Physicians Point to Effect of Pollutants as EPA Takes Action on Sulfur Dioxide Emissions
Public Health Feature — June 2016
Tex Med. 2016;112(6):37-42.
By Joey Berlin
Reporter
Cherelle Blazer, an environmental scientist, says she turned toward clean-air activism after a harrowing night more than eight years ago, when she feared poor North Texas air quality might take the lives of her husband and, indirectly, her unborn child.
Ms. Blazer, living with her family in the Fort Worth suburb of Mansfield, was eight months pregnant when she went to dinner at a family member's house with her children. Her husband did not join them because his asthma was giving him trouble. Her husband called her later that night and told her he was having extreme breathing problems. When Ms. Blazer and her children went back to the house, her husband's condition was worse, and he kept using his nebulizer.
He eventually lost consciousness, and an ambulance took him to the hospital. By the time Ms. Blazer got there, her husband was in an asthma-induced coma.
As he remained in the coma for days, Ms. Blazer went into premature labor. Amazingly, her husband came out of his coma on the same day she delivered a healthy baby.
Ms. Blazer says there's no doubt in her mind "living in the conditions that we do in North Texas contributed to my family being in that situation." She's now an organizing representative for the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign.
"It's one thing to read … statistics," she said, "and it's another thing to experience the possibilities of what that means in everyday life."
Mindful of the devastating impact pollutants can have, Texas physicians have been clamoring for years for action to curb or eliminate the emissions of coal-fired power plants, pointing to studies and evidence those plants' congesting environmental output makes patient populations sicker and the number of emergency department visits greater.
Now, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is setting its sights on several of the epicenters of Texas' environmental battle. In February, EPA proposed designating various areas around the country as "nonattainment" regions because of unsafe levels of sulfur dioxide according to 2010 federal standards. Some of those nonattainment areas surrounded three coal-fired power plants in East Texas: the Luminant power facilities known as Big Brown, Martin Lake, and Monticello.
Those plants are among grandfathered "legacy" facilities that aren't subject to clean-air standards requiring lower emissions and newer technologies. As a result, the trio of plants have come under intense scrutiny over the years from clean-air advocates who blame them for downwind pollution in the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) metroplex.
Trying to Clear the Air
#3 How many more do you want, stupid little shit of a finger guy?