Brandt Mannchen Interview, Part 1 of 3

  • DT: My name is David Todd. I'm here for the Conservation History Association of Texas. It's October 22ND, 2003, we're in Houston, Texas and we're at the home of Brandt Mannchen who is an air quality inspector for the City of Houston as his vocation but as his avocation has been an advocate for the Sierra Club and other groups for forest protection, good air quality, better transportation policies and other environmental initiatives. And I wanted to thank him for taking the time to talk to us.00:01:56 - 2280BM: Well, thank you for-for coming.DT: Can you pin point a time that first introduced you to the outdoors and to an interest and willingness to care for?00:02:20 - 2280
  • BM: Well, we-where I lived, which is-was out near beyond-at the time it was beyond 610 and-and-and 610 wasn't even built then, so it was like we were kind of on the fringe, the urban fringe at the time. And so the little neighborhood that I lived in we had a ditch like maybe a block or so away and so all the kids sort of went to the ditch and-and-and my brother and I would go and we would-we would bring things back; snakes, turtles, frogs, lizards, anything we could find and bring it back home. And-and my parents were very nice because they were very tolerant about, you know, what we would bring and we'd have cages and, you know, and had a little pond in the backyard, you know, so we could put the turtles and things in the pond. We even had an alligator at one time and, you know, just-just lots of stuff. And so we-we always had some sort of, you know, animals or things like that, so-so maybe that's-that's part of-of-of why I like the outdoors and nature and that sort of thing.DT: How does the Houston of your childhood compare with the Houston of your adult years?00:03:38 - 2280
  • BM: Well, I guess partly it's just, you know, a lot of open spaces, a lot of green spaces, a lot of things where you would, you know, you'd drive by and-and say oh, there's a field, you know, and there's some grasses or wildflowers or stuff. They're gone, you know, everything has been paved or roaded or, you know, shopping centers or office buildings or all that stuff. You know like on-on the 610 loop it used to be the Pin Oak Stables over there and they used to have the Pin Oak Charity Horse Show, well you know that's been gone for-for quite a few years now, but that was all open and green space and now it's-oh, its got a Home Depot, its got a new middle school called Pin Oak Middle School and, you know, just all kinds of development that has occurred. So you know basically I've seen sort of these little green spaces wink out, you know, at-at-in 00:04:34 - 2280front of my eyes. There's a ditch not too far from here called Willow Water Hole Bayou. It's actually a little bayou and they had channelized it but not concreted it so it had grassy banks and things like that. And so I spent some time on that. I even wrote a little paper, you know, about it and everything. And then, you know, they came in and channelized it and turned it into a concrete, you know, conduit and so, you know, I-you just see these things disappear and-and then you wish they wouldn't but they do and it just really affects you as far as your sense of place because your sense of place is constantly changing and all those things you were familiar with for many years just disappear and then you're expected to sort of respond and modify your-your feelings, you know, based on these new environments that are built. So it's kind of different and, you know, a little-little bit strange to-to see that all happen in your lifetime.DT: Very rapid.00:05:33 - 2280
  • BM: Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, I'm fif-I'm 51 and I'm a native Houstonian, you know, been here my whole life with the exception of going to Sam Houston State University, which is in Huntsville about, you know, 60 - 70 miles north of Houston. So you know I've-and I've been either in Montrose or this general area, which is Meyerland, most of my adult life and so, you know, I've just seen everything go and it seems to keep accelerating. And now the things that were familiar to me maybe not here but a little farther out because I'm going to Sam Houston National Forest or Big Thicket National Preserve. Now all those things are changing too. So for instance, the-the area 00:06:16 - 2280between like Willis and Conroe, there's an esplanade, you know, a little grassy area and-and I had just saw recently that Texas Department of Transportation wants to make that into an 8 lane wide freeway 45 with feeder roads, you know, all the way up to the Walker County line. So it's going to wipe out this nice little-little touch of forest and nature that-that I've enjoyed just driving up, you know, through for, you know, 30 years or something like that. So it's just-it's happening all the time.DT: Do you think there's a more romantic side of you to miss these things or do you think that there's something more objective that you're missing? 00:07:01 - 2280
  • BM: I-I personally think that this is one of the things that's wrong with people in our society today is that-that there's so many changes going on so fast so rapidly that I don't think evolutionarily that we can comprehend and-and-and-and modify ourselves to deal with those changes. I think that's partly why a lot of people are unhappy because they see their familiar surroundings disappearing. I mean every year I get phone calls from lots of people saying like, you know, I live in this neighborhood and there's this 20 acres over here of forest that, you know, its always been there and we really like it and now Wal-Mart is going to move in or s-something else is going to 00:07:46 - 2280happen and what can we do? And you know, other people I think see it too. Maybe they don't quite connect fully to it but I think they realize that their surroundings just are changing and I think one of the reasons that people move out to the fringes is because we've so uglified our urban environment and-and forgotten that-that-that we evolve with green. You know our eyes are used to that and-and want that. That-that we uglify it and turn it into gray concrete and other things and so I think people are searching for that but just don't quite realize that that's what they're searching for.
