HEARINGS ON PROPOSED CLEAN AIR PLAN TO BE HELD MONDAY

By Ella Tyler

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality will hold hearings on its proposed clean air plan on Monday, Jan 29. Two sessions are scheduled, one beginning at 2 pm and the second beginning at 6 pm. The hearings will take place at the Houston-Galveston Area Council, 3555 Timmons Lane, in the Greenway Plaza area in Houston. The hearings will be in Conference Room A, on the second floor.

The plan that TCEQ has proposed will not, by its own account, bring the Houston/Galveston/Brazoria non-attainment area into compliance with the US Environmental Protection Agency’s eight-hour standard for ground-level ozone until between 2009 and 2018. The deadline to comply, unless the EPA extends it, is 2010.

Local advocacy group Mothers for Clean Air is urging area residents to attend one of the meetings and let TCEQ hear their personal perspectives on this plan.

Jane Laping, executive director of Mothers for Clean Air, said, “We are not against the rules that are proposed, but we are against a plan that doesn’t demonstrate how to achieve clean air.”

Laping said that the proposed plan would control less than 4% of the emissions TCEQ calculates must be controlled to meet the 2010 ozone deadline and that, under the TCEQ plan, several monitors across the county are expected to show values above the current federal limit for ozone as late as 2018.

Laping’s three tips for testifying are:

• Bring a written copy of your remarks, if possible. Keep remarks brief and to the point.
• Start with your name and a sentence or two about yourself. State whether or not you agree with the proposed rules.
• Include in your comments any personal experiences with air pollution. Have you or your children experienced adverse health effects? Have you had to reschedule or cancel a child’s activities? How do you feel about bringing up your children in an area where you have to be concerned about the air they are breathing? Have you heard negative comments about Houston’s environment?

To view the plan, visit TCEQ’s website

TCEQ is also hosting a workshop to guide regulated entities in supplying comprehensive final reports of emission events to the TCEQ under the new streamlining process. The workshop will be offered on Tuesday, Jan 30, at the City of Houston’s E.B. Cape Center, 4501 Leeland Street.