Not trying to make light of this, but I had a funny conversation earlier with a co-worker explaining that part of Buffalo Bayou and the Houston Ship Channel are the same thing. He was saying that wasn't true because there wouldn't be different names. So I asked him the best way to get to Sugar Land: 59 South, I-69 South or the Southwest Freeway. It's Houston, man...we do multiple names here!
Well, there's a middle ground here, and I don't think any of y'all are being nutty or stupid or anything else. 1. The air is contaminated. That's not good. 2. There are government standards for particulate matter and contaminates where they recommend, basically, under this level is okay and over this level is dangerous. I would believe officials saying you are under those levels. 3. It's still better to breathe less of it, if possible. There's a lot of chemistry to argue about, but health impacts of chemicals are notoriously difficult to get super clear guidelines on unless it's something you're naturally supposed to inhale versus something you're not supposed to inhale. One reason is there are (thank god) not many experiments where thousands of people breathe in, say, lots of combusted xylene and then we watch the effects for 10-20 years of solid data. Take care everybody. When we had those fires out in Cali this year (and last), I know we were getting nasty doses of ... not just smoke from wood burning, but smoke from everything burning. We tried to stay indoors.
UH professor says these fumes could very well be cancerous. I would for one take extreme caution till they put out the fire. I don't care what officials say.
This news conference is a clown show. The company needs to hire a real spokesperson. The lady in charge doesn't know what she is doing.
My brother works in environmental consulting. His company bid about 2-1/2 years ago on a project to install benzene sensors and other equipment that was required at the time for this plant. They dragged their feet until the new administration came in because they knew regulations would be lightened. They were right and nothing more was ever done there. I'm not saying that particular work would've prevented anything happening right now. I'm just saying this company took advantage of a less regulated environment in this current administration and it wouldn't be the least bit surprising to learn they were too lax on maintenance or something else that would've been required pre-Jan 2017. I was able to see it from I-45 in The Woodlands. Just crazy how huge that plume is.
Before it was engulfed in flames, a Deer Park chemical facility had a long history of violating state and federal environmental rules. Intercontinental Terminals Company's Deer Park facility violated clean air and clean water rules multiple times since 2009 and was cited for not following federal risk management regulations, records show. Federal, state and county regulators issued more than $65,000 in civil penalties to ITC during that time. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/lo...lant-on-fire-at-Intercontinental-13697362.php I'm sure that whopping $65K in fines the past decade really made them clean up their act.
lol, Jesus. The sad thing is, jack **** will happen to them after this, as well. "Nothing we could have done! Anyways, thanks for all the tax breaks."
Dont worry south houston, we will have 5G intense radio waves damaging our brains in Cypress and surrounding areas so we can watch movies in 4k. The spokeperson for AT&T said we gone be aight they really havent done any testing just rubbed their hands like Birdman with the money they gonna make. Houston is becoming one dumbass city.
A lot of people I talked to were complaining about feeling sick today. Not saying it has to do with this but seems like a big coincidence.