  • DT: You mentioned that you went for a time outside of Houston and attended Sam Houston State and I believe also the University of Houston at Clear Lake and got two environmental science degrees, a Bachelors and a Masters.BM: Right. DT: Can you explain what you learned in school and how it compared with what you have seen in the regular business-day world?00:08:54 - 2280
  • BM: Well, you know in-in school it-you're taught a lot of basics, you know, like, you know, ecologically you're taught about ecological processes like fire or windstorms or things like this you know in sort of a-you've got it in the book as an example in this kind of stuff. But what they really I don't think teach you is like how things work in real life politically and-and, you know, every day, you know, and so-and also as a-as a person who is both as a volunteer for the Sierra Club but also as just as an individual many times who has participated in-in various proposals dealing with, you know, development projects that would-would alter the environment. They don't teach you how difficult it is to-to make a change and to get things prevented that shouldn't happen to the environment, you know, they don't prepare you for that. And so when you go out 00:10:04 - 2280there and you run into the brick wall then like you're not really prepared to deal with that and so it-it-it caused a lot of frustration, a lot of anger, you know, a lot of like feeling helpless and that kind of thing and so from that standpoint they don't prepare you at all. And so you think that wow, you know, this is democracy well, you know, we can-but then you find out how things are set up and they're really set up to allow development to occur, not set up to protect beautiful wild places or wildlife or recreational opportunities or things like that. So you-so you have to fight, you know, twice as hard to-to get something or to prevent something than the person who wants to develop that thing. So it's kind of stacked against, you know, the individual or even the organization that's-that's dealing with these issues.DT: I guess you have a pretty intimate experience with the political and government world because you've actually worked for-is it 29 years now for the...00:11:14 - 2280
  • BM: Next year it'll be 29 years for the City of Houston as far as my job goes.DT: ...for the Bureau of Air Quality Control?00:11:22 - 2280BM: Yeah, the-the Bureau of Air Quality Control. I-or most of those years were the-the first three years were in the City of Houston's laboratory, you know, where I did what they call sanitary microbiology, which-which dealt with, you know, doing bacteriological examinations on samples of like seafood and dairy products like ice creams and milks and-and sandwiches and things of that nature to see if they're contaminated, you know, like with E. coli or-or other bacteria that-that could make people sick or indications that-that there might be bacteria that could-pathogenic bacteria that could make people sick. So those were my first three years and the rest has been with the Bureau.DT: Can you talk a little bit about your career at the Bureau as an air pollution inspector?00:12:13 - 2280
  • BM: Its been-its been kind of varied and part of that has been as an environmental investigator with the City of Houston. And my initial years were with-as an investigator doing samples and taking complaints and doing investigations on certain companies and doing surveillance. And then I was transferred over into the technical services area and that area deals with the ambient air monitoring that the City of Houston does for the pollutants that the-the-the U.S. EPA feel are-are-are the most significant on a U.S. wide basis like ozone or carbon monoxide or sulfur dioxide. So I was there for 13 years and then I-I was transferred again into a program called Source Registration. The city has a local program where they'll register small sources of air 00:13:16 - 2280pollution and charge them a fee and so I was in charge of that-that group that was collecting the fees and we were also determining whether certain companies needed to be part of the program or they didn't need to be part of the program. And then I got transferred to the engineering section, which is where I am at now and we do the investigations on the larger sources of air pollution like petroleum refineries or chemical plants or-or-or other larger facilities. So that-that's kind of in a nut shell kind of what my history has been, you know, at the city but in-in different parts of the Bureau and its been-been interesting doing different things. DT: Can you talk about the investigation and the monitoring work that you've done?00:14:14 - 2280
  • BM: The monitoring work is-a lot of it is much more automated than it used to be. Like when I was doing it and this was-I finished doing my air monitoring work in 1995. There was a lot more hands on physical, you know, manipulation of the instruments. And-and today a lot of that is done by computerized programs that-that basically send signals out to the air monitoring trailers that, you know, say hey, it's time to calibrate this instrument to make sure it's working properly. And so there-there's a lot of that going on now and it-it's-it's sophisticated and technical and you kind of have to have a sense of-of instrumentation. You've got to have a sense of, you know, of detail because it's very important that you-that you keep things clean so that they're not contaminated so that they affect the sample, you know, and-and what the reading is and that sort of thing. And then as far as investigations go that basically has to do with-with me and-00:15:15 - 2280and sometimes I'm with a partner going out and focusing on a company to determine their compliance with both the EPA and also Texas Commissioner on Environmental Quality Rules and Regulations. And my current job requires me to go out and do cooling water sampling and also leak