Community Outreach and Education Highlights

Title: Advising the City of Houston, TX about Toxic Air Pollutants

Background and Advances: The greater Houston, TX area has been non-compliant with the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for Ozone for a very long time. This issue has been the focus of most of the attention on air quality in the area, as one State Implementation Plan gave way to another. Since the establishment of the Toxic Release Inventory, it has been known that southeast Texas had some of the highest reported releases of several of the EPA Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs). This problem was largely left unaddressed until a major study in 2000 revealed that the inventories reported by industry significantly underestimated the quantities of HAPs being released into the atmosphere. Little has been done to assess community exposures to HAPs in neighborhoods close to chemical plants. In January, 2005 the Houston Chronicle published a series of articles reporting on a study of exposures to HAPs in near neighborhoods conducted by reporter Dina Cappiello, with the assistance of research scientists in Houston. This study demonstrated that exposure levels in these locations exceeded that ambient air quality guidelines of several states, and the EPA unit risk values for carcinogens including benzene and butadiene.

Implications and Public Health Impact: At this point the Mayor of Houston, Bill White, set out to obtain more information and seek binding agreements with chemical plants that appeared to be significant sources of butadiene emissions. He sought a local scientist experienced with butadiene toxicity. The UTMB NIEHS Center Deputy Director, Jonathan Ward, was asked to testify at a hearing before the Houston City Council on the toxic effects of Butadiene. He was subsequently invited to serve on a task force created by the mayor to advise him on air quality issues. The task force consists of air monitoring and modeling scientists, an atmospheric chemist, an epidemiologist, environmental physician, and toxicologists including Dr. Ward. In addition, he was invited to collaborate with several other Houston area scientists including atmospheric chemists, toxicologists, and academic attorneys to conduct a study to evaluate the basis for establishing the ambient air quality guidelines for Texas (Effects Screening Levels) and to compare them to guidelines in other jurisdictions. It is anticipated that the work being done in both of these projects will lead to a better understanding of HAP exposures in different parts of Houston, and better control of exposures where needed. The deliberations of the Mayor’s Task Force have contributed to the development of a agreement with a major chemical manufacturing facility and the City of Houston to reduce emissions of 1,3-butadiene in order to limit exposure of residents in neighboring communities to this carcinogenic air pollutant. The study of air quality guidelines is in progress and is expected to provide information to support the development of more protective guidelines for ambient air pollutants.

Center Contribution: The previous research and community outreach activities of NIEHS Center members in Houston placed us in a position of recognized expertise with the ability to step in quickly to assist once the issue of exposure to HAPs reached the level of public concern.

Key Researchers:
Jonathan B. Ward Jr., DNA Repair and Mutagenesis Research Core and Community Outreach and Education Core, Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health

Edward G. Brooks, Asthma Pathogenesis Research Core and Community Outreach and Education Core, Department of Pediatrics

Sharon Petronella, Asthma Pathogenesis Research Core and Community Outreach and Education Core, Department of Pediatrics

John Sullivan, Community Outreach and Education Core, Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health

Publication(s):
None at this time

Grant Support:
Houston Endowment
Evaluation of ambient air quality guidelines for hazardous air pollutants (Rice University subcontract)

Title: UTMB NIEHS COEC Leads National Working Group on Response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

Background and Advances: In mid-September NIEHS Director David Schwartz, M.D. summoned the resources of centers nation-wide to create inter-disciplinary working groups focused on human health threats stemming from the impacts of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. These groups applied their technical skills to assess environmental threats posed by mold, harmful algal blooms, chemical toxicants, and various infectious agents. Because of our proximity to the impacted areas, the UTMB NIEHS Center in Environmental Toxicology was charged with coordinating direct community outreach efforts in Louisiana and East Texas and leading the national working COEC group inter-digitated with existing environmental science data and expertise of NIEHS Centers into an effective response.

Implications and Public Health Impact: On September 9, 2005 UTMB and the NIEHS Center created two teams to visit and aid Louisiana. Organizing and delivery of supplies was delayed until early October due to the Center’s evacuation for Rita. Immediately after Rita, using La Rose, LA in Lafourche Parish as a base, COEC team 1 delivered humanitarian aid and assessed local needs for additional relief supplies during the recovery / reclamation stages of local redevelopment. Simultaneously, UTMB COEC lead an additional multi-center COEC response that included public service announcements to effected areas, the creation of re-entry fliers on mold, lead, and toxic environmental hazards for the citizens of southern Louisiana. In all, national COEC’s delivered 67,000 re-entry health fliers. In some areas where UTMB team delivered the re-entry fliers, that information was the sole information received by returning citizens. A second UTMB COEC group, ranging through New Iberia, New Orleans, Chalmette, rural Terrebonne, La Fourche and Jefferson Parishes, and north into Hammond and Baton Rouge, met with community based environmental leaders to determine how the NIEHS could best collaborate with local groups in research and capacity building efforts.

