. Okay, it kind of smells bad. You know I've

3 driven through Pasadena, big deal, but it's just --

4 it's more than coincidence. I mean headaches come more

5 often. Weird allergy type of things keep happening to

6 me.

7 I've lived all around Houston. I've never

8 had problems like this. I work part time as a personal

9 trainer, and I still sometimes get winded walking up

10 stairs, and, of course, it makes me worry.

11 And I mean it's not leukemia. I'm not dead.

12 You know I don't have the childhood birth defects, so

13 it's not, you know, but I don't want to wait. I don't

14 want to find out three years from now, okay, my

15 girlfriend has cancer because I let her, you know, come

16 visit me all the time, you know.

17 I wanted a home, you know, I wanted -- I

18 wanted the opportunity -- you know maybe I'm going to

19 move out of that home. I would like to have the

20 opportunity to pass that on to my parents; no way now.

21 I mean I'm not going to put my parents there when they

22 have an increased risk.

23 So I mean people talk about nuisance laws. I

24 can't even enjoy my house. So it's pretty stressful.

25 I'm, you know, my work is affected. I can't exercise

293

1 in my own neighborhood. It's not just, okay, a nicety;

2 I just kind of want to jog. I need to stay in good

3 shape to maintain my job, but represent what I do.

4 And I'm afraid to invite people over, you

5 know, it's like I bought the house for nothing. I'd

6 feel guilty selling my house. If I sold to a family

7 and I saw some kids and tell them "no, there's nothing

8 wrong; it just kind of smells bad every now and then,"

9 I mean we just need some way to solve this.

10 I call 311, and they try to send a fire truck

11 over. I have to suggest who to forward me to. It

12 would be nice to think that somebody's trying to give

13 us the tools we need. I don't have the money to go and

14 get a medical checkup and say "Hey, is there benzene in

15 my system? Is this butadiene that's affecting me?" I

16 didn't take a smells test to identify this stuff. If

17 they ask me what it smells like, I don't know. It

18 smells like skunks and tar, you know. I didn't, you

19 know, I just feel like, you know, maybe we're kind of

20 waiting for a tragedy. You know and we're going to

21 have to wait for a houseful of babies and old people to

22 die, and then, you know, we want to do something, but

23 it's too late.

24 And so I just wish that we can police these

25 companies and not let them -- they're not the bad guys;

294

1 they just need to clean up. I mean they shouldn't be

2 allowed to make a profit if their product kills people.

3 If they moved to China and they killed people overseas,

4 it doesn't make it better. We need to police any

5 company that wants to sell products in the U.S., and I

6 think we can if enough people really were to push for

7 it.

8 And so I'm just hoping that if not today,

9 sometime, you know, anybody here who has influence

10 anywhere will maybe -- I don't know -- maybe they'll be

11 affected by something they hear today and not just be

12 convicted tonight, but really push for this and really

13 realize, I mean, there's thousands of people at stake

14 and all their families. So I just hope something can

15 be done.

16 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Mr. McFall. Thank

17 you.

18 MR. McFALL: Thank you.

19 MR. THOMPSON: Okay, at the moment we do not

20 have any more registered speakers. So, if there's

21 anyone in the audience who would like to speak, you're

22 more than welcome to do so at this time.

23 So are there -- is there anyone? Okay, yes,

24 sir, and again if you'd like to speak. Oh, you have

25 five minutes.

295

1 And, again, if you would state your name and

2 spell it for the court reporter please?

3 MR. PARRAS: Okay, I spoke earlier. My name

4 is Juan Parras, J-U-A-N P-A-R-R-A-S.

5 But one point that I think we need to at

6 least put on record is that when we have some hearings

7 on -- and this was a different hearing on ozone at City

8 Hall, all the industry went to City Hall and protested

9 about meeting the ozone guidelines by the year 2007,

10 and so lucky for them that the -- now they're giving

11 them until the year 2018 at least meet the ozone

12 standards.

13 But my point is that industry showed up in

14 droves to that meeting, because there was going to be a

15 decision that was going to have a severe impact on

16 them.

17 At this meeting today and all day long, very

18 few people from industry have been here, which

19 indicates to me that there's nothing to worry about.

20 It's the same old rules that they've been working

21 under, and it's not going to have an impact on them, so

22 why even come and testify, because if they would be

23 testifying, they wouldn't be testifying for the things

24 that we're testifying for to implement rules that, you

25 know, are one in a million. And think that I just

296

1 wanted to bring that up just because it's very obvious,

2 at least to me, and I hope its obvious to the people

3 that are here that that's the reason industry is not

4 here.

5 Now if it were reversed, I would guarantee

6 you that this room would be packed with industry people

7 making comments as to why you should not make the

8 changes. But because the changes -- there are no

9 changes and because it's very favorable to industry,

10 that's why they're not here, and that is the comment

11 that I wanted to at least express personally on behalf

12 of the community, because I do work for this community.

13 And that's all I have to say. Thank you for

14 your time.

15 MR. THOMPSON: And thank you for your

16 comments.

17 MR. PARRAS: Thank you.

18 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you.

19 Is there anyone else? If not, we will remain

20 here until 9:00 p.m. So, again, I think that's 10

21 minutes from now.

22 (Off the record from 8:48 p.m. to 8:51 p.m.)

23 MR. THOMPSON: Okay, sir, if you would state

24 your name and spell it for the court reporter and then

25 make your comments.

297

1 MR. RODRIGUEZ: My name is David Rodriguez, D-

2 A-V-I-D, Rodriguez, R-O-D-R-I-G-U-E-Z.

3 And I would just like to make a quick comment

4 that people are coming in here, coming up here and

5 saying we need more money for monitors and monitors

6 this and all around the city. Maybe we don't need

7 that; we just need the company to do the job and keep

8 the chemicals contained, and we don't really need the

9 monitors. We just need them to do their job.