detection and repair sampling where we actually have a portable hydrocarbon analyzer and we check the various valves and other components to see if they're leaking or not and we check the record keeping of the company and make sure that they're-they're-they're doing that and they're doing it correctly. We check their calibration gases; lots of other things. So it's kind of a-kind of a technical thing and then you've got to write a report and if they have a violation you-you issue a notice of violation or a notice of enforcement and, you know, go through a certain process to get the company to come in to compliance.DT: From your experience doing this monitoring work, can you talk at all about the strengths and weaknesses of ambient and emissions monitoring? I know that there have been some critics out there that have worried that the monitoring is not as thorough as they'd might hope and that the models don't work because of that. And there are weaknesses in the self-reporting system and so on. Can you comment on any of those general issues?00:16:43 - 2280
  • BM: You always have to keep in mind that ambient air monitoring is different from source monitoring because ambient air monitoring basically measures the air that-that-that's around you that's-that's beyond the fence line of the company that you're interested in that may be emitting emissions. So that's going to-if you have an ambient air monitoring trailer usually that doesn't tell you or give you a specific indication that-that XYZ Company is putting out XYZ pollutant. Now occasionally it can if the wind direction is in the right, you know, direction and-and if this pollutant is kind of specialized to this particular company you-sometimes you can see if you're monitoring for that kind of pollutant, you know, a difference there. But as far as source monitoring goes, you know, the-the extent of the city's source monitoring deals with that portable hydro carbon analyzer that I mentioned before and also a portable air stripping device that we use to-for cooling tower water to go ahead and-and-and run it through and-00:17:50 - 2280and get that-those volatile compounds that would be in the cooling water because there's a leak in the process, you know, get those to come out and then use that portable organic analyzer to-to check and see what those levels are. And if it's significant then we will take a stainless steel canister, a SUMMA canister, and pull a sample and s-ship it off to a laboratory to analyze to tell us exactly what are those pollutants, you know, and, you know, are they-they hazardous air pollutants or are they something else and then we calculate like with this leak what could we expect in an hour and what could we expect in a year if this leak just stayed here the whole time. So we have an estimate of how serious the leak is. So you know, and then we turn that information, you know, we let the company know and-and they have to kind of deal with that. Sometimes that may cause a violation of their permit and sometimes if they're grandfathered there's not much you can do about it because with respect to grandfathering the state is starting to-to permit all those old grandfather facilities, but we're sort of in a transition period and-00:19:03 - 2280and we don't have a good handle on what the grandfather emission limits used to be. So it's hard to measure what you get versus some limit that you don't know or that the company, let's put it this way, doesn't seem to be able to figure out what it is. So-so-so those are basically the source sampling that we do specific. Ambient sampling is-is-is different like a said and that's where the city-most of the city's money has gone is into the ambient monitoring because they get grants from the state and from the EPA to-to operate and-and the equipment and actually to buy the equipment to-to operate. DT: I understand that recently there's been the Bucket Brigade that's sprung up to try and fill in some of the gaps that they see in the industries' and the agencies' sampling program. What do you think about their critique of the existing ambient sampling and their alternative system?00:20:10 - 2280
  • BM: First of all, I've-I've got to plead guilty because I'm on the Texas Bucket Brigades Board of Directors with LaNell Anderson. She's the-sort of the chair. So I-I'm biased, but any rate they're doing something that we're not doing and that no one else is doing and that needs to be done and could be done and I don't know why we're not doing it and that basically is going out and finding basically a lot of times by smell, you know, significant strong odors and taking a SUMMA canister and opening it up for a certain number of minutes and then closing it and then getting an analysis. And in several cases, you know, the-the levels of certain compounds have been very high, you know, and as a result in some instances the Texas Bucket Brigade has been able to talk to the companies and get the companies to admit that-that there was a problem and that the 00:21:11 - 2280companies offer to do something to take care of that problem. And so from-from that perspective that is something that is very important and it's something that a c-citizen has been shown that a citizen can do can have a real effect on these companies. And so I don't know why Harris County or the City of Houston or the state isn't doing the same thing. I-I wish they were, but they're not. And so I would-I think it serves a very valuable function.DW: Are the companies obligated by rules or regulations to respond to these citizens discoveries or are they just doing it as a good PR thing?(Misc.)DW: The question would be, when you mention the Citizens' Bucket Brigade taking air samples and presenting these results to companies and asking for changes, the question is, were the companies under any legal or regulation requirement to respond to these citizens' discoveries or were they simply doing it as intended good public relations?00:22:17 - 2280
