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Measuring air quality it is in itself an excessive measure; the amount of toxic nitrogen oxides, ground ozone and fine particles will be harmful to humans. But when it comes to federal regulations, the notion of abuse is slightly distorted. When a refinery or plant exceeds the limits set by local public health authorities to cover the pollution, such smoke is considered to be “excessive emissions” or even “excesses”.
Emission limits are arbitrary, of course. Less pollution is always better in a country where there are more than 20 people die every hour from poor air quality and where that burden bends to communities of color. But analyzing the human cost of these floods is helpful in weighing or perhaps tightening these arbitrary limitations. So Nikolaos Zirogiannis, an environmental economist at Indiana University, decided to count the health toll in a state: as a result, how many people die each year as a result additional pollution?
His team chose to focus on Texas, where a large number of fossil fuels and chemical plants are combined with state-friendly regulations for the state, making it a hot spot for excess emissions. But it also happens to have the most stringent public disclosure requirements for the nation; In 2001, state lawmakers ordered that the facility be required to report excessive emissions within 24 hours, but that these data would be updated daily for public review. According to Zirogiannis, “Texas is the only state in the country that has very specific conditions for maintaining records.”
He and his team reviewed 15-year reports, as well as mortality statistics and data from local air quality monitors. They concluded that 35 people die each year as a result of these excessive emissions in Texas, which means that all pollutants are deaths that would not be kept within the permitted limits. This is the first time scientists have linked health effects to this subset of pollution. Results will appear in the July issue of the newspaper Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.
“It’s a very high number,” says Zirogiannis, “because it’s the number that comes only from those exceedances.”
The main way for the group to link these emissions to deaths has been to isolate the local levels of ground-level ozone. evil contaminant which can cause heart problems and respiratory illnesses. “There is a wealth of literature linking high ozone levels to respiratory and cardiovascular death,” says Joan Casey, an environmental health scientist at Columbia University who did not participate in the study. Heart attacks, strokes, asthma attacks, a chronic chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – “These are the kinds of outcomes I would expect to have accounts of what is being seen here,” Casey says.
Oil refineries, natural gas facilities, chemical power plants, power plants and pipelines are hardly closed systems. Closing maintenance, backing up, or malfunctioning is an option for unusual emissions. Nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or other pollutants are released into the local air. Each can be dangerous on its own, but in a solar environment, these chemicals also contribute to the formation of ozone in the earth.
The group linked the industry’s air pollution to local ozone levels by compiling reports from the Texas Environmental Quality Commission between 2002 and 2017. These data showed when, where and why the discharges were made, and what kind of chemical contamination was involved. Monitoring ozone readings found a correlation between jumps in the release of nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and VOCs. continuation of this Environmental Protection Agency.
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