10 Okay, that's about it. Thank you.

11 MR. THOMPSON: Okay, any questions for Mr.

12 Rodriguez? No? Well, thank you. Thank you very much.

13 Sure. Sure, take your time.

14 MS. GALVAN: Thank you. My name is Elizabeth

15 Galvan, E-L-I-Z-A-B-E-T-H; Galvan, G-A-L-V-A-N.

16 I've decided to come here, because I'm the --

17 one of the community. Probably I didn't go to school.

18 I don't know English very well.

19 I've been hearing all this and you are the

20 ones that set up the standards. And I also I heard the

21 few people that they got cancer, and you say that one

22 in a million, one in a 100, I don't know numbers, and I

23 don't know company names or the federal names or

24 abbreviations, but you're saying that if that kid right

25 there that had leukemia, it's a form of a cancer, it's

298

1 okay because it's one. So you're saying to that family

2 that it's okay because the standard is one in a million

3 and that's the one in a million and that's the one in a

4 100.

5 You're saying to the other one that had

6 cancer, to their families, you're going to tell them

7 that it's okay. We got two, three, five, so it's okay

8 for the company, for those companies to keep doing what

9 they doing, because we've got the numbers there. So

10 we're telling that family "we did our job, because we

11 got a few with cancer."

12 My son right there, every Monday, every

13 morning, excuse me, every morning he can't breathe.

14 Allergies I don't know from where; I don't know to

15 what. I don't know if it's to peanut butter or to the

16 companies, to the air, chemicals, I don't know. I

17 don't know why.

18 So you're telling me that it's okay, because

19 we between those numbers or inside those numbers, the

20 okay numbers. So we are okay to be in those numbers so

21 everybody else is okay. We have -- you have to wait to

22 see if you're going to be in those numbers and those

23 standards that are okay.

24 This is Manchester. I don't know how many

25 more.

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1 You're setting up the standards in the

2 millions that they're good even in Houston or in the

3 hundreds that we're living here in Manchester.

4 I don't know numbers, but it's just a

5 question. It's just like hearing -- I mean listening

6 to those people, all these people, people that were

7 living here, have been living here for 25 years. He is

8 nine years, so I'm already in those standards numbers.

9 And so are you telling me that it's okay?

10 Well that's it. Any questions or --

11 MR. THOMPSON: No. Thank you --

12 MS. GALVAN: Thank you.

13 MR. THOMPSON: -- for your testimony.

14 MS. GALVAN: Uh huh.

15 MR. THOMPSON: We need the translator.

16 (The following testimony of Jose Morales was given

17 through the translator, Larry Stelly.)

18 MR. MORALES: I'd just like to add the

19 following to what I said previously.

20 MR. THOMPSON: Restate his name for us.

21 MR. MORALES: Jose Morales. J-O-S-E

22 M-O-R-A-L-E-S.

23 MR. THOMPSON: Okay.

24 MR. MORALES: I'd like to say to the

25 proceeding to the previous that many of our neighbors

300

1 out of desperation for what is occurring desire to sell

2 their homes. But as far as I'm concerned, that is not

3 solution, because a person who may sell his home and

4 leave this neighborhood would nonetheless perhaps be

5 carrying with him the problems that he acquired to this

6 neighborhood.

7 And if a person is not feeling the affects,

8 nonetheless, and leaves, nonetheless those who are left

9 behind will continue to feel the affects of the

10 existing situation.

11 My point of view is that there's the need to

12 exert improved control over the companies.

13 Fining the companies is not the solution,

14 because it's a great deal highly possible that for

15 those companies the cost of purchasing new equipment

16 would far exceed the cost of a fine.

17 That's all I have to say, and I think you

18 very kindly.

19 MR. THOMPSON: And thank you again. Thank

20 you.

21 Okay, ladies and gentlemen, it's now 9:00

22 o'clock.

23 A couple of things I'd like to do before we

24 close out the hearing. I'd like to thank the community

25 for allowing us to come here today to listen to all of

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1 your concerns. We really appreciate your time and

2 effort and energy in welcoming us to your community.

3 And also would like to say a special thank

4 you to Valerie Valario who I think stepped out, but

5 she's done a really excellent job at taking care of

6 things here today and taking care of us today. I wish

7 she'd come in at least and let us at least acknowledge

8 here for all of her help today. She's in the red in

9 the back of the room. Thank you, Valerie, and for

10 getting me here today by giving my taxi driver

11 directions to the community center. So thank you,

12 after the airline incident.

13 But again, this concludes today's public

14 hearing, and in closing, again, I'd just like to thank

15 you all for your time. Thank you very much.

16 (The hearing concluded at 9:00 p.m.)

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302

1 STATE OF COLORADO )

2 ) ss. CERTIFICATE

3 COUNTY OF DENVER )

4

5 I, Christopher Boone, Digital Reporter and

6 Notary Public within and for the State of Colorado,

7 certify that the foregoing is a correct transcription

8 from the digital recording of the proceedings in the

9 above-entitled matter.

10

11 I further certify that I am neither counsel

12 for, related to, nor employed by any of the parties

13 to the action in which this hearing was taken, and

14 further that I am not financially or otherwise

15 interested in the outcome of the action.

16

17 In witness whereof, I have affixed my

18 signature and seal this 12th day of December, 2007.

19

20

21 My commission expires August 16, 2010.

22

23

24 ______

25 Christopher Boone, Digital Reporter