  • BM: There-there's no requirement, although at least in one instance the sample that the Texas Bucket Brigade took Harris County Pollution Control has used that information to basically sit down with the company and say you've got a violation here, you've got a problem. But usually it's not that they have to cooperate. I mean there's no law saying that if I take a sample and show something that-that you have to do anything. I think the companies realize that, you know, sometimes they do have problems and that if you verify that and-and these samples are-are done correctly, professionally and they-the analysis is done professionally then rather then getting some bad PR they may be willing to sit down with a group and do something, but sometimes they don't. Sometimes they basically say we just don't want to talk to you.DW: If I may follow up, on those occasions where they don't, has the Bucket Brigade used the power of the press or the media to then present these findings to print or TV media and make a story out of it?00:23:46 - 2280
  • BM: Yes it has indeed. And-and that is-in one particular case that's continuing. And-and the hope is that the company will sit down with the community and will agree to a source reduction program where they will voluntarily analyze and determine some areas where they have emissions that they can reduce and that they will reduce them. They-they successfully did this particular source reduction program with a couple of companies in Channelview and-and were very successful in-in reducing those emissions, but it was about a three or four year project and was-and many times it was touch and go as to whether, you know, the company was going to continue working with the citizens or not. But ultimately to their credit they did and they did reduce emissions and-and because of that the community is-is safer today than it was before because of citizens efforts.DT: I understood that in this past legislature session there was an effort to try and reject the admissibility of citizen collected samples. Can you tell any story about how that came about and what the result was? 00:25:11 - 2280
  • BM: I don't know all the particulars, but it was suspected that part of the reason that this was done and I think the Texas Chemical Council or-or its-it may not be called that today. It may be called something else, but any rate that-that particular organization-my understanding is they were behind the-the proposed change and that they were concerned about people like the Texas Bucket Brigade; citizens actually getting credible evidence and being able to present a it either to the state agency or to use it for their own purposes to get the companies to-to reduce emissions. And so my understanding is that's one of the reasons that they were attempting to-to weaken the-the citizen generated and gathered data like either on air or water or hazardous waste is because they were kind of fearful that-that might bite them and they wanted to try and keep that from happening.DT: We've heard from some people that this citizen effort of air sampling came about because citizens would call in a nuisance odor and there would be a day, two days, maybe a week delay until an inspector came out and tested it, and often times that nuisance situation no longer existed and so no notice of violation would be filed. Is that the case and why do you think that is, if so?00:26:56 - 2280
  • BM: Well, you know it-depending on the agency too. The Bureau of Air Quality Control, in general, when it gets a complaint, you know, hopefully within an hour an investigator will be out, you know, to visit with the complainant, which is fairly quick, you know. A lot of times Texas Commission on Environmental Quality it may be a week or something of that in which case, you know, it's really hard to-to figure out what went on at that time, especially since you're on the property and you can't smell anything because the smell is long gone. Now sometimes citizens have put things-documented things with camcorders, you know, where they have the date and all that, you know, on the film and everything. I remember seeing one at the 00:27:46 - 2280TCEQ where it had to do with a smoke, like from a stack and, you know, they recorded the whole thing for, I don't know, it was a long time, you know, 20 - 30 minutes and they had presented that to the TCEQ and said this is what we're talking about. And I know in those instances that can be real helpful because then the agency can start putting people in that general vicinity more frequently and at certain times if it's happening at certain times. And-and maybe see what's actually going on, but it's not unusual at all for a, you know, like the TCEQ to, because of manpower shortages and things of that to, you know, by the time they get there they can't tell anything that happened, you know, and so that frustrates citizens because, you know, what good is it having an investigative arm if they can't even get there to assist in the situation? So you know that-that was probably one of the reasons initially that-00:28:53 - 2280that there was a push to-to have citizen gathered data be excepted by the state is because so often the investigator couldn't get there in time, but the citizen did have a way of-of producing some sort of evidence that something had happened.DT: Could you talk about the coolant tower situation, which I understand has received some attention recently?00:29:37 - 2280
