One of Public Health Watch’s missions is to hold the Texas petrochemical industry — and the regulators who are supposed to police it — accountable for life-threatening air pollution in places like eastern Harris County. Our work on the series “Toxic Texas Air” reflected this commitment.
These stories explore the inherently complex topic of air pollution and its health effects. The science is complex, the regulations are confusing and the gap between them is large. Because of this, keeping up with this topic is a full-time job. That’s time most people don’t have. And the people most affected by Texas air pollution — oftentimes low-income, communities of color — are left to hope that the government is protecting them from harm. Our series showed this often isn’t the case.
In December, we published a searing indictment of the state’s environmental regulator, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), which knew about but failed to stop high emissions of benzene, a carcinogen, from a chemical-storage site in the unincorporated, majority-Latino community of Channelview for nearly two decades. We acquired thousands of pages of documents, consulted with scientists, analyzed emissions data and spoke at length with former state officials. The story, also published in Spanish, prompted state Sen. Carol Alvarado, whose district includes Channelview, to submit a request that the legislature begin studying benzene emissions around the state ahead of the 2025 session. “We’re not taking this lightly,” she told us.
We followed our investigation with a story detailing the increasingly alarming science around benzene and the industry’s decades-long pattern of denial and deception around the chemical. Most recently, we revealed how federal law allows “minor” polluters — like the one at the center of our investigation — to avoid strict federal regulations, including requirements to have the best available equipment and operational standards.
We supplemented our reporting in Channelview with an explanatory story about the growing, largely hidden toll of fine-particle pollution in Texas. The story featured an interactive map that used peer-reviewed data to estimate the deaths and illnesses caused by particulate matter in each county and census tract.
This work required us to understand the intricacies of this topic and translate them into something that is digestible — and interesting — for readers. Each story required many hours-long interviews with advocates, experts, community members and regulators. Many stories also required navigating difficult data and mountains of documents.
Our stories have already had impact: Last June the Texas Legislature raised fines for polluters for the first time in 11 years. This was largely due to the efforts of state Rep. Penny Morales Shaw of Houston, who told Public Health Watch her inspiration was our 2022 story revealing state efforts to limit counties’ ability to punish polluters. “It’s a testament to what can happen when media, community groups and lawmakers push for change — when you create a culture where the state has to begin listening,” she said.