Center Contribution: Katrina - Per suggestions offered by the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, and the Subra Company, an environmental consulting firm headed by MacArthur Fellow, Wilma Subra, the UTMB COEC co-funded production of a citizens’ re-entry kit, designed to minimize exposure to metals, petrochemical residues, and wind-borne respiratory irritants. This scoping visit also produced a community “wish list” of potential collaborative research projects uniting local groups, NIEHS Center researchers, health care providers and public policy makers. The results of community interviews by Group Two were compiled for a DVD presentation at the NIEHS Center Directors/COEC meeting. This DVD will ultimately be archived on the NIEHS COEC website as a streamed resource. Rita - When Hurricane Rita struck the coast of East Texas, the UTMB COEC responded to the crisis in the Golden Triangle area of Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange. In concert with our prior community partner organization in Port Arthur, Citizens In-Power & Development Association (CIDA), the COEC delivered 1,000 copies of the mold characteristics and precautions developed by COEC (national) for use in Louisiana for additional distribution in East Texas. A consortium consisting of representatives from the Houston Advanced Research Center’s Green Building working group, the UTMB COEC (Public Forum & Toxics Assistance division) and CIDA convened to systematically assess housing damage in West Port Arthur and sections of a fence-line community in Beaumont. Based on results of this assessment, excess building materials from green projects throughout Houston will be transported to Port Arthur for use in reconstruction efforts. UTMB COEC will assume responsibility for pickup (Houston) and delivery (Port Arthur) of donated materials. Houston community-based environmental group, TEJAS (Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services), has agreed to organize a work-party that will travel to Port Arthur to assist in roofing, dry walling & electrical repair on CIDA’s severely damaged community environmental education & health center. This process – begun in 11/2005 - is expected to continue until 4 / 2006. UTMB COEC will also collaborate with CIDA on a 2006 EPA CARE proposal, at the preliminary, capacity-building level.

Public Forum & Toxics Assistance is also organizing and mediating a meeting among Texas Council in Environmental Quality, the Environmental Protection Agency and community members in the Golden Triangle to address the problem of excessive flaring and adverse health effects during the process of bringing the petrochemical complexes back on-line. Community members want to know how much product is being discharged & how long it will take to “wake up” all the equipment. This flaring and any additional upsets that may occur during the post-Rita turnaround seems exempt from the TRI discharge accounting system. The meeting will also focus on information exchange among industry and communities immediately preceding the hurricane. Community members would like to know how much damages was sustained, where the damage occurred, how much product was spilled, discharged or lost through seepage, and what measures were employed to clean up the residues. None of this information has been shared to date and there exists no structure within which to translate this information for better public understanding.

Key Researchers:
All COEC researchers, physicians and staff and virtually all members of the UTMB NIEHS Center participated in Katrina/Rita humanitarian and environmental outreach response. This national effort included COEC participation, center scientists and physician members from NIEHS Centers at MD Anderson Smithville, University of Washington, University of New Mexico, University of Iowa, Harvard, Wayne State, Duke University, Texas A&M, University of North Carolina, University of Wisconsin, Vanderbilt, and University of New Jersey Medical and Dental.

Publication(s):
Tillett, T. January 2006. Beyond the Bench – COEPs Contribute to Hurricane Relief. Environmental Health Perspectives: Vol 114; 1, A30-A31.

Grant Support:
All key personnel and funds were donated by individual center’s university discretionary funds and, at UTMB by local center members’ personal financial contributions. A Katrina relief fund was created by UTMB administration for this purpose.

The UTMB COEC is pursuing additional funds to extend outreach programming in Louisiana. A pilot project application for hurricane-related environmental health hazards educational outreach will be submitted (Project CEHRO - Community Environmental Health & Risk Outreach). The Public Forum & Toxics Assistance Division will also facilitate a proposal for the EPA CARE program – Community Action for a Renewed Environment. The United Houma Indian Nation (Houma LA) will function as fiscal receiver for any funding received through the CARE program. This application will be made in May 2006.