  • BM: We know that cooling towers are a source of volatile organic compounds and can be a significant source and that's because the cooling water goes to like a heat exchanger in the process and there's process fluid going through the heat exchanger and it leaks and gets into the cooling water and then goes back to the cooling tower and evaporates. And-and so we do know that and we do know that-that some of the-the p-the volatile organic compounds that are in the cooling water can be hazardous air fluids, for instance, 1, 3-Butadiene or something like that, which is a potential carcinogen or cancer causing type of chemical. So we know all that and-and as a result of this I think there was a recognition from the U.S. EPA and the TCEQ that, you know, here was a source where nothing was being done to control the00:30:39 - 2280emissions that something needed to be done. And so about a couple years ago they-they started doing this cooling tower sampling and the City of Houston just started it last year, you know, by-by getting equipment and-and money from EPA and the state to do the sampling. And so, you know, that's what we've been trying to do this-like get a handle on well, how-are there leaks and if there are, you know, how is this, you know, what is this resulting to the air? Also, this has to do with-our-our area is not attainment for ozone, which simply means we're above the health standard. And they noticed back in 2000 after they'd done a number of extensive scientific studies where they had monitored the air that we had a whole lot more volatile organic compounds in the air then we thought we did. And secondly that our ozone episodes where we had high ozone levels were extremely quick in reacting and going up very high very quickly, and what they determined was that basically people 00:31:53 - 2280are either through upset, which are unplanned releases of emissions-air emissions, or through regular emissions that have not been determined are-are creating basically a soup that's perfect to create ozone very quickly under the right circumstances. And so cooling towers may be one of the sources that are doing this and have these highly reactive volatile organic compounds, so they decided well we need to focus on this and try and-and get the companies to start reducing the number of leaks they have into the-the cooling water, so we can reduce our-our ozone levels and the episodes that occur DW: Did this begin about a year ago?00:32:38 - 2280
  • BM: For the city it did. The state is-has been doing it a little bit longer than we have.DW: In that year that's past have you begun to see enough data that's allowing you to perhaps start to formulate some conclusions on that?00:32:51 - 2280BM: Well, you know s-sometimes you find leaks and sometimes you don't, you know, so you know we-we do the appropriate thing whatever that may be. If-if there's a-an emission limit that a company has and they're above that there may be a permitting problem, a compliance problem. If they're grandfathered then there's not a whole lot we can do except to point it out to the company at this particular point in time. In a couple of years all those grandfathered cooling towers will be permitted and they will have emission limits and hopefully they will have in their permits strong conditions about how they're going to operate their cooling towers. And then for those particular units we'll have something more to work with as far as a compliance handle, but currently on some of them it's, you know, we don't have a very big handle to work with. DT: Do you see any large discrepancy between what the particular companies that own these cooling towers estimate coming out of these towers and that which is actually measured to come out in terms of VOCs or other pollutants?00:34:12 - 2280BM: I haven't really been comparing their emissions inventory estimates that much with what's coming out. So I'm not sure I can respond directly to that question.DT: You said earlier that you worked on some of the fugitive emissions too and I was wondering if you found that there were any kinds of trends or patterns that you've seen there?00:34:37 - 2280
  • BM: I-I would say that in general we're verifying what the U.S. EPA already verified that a lot of times the-we find more leaks than the companies find and I think that's due in part to how you apply the-the monitoring technique. If you do it the right way there's less chance of you missing a leak than if you don't do it according to the proper procedure and I think that's partly what's going on. And so EPA that's basically what they found and that's one of the reasons they came to the state and the state came to the city was they said hey, company may say they have one half percent leakers for-for these valves and-and flanges and other components, but we're finding they have five percent, which doesn't sound like a lot 00:35:41 - 2280but when you multiply the-the leak by each component over a years time it can be a considerable amount of-of pollution. And so I think in some ways we have found similar things and so basically I think these investigations help the company get a little more focused in-in what it ought to be doing and-and develop a better program of-of doing their monitoring. S-and it will be very interesting this-I mean the second year of this. We're going to go back to the companies we went to last year and so it will be very interesting to kind of see the difference from last year to this year as far as how their monitoring programs are going and what we find. So I'm-I'm kind of looking forward to that.DT: Considering the sort of awkward situation that a company's in, where they are essentially testing themselves, and there are kind of conflicting incentives there Do you find that the errors in their monitoring are due to ignorance, negligence, intentional deceit? What is it?00:37:02 - 2280
