Mayor touts pollution initiatives; Can he fund them? (updated)
KUHF's Jack Williams reported yesterday on Mayor White's press conference on pollution:
After losing a contract with the state to inspect local refineries and industrial plants for clean air violations earlier this year, the city of Houston is launching its own new plan that Mayor Bill White says will be just as effective, but more focused
The city had acted as a clean air enforcer of sorts for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality until August of this year, when the state refused to renew its contract because of disagreements about enforcement. Along with the contract went nearly all of the city's state funding for inspections and a good chunk of its inspection staff. Now, Mayor White says the city will embark on it's own new inspection and enforcement program that will target the most pressing clean air issues. "We are trying to identify the most dangerous of the pollutants so we can put public health first. It's not just how many people are counting things out there, but it's what they're counting and what they're monitoring and the effect to public health," he says.
[snip]
John Wilson is executive director of the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention and says the city is doing what it can with a limited budget. "Obviously it would be better if they still had funding from the state and still could retain the full size of the staff at the Bureau of Air Quality Control, but on the other hand they have gained flexibility and a renewed focus on things that I think will matter more in the long-run than some of the activities that they've been doing," he says.
The Chronicle's Dina Capiello followed up with a story on the mayor's press conference cheerleading that contained the following:
Other goals lacked specifics, such as how exactly air pollution data would be evaluated by the city's soon-to-be-hired toxicologist to determine so-called toxic "hot spots."
Perhaps the biggest unknown is whether the city has the money and personnel to do what the mayor has pledged. Earlier this year, Houston and the state could not agree on the terms of a new contract, one that supplies the city $1.5 million annually for routine inspections. As a result, Houston's Bureau of Air Quality Control has cut about a dozen positions from its staff of 52.
"We will undertake the most meaningful work possible within our budget," said Arturo Blanco, the bureau's director. Later, he added that his $2.2 million-a-year department wasn't "downsizing but resizing."
Brandt Mannchen, chairman of the Houston Sierra Club's air quality committee, said that while many of the objectives are not solely on the shoulders of the bureau, it was still unclear how exactly the city was going to implement an agenda that was drafted in July.
"They need to tell me how the objective is going to be attained. I'm looking for something that tells me specifically what kind of investigation gives me more bang for the buck, how many of those you are going to do, and what companies will you focus on," Mannchen aid [sic]. "They keep saying we are going to focus on something more meaningful. Well, what is that?"
Mannchen certainly deviated from the press release! But it's a good question.
UPDATE (11-16-2005): The Chronicle's SciGuy Eric Berger looks into the Mayor's promises regarding "greening" Houston, and finds precious little detail in the mayor's Air Quality Plan.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/15/05 09:36 PM | Houston Miscellany | Print | Comments (0)
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