Public data from a network of state air monitors around the Houston Ship Channel is hard to interpret and is often inadequate, leaving Latino-majority neighborhoods like Cloverleaf unaware of whether the air they breathe is safe.
Cristina Lazo starts the daily routine of washing her daughter Alina’s hands, changing clothes and rubbing an ointment on her irritated eyes after coming home from the outside. Lazo believes the fumes from the nearby industrial sector are contributing to her 7-year-old daughter’s symptoms.CLOVERLEAF — On a hot, humid October day, Cristina Lazo readies her youngest daughter for a bike ride and whispers in Spanish, I pray to God nothing happens to you.
Lazo can’t see the smokestacks from her home, but most days they release dark clouds of chemicals that permeate Cloverleaf and nearby communities like Channelview, Galena Park and Pasadena.
“It is important for to inform the population about air quality and pollution so that asthmatic people like me can take better care of ourselves,” she said in Spanish. “With that information, I feel like we could put on a mask, limit the time of being outside or just be aware,” she said. Victoria Cann, a spokesperson for the TCEQ, said in an email that the air monitoring network’s primary intent is to use the data collected to determine compliance with federal regulations, forecast air quality conditions, evaluate air pollution trends and study air quality’s impact to human health to inform regulatory decisions.
TCEQ took no action. Cann said in an email that the formaldehyde levels found in the study fell below the agency’s threshold for further investigation and those levels “are not considered to cause any adverse health effects in the population.” She added that the agency’s threshold “is based on a more recent review of the science” than the EPA’s.
A few blocks from the Lazos’ house, Canales, a petite woman with curly brown hair pulled into a ponytail and sun-kissed skin, watches her kids playing with a ball outside their mobile home, which is surrounded by a chicken wire fence. The attacks are like “a gut punch to the stomach,” robbing her of air, she said. She fights the symptoms with Vicks VapoRub, chamomile tea and a bunch of medications she carries everywhere in her small squared-shaped purse.
“There are plenty of lines of evidence that suggests that pediatric cancer has an environmental component. But trying to target that has been a problem,” he said. “If you have a child that lives in an area that's not as polluted, their likelihood of being exposed is just less by nature.
Heidy Garcia plays with Tiana Cruz at the North Shore Rotary Park in Cloverleaf. The small parks nestled in the neighborhood are some of the community’s few gathering spots.Gas pipelines near the Houston Ship Channel in Pasadena. In nearby communities, locals say the air often smells like rotten eggs, nail polish or burning tires.. In his inaugural speech, White said he would improve the city’s air quality by addressing chronic problems such as ozone and benzene pollution.
In 2004, White appeared before TCEQ commissioners and criticized the agency for the lack of real-time air quality data on its website.found elevated levels of 1,3-butadiene and benzene in four East Houston communities, sparking public debate about the city’s air pollution problems., a Houston-based company with a history of violations that was believed to be the source of elevated hazardous air pollutants in East Houston.
Lazo was curious about how she could check the air quality outside. With guidance, she picked up her phone and entered the TCEQ air monitoring website for the first time, looking at the Texas map with raised eyebrows. On March 17, 2019, towering flames and black smoke billowed from Intercontinental Terminals Company, a chemical tank farm in Deer Park, next to the Ship Channel. As firefighters struggled to extinguish the growing chemical fire, nearby residents wondered if it was safe to go outside.
Garcia said the state left the county ill-prepared during a crisis and county officials didn’t feel they were being told everything they needed to know about the severity of the air pollution. An air quality monitor in a neighborhood in Galena Park. Organizers at Air Alliance Houston worked to install their own community air monitoring network because of frustrations with the public data provided by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s network.Community members prepare for a bike ride, organized by Air Alliance Houston, in Galena Park. The event is part of several educational tours to teach people about air pollution in the area.
The group posts the monitors’ data online using a color-coded system: green for good air quality, yellow for moderate — meaning it may be a concern for people with respiratory conditions — and red for very unhealthy. Flores leads residents and journalists on “toxic tours” in his pickup truck, driving through neighborhood streets where houses sit across a fence from towering refineries.
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