  • BM: I-I can't really say intentional deceit. I mean I-it's hard for me sometimes to-to know why the errors were made. I mean, you know, everybody is a human so, you know, sometimes the folks are suppose to do something a certain way and they don't. And so I guess it d-the company-what you find out is how well the company's program consistently is implemented and operates. You know if-if there's not good oversight then you would expect that sometimes things get sloppy. And I like to think that our audits that we do on them sort of help them get focused on where it is that perhaps they just weren't quite as focused as they ought to be. And so-and of course if there's a violation of a rule, you know, that will be addressed and even if there's not a violation of rule if there's a area of concern maybe it's not a 00:38:11 - 2280violation but, you know, we have a uncomfortable feeling about something. We still tell them those things. And a lot of times they'll make changes accordingly because, you know, they say well yeah, you've got a point there. Maybe-maybe we should be doing it different. So you know, I-I look at what we do as, you know, being real helpful and, you know, hopefully it hel-it does help to have someone looking over your shoulder. If you don't have that then the incentive is maybe not to do it or not to do it all the time or not to do it right. So I think it helps to have us knocking on the door and say we'd like to sit down with you and take a look and see what you got.DT: I guess the other place I've often heard people say that there's "wiggle-room" or gaps or omissions in emissions upsets. Do you have any comments about upsets and how they are factored into permit and compliance records and the performance of the plant?00:39:21 - 2280
  • BM: Well, you know the past couple of years things have kind of tightened up a bit and there's again more focus on that because of the-the issues being with the exceedance of the ozone standards that might be due to some upsets, which again are releases of air pollutants that-that aren't planned for and they're not normal routine emissions. And so what I've seen is that a lot of times when a company has an upset that with the present criteria they must meet in order to have their emissions excused as being a violation. A lot of times they're not able to meet those-that criteria in 00:40:05 - 2280which case it turns into a violation. So I-I think gradually over time that again it's having the effective-having companies go hmm, we-again, we need to do something different here because if we're repeatedly having the same upset or-or some upsets that-that are caused by human error or whatever how can we avoid this in the future? And so I-I think it's really good that extra focus that's going on there. It's-it's kind of hard to say well how much of an effect that's having, but I know that when we go visit companies they certainly are extremely aware that whatever happens dealing with upsets is going to be scrutinized very carefully.DT: You have all this experience in air pollution monitoring and enforcement. I'm curious if you see any weaknesses that are persistent or places where you felt frustrated in trying to achieve your goal for air quality improvement that just don't seem to get addressed? 00:41:25 - 2280
  • BM: Well, I think part of it-I mean part of my frustration is that being an air quality investigator you would think that every day I'd be out, you know, investigating. That's not the case. I mean when you're talking about some of the larger facilities, you know, going out two or three times a month is about all you do because the reports-the-what it takes to generate a-a complete package documenting everything you do has become so complicated and so involved and it changes constantly back and forth. W-the c-the city has a contract with the state. We get the money but the state says you must do certain things to get the money. And part of it is to use their-their procedures of doing reports and other things. But those things are always changing and it-it makes it real hard to-to complete something and it 00:42:33 - 2280gets real frustrating for an investigator because you ought to be spending 90 percent of your time in the field, but instead you're spending 90 percent of the time in front of the computer screen. So to me that's the most frustrating thing is-is, you know, it seems to me I'm most valuable out in the field talking to people, looking at what they're doing, assessing compliance, but instead it seems like I'm in my chair most of the time. So that would be the biggest thing if there were a way to make it easier to finish and-your documentation so that it's complete but it doesn't take a whole lot of time. That would be nice, but I'm not sure that-that-that has-we have made a lot of progress on that.DT: A lot of the plants that you investigate are multi-million, if not -billion, dollar facilities, and the changes that might be required to come under a compliance order are very expensive. And I'm curious if you have you ever felt like there was a lot of pressure on you not to find things or to lower the requirements to come into compliance?00:43:49 - 2280
  • BM: Well, the companies are-are-are fighting everything a lot more than they used to because of the compliance history requirements now. You know now the state has these compliance history requirements that basically say okay, we're going to take note of the problems you have had in the past, we're going to give you a point score for each one of those, we're going to add them up, if you're over something then you may need to do further things. So that-that's made the companies much more feisty about fighting every violation that-that-that you as an investigator say well, I think you've got a problem here. So they're not afraid at all to contest them and to come in and have a compliance meeting and-and to go to the state or even go to EPA and say, you know, we don't think, you know, this is appropriate. So the-there's a lot of pressure from the companies that way and also, you know, it's kind of 00:44:48 - 2280interesting sometimes, you know, you ask the company questions and-and ask for information and you get a certain amount but not quite what you want and then when you go ahead and issue a violation and ask for compliance all of a sudden that information is available. So sometimes it gets frustrating, you know, as-as an investigator about that.
