While health experts around the country are focused on containing the spread of the coronavirus, the Environmental Protection Agency is making changes that could both worsen the impact of the current crisis and hamstring responses to future pandemics. In addition to moving full speed ahead with a plan to limit the use of research based on private health data, the EPA is temporarily lifting requirements on enforcement of pollution laws. The change in enforcement is particularly scary for people like Pat Gonzales. Gonzales, who is 53, has had asthma since she moved near several oil refineries in Pasadena, Texas, 20 years ago. Her three children, who were raised in the town southeast of Houston, have also developed breathing problems while living in Pasadena. Because of the sustained effects of air pollution, which appear to make people particularly vulnerable to the effects of the virus, Gonzales has been staying inside, washing her hands, and worrying about the health of her family and everyone else with compromised lungs in Pasadena. “If we get this, it won’t be easy to take care of,” she said.
EPA data backs up Gonzales’s sense that her family’s breathing problems are “all because of the refineries,” as she told me. In October, the EPA measured benzene levels at the fence line of Pasadena Refining Systems, which is about a mile from Gonzales’s home, at almost twice an exposure limit set by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. Pasadena Refining Systems, which is owned by Chevron, is one of at least 10 refineries in Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Texas whose emissions of the deadly pollutant benzene exceeded safety levels in the last quarter of 2019. The environmental agency, citing the coronavirus pandemic, announced that it was giving polluters a free pass on the enforcement of pollution rules last week. The policy waives many of the usual requirements for monitoring, testing, sampling, and lab analysis of emissions of chemicals. And that could make it much harder to know if the Pasadena refinery — or any industrial facility — is pumping out dangerous amounts of pollution. To view the full article visit the Intercept.