Environmentalists, legislator want more monitors

By DINA CAPPIELLO
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle Environment Writer
Houston Chronicle
March 5, 2003, 12:35AM

At least once a year, alarms outside Deer Park schools ring, sending students inside.

Windows are shut. Air conditioners turned off.

It's not a drill, but a chemical release.

"A couple of times a year there is an upset, " said Jack Beckham, director of emergency services for the city of Deer Park, who serves as a messenger between industry and the school district.

Yet, day to day, not even Beckham knows exactly what the students are breathing, since there are only a few monitors measuring toxic pollutants on school grounds statewide.

Environmentalists and a least one state legislator want to change that, citing a report released Tuesday that found more than 142,000 Texas children go to school within two miles of a major chemical plant or refinery.

Most of those children -- 73 percent -- are either black or Hispanic.

The majority live in Harris County, where 96 schools, educating more than 77,000 students, are located near facilities that collectively emit more than 17 million pounds of air pollution each year, according to the analysis.

The chemicals released, studies showed, can cause a broad range of health effects. But without monitors, it's unclear whether Texas schoolchildren are exposed to them.

"What you don't know can hurt your children, " said Denny Larson, coordinator of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition's Refinery Reform Campaign, the Austin-based advocacy group that released the analysis.

The report looked at the proximity of schools to large industrial facilities in eight Texas counties -- Ector, El Paso, Galveston, Gregg, Harris, Jefferson, Nueces and Orange.

Using data reported by industry to the federal government, the group calculated how much pollution was released near each school. It did not factor in possible pollution from other sources -- such as small factories, hazardous waste sites or cars.

State Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, said the report was evidence that the state environmental agency needed a comprehensive plan to deal with toxics -- a bill he plans to introduce this session. One of the requests will be for better monitoring on school property.

Only three schools statewide have monitors measuring toxics on campus. Only one is in Harris County, at Hambrick Junior High School in Aldine.

Since 2000, all schools in the county have been alerted of high ozone days.

But air pollution experts said Tuesday that proximity may not mean there is an increased risk.

Matt Fraser, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University, said, "You have to look at prevailing wind patterns, whether emissions are from ground level or aloft. "

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