  • So the other thing is that from an investigator standpoint even the city cannot administratively penalize a company. Only the state holds that authority. So we have to ship our notices of enforcement to the state for them to make a decision on that. And you know, you go through a lot of work, you put the report together, you document all the violations, you send it up to the state and then some of the penalties that they assess are not very high. So sometimes it seems like is this really a deterrent, you know? And from my point of view a lot of times it doesn't seem like it, but you know, it's-it's the system we've got and have to work with 00:45:56 - 2280because the Texas legislature never gave local governments administrative penalty powers. And so as a result we don't have a choice, you know, if we find something that triggers a notice of enforcement then we have to give it to the state for them to deal with. S-and also, you know, they-they also have a calculation and a penalty sheet and they give for good faith effort and all this stuff they-they give a lot of, how should I say it? They reduced the penalties a lot and I'm not sure in my own mind while I love good faith effort whether the penalty should be reduced as much as they are, you know, based on those kinds of situations.DT: Do you find that the penalties are usually on a par or less than equal to the benefits that were gained by not being in compliance?00:46:57 - 2280
  • BM: It's hard to say because we don't make that calculation. You know we-I don't necessarily know what the benefits were. There's nothing in-in our procedures that requires us to do that and because of the effort to get the reports done on time you can't dawdle and, you know, deal with things like that because you just don't have the time to do it. DW: Let's say you take samples, are the companies required to do split samples? Do they take their own samples and then try to challenge you in court so it sort of becomes your scientist versus their scientist?00:47:46 - 2280
  • BM: Well, we almost never go to court. You have to remember that. I ha-I don't recall the city going to court for an air pollution violation in quite a few years.
  • But when we do the cooling water-cooling tower samples sometimes they do set up right next to us and take their own samples at the same time, which is fine. We don't have a problem with that. I mean we're going to do ours the right way and, you know, get whatever we get and, you know, I prefer them actually sampling with us because if they get approximately the same thing we do then like there's no question, 00:48:30 - 2280you know. It's like uh-oh, you know, need to do something here or it's fine and we see it's fine too. So I-I think it's to their benefit to sample along side us because then they can assess, you know, their program with our program and-and, you know, see if it's comparable. So sometimes they do do that, but you know, that's just part of the-what you deal with.DT: Can you give us any examples of cases that were really successful that you worked on or ones that went awry that were just not as productive as you hoped?00:49:13 - 2280BM: I-I'm not sure I can give those, you know-you know, specifically enough to, you know, to-to really-to detail them, you know. And I still work for the Bureau and, you know, I'm not supposed to talk about too specifically about things and so I'd-I'd-I'd rather not, you know, do that.DT: Tell us a bit more about more generic things. One issue that has gotten a lot of attention are grandfathered facilities, which are sprinkled around the state, and I understand that there are 700 or more and they are a leading contributor to air quality problems in many communities. Can you talk about how these grandfather facilities came to be and why the loophole extended for almost a generation and how it was finally closed in recent sessions?00:50:09 - 2280
  • BM: Well, I mean the Texas legis-legislature in the early 70's was-was basically told that, you know, if-if I've got a current source of air pollution don't permit me. Permit only new sources of air pollution and this old source in a few years is going to be modified or shut down or we're going to replace it with a new facility and therefore when that happens it'll have better pollution control equipment on it because it's-it's newer and it's required under the permit program and therefore, you know, we'll reduce the air pollution. Well, the problem was that didn't happen. A lot of facilities kept operating their old equipment. Some would suggest that they actually modified it but then didn't bother to tell the state agency that they modified it and kept operating. And so this-they were essentially polluting a whole lot more than anybody thought they would for a longer period of time. And finally just, I think, two years ago the state legislature, you know, after many years of citizens 00:51:30 - 2280saying these old facilities are-are creating a problem with air pollution, finally stated that within a few years they will all be permitted or get a permit by rule or some other authorization so that none of them will-will be able to operate as they have in the past. But even that permitting is not astringent as-as we would have liked it because it'll be based on ten year old pollution control equipment instead of current day pollution control equipment in the-the levels of-of pollutants that you would get today, which would be much less than they wo-would be like ten years ago with pollution control equipment. So it will reduce the levels but not as much as probably it should.DT: I understand that when Governor Bush was still in office and when he was running for President he and his administration and some industry figures drew up a way of trying to respond to this grandfather problem and I think it involved voluntary emissions reductions. Can you tell us what you know about that? 00:52:46 - 2280
  • BM: I-I don't know much except that basically almost no one signed on to the program, you know, and that was one of the reasons they eventually went to a mandatory program because the governor said well, we're going to address grandfather sources, but we're going to, you know, request that everybody do it on their own. And everybody didn't and so as a result when the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality had to report they only had a very few companies that ever said, you know, had ever submitted a permit to reduce their grandfather emissions voluntarily. And it was really I think very embarrassing because it showed that voluntary emission reduction, you know, at least in that case didn't work. So-and 00:53:32 - 2280because Houston and other areas were still having lots of pollution problems finally the legislature bit the bullet and said okay, well I guess we're going to address this now and it won't be voluntary, you know, you're going to have to do this. So you know, we tried voluntary, it didn't work, so we said what I really love is command and control. Thou shalt do this by such and such a date and it'll be such and such an emission and that's it and that works. Voluntary doesn't work.DT: What would you say to the industry representative who might say well, command and control is a one size fits all inflexible solution that doesn't recognize the nuances and specific problems of each plant?00:54:27 - 2280
  • BM: I would say our lungs don't recognize a difference between the nuances, you know. We still get sick and-and ha-die and-and have allergies and asthma and everything. And m-my other thing is if you ever look at the rules you'll see they're very nuanced. They give lots of exemptions to lots of different kinds of sources. So depending on your rule writers and the agency you can write these rules such that you can provide some nuance if you want to. There's always an alternative emission reduction section in most rules so that if a company really feels like doing it this way 00:55:12 - 2280doesn't work if they can convince the agency that doing it this way works just as well, but it's different. They can do that but most companies don't ever do that. So-so I think there are opportunities to get nuanced but mostly we don't need nuance we just need to reduce the air pollution.DT: Can you give some examples of the health effects that drive some of these air quality regulations from your personal experience? 00:55:47 - 2280
  • BM: Well, I mean we have a national problem with asthma and while it's not been conclusively linked to air pollution many scientists and many medical professionals feel very strongly that the rise in asthma is attached to in part air pollutants that we generate, not natural born air pollution like pollens and things, but the sulfur dioxides and the volatile organic compounds and the other things that are being emitted that-that affect our health. So we know that, you know, we know from the Harvard studies that-for particulate matter that, you know, it affects people much more from a mortality standpoint and from a health standpoint than we ever thought possible in the past. The better studies we do the finer scale the studies the more we find that pollution effects-air pollution affects people. And this is after we've d-had 30 plus years of reducing air pollution, so if we'd done these studies a long time ago we would of found even a-probably a greater impact on people's health, but it's still a 00:57:09 - 2280significant impact today even with everything that we have done. So we're not there yet. We've got a long way to go. We've made some good strides, but certainly now is not the time to say that's all we need to do, so you know, I don't know. It's just-I mean people are always complaining when-when, you know, at an air pollution bureau when you go out people complain about, you know, having problems breathing and that sort of thing and, you know, the-they're equating it to their neighbors, you know, their industrial neighbors. And so, you know, it just seems to me it's-if you're sitting next to a refinery or a big chemical plant or at least nearby that-and we know they have upsets and we know there's a lot of emissions they generate that nobody even knows are there that, you know, just sitting there near them is going to have some sort of impact and the studies seem to indicate that that-that's the case.DT: Do you ever get called out when somebody has got an asthma attack or gets some sort of a rash or has some other sort of episode - neurological or...00:58:30 - 2280
  • BM: I used to handle complaints a long time ago, but the investigations I do now are-are strictly-don't deal with complaints. So I-I don't handle complaints, although there's other people in the Bureau who do handle complaints.DW: You used the phrase in that last, previous answer of being near, I hear the word "near" a lot, but I flew in a helicopter around Houston last Saturday, and we are down to around 500 feet. We were probably a mile south of any fires and whatever we were smelling came right through the cockpit of the helicopter. So my question is, are the complaints and the investigations necessarily limited to people who live near them or can you be ten miles away in Houston from this kind of thing, 15 miles away, have a complaint and have it be legitimate because the study of the air or the meteorology has shown that the flow of these things distribute such?00:59:25 - 2280
  • BM: I don't have any doubt that it-it could be legitimate. There are occasions when we have an east wind, which is relatively rare in Houston and somebody over on the Ship Channel has had a problem and it's a compound that's odorless that you can smell it all the way across town. But it's real hard for an investigator to say ten miles away that this company did that. It's-it's virtually impossible for an investigator who's just using their nose to make such an assertion unless that odor has been verified at that company and its come all the way across town and everybody has complained about it and, you know, you know what that odor is. But it's-it's very difficult. I mean-and-and this is the best instrument we have as far as odors go is the nose. You know there's no instrument, no scientific technology available that-that seems to beat just smelling an odor.DW: How about blood tests that reveal chemical analysis of stuff people may be absorbing over a long term? Any testing like that?01:00:38 - 2280
  • BM: We don't do that. If-if someone had a problem and they thought it was related to air pollution they would have to go get the blood tests themselves and they'd have to go to their doctor and, you know, basically do their own research because we're not equipped to do that. We don't have any of the equipment, any of the money and the personnel, any of the experience, any of the skill to do any of that kind of thing. So that would be someone like a researcher looking at epidemiology, you know, why there's sickness in a particular area or something like that, perhaps. We don't even do community surveys, you know, health surveys. Some people in the past like Dr. Marvin Legator who actually wrote a book about doing detective work as a citizen. Actually, had done community surveys where they picked out community health problems and some of them may be related to air pollution, but the-our Bureau doesn't do that.[End of Reel 2280]