Speaker 1: If you're exposed to a lot of air pollution, you
Speaker 1: don't need to wait around for the EPA to sample
Speaker 1: your air quality, at least not anymore. Today on the podcast,
Speaker 1: we talk about fence line communities, citizen science, and what
Speaker 1: this all means for polluters. Hello, and welcome back once
Speaker 1: again to Parts Pervilion, the environmental podcast from Bloomberg Law.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, David Schultz. So averages can be a
Speaker 1: really cruel mathematical concept. Think about it. If the average
Speaker 1: temperature of your microwave pizza is perfect, that sounds great,
Speaker 1: but it could also mean that parts of the pizza
Speaker 1: are still frozen and other parts are tongue meltingly hot.
Speaker 1: That's a lesson that I've learned the hard way multiple times.
Speaker 1: Along those same lines, you may live in a state
Speaker 1: that meets the federal air quality standards on average, but
Speaker 1: if you live right next door to a factory that
Speaker 1: spews pollution twenty four seven, you might be getting exposed
Speaker 1: to wag way more toxins than the average person. The
Speaker 1: Federal Clean Air Act is supposed to account for this
Speaker 1: type of disparity, but it's the kind of law that's
Speaker 1: only as good as the data that you feed into it.
Speaker 1: So now, as Bloomberg Laws Jennifer had Jazzy recently reported,
Speaker 1: some people who live adjacent to big sources of pollution
Speaker 1: in places known as fence line communities are taking matters
Speaker 1: into their own hands in using new inexpensive air monitoring
Speaker 1: devices to find out exactly how much pollution they're really
Speaker 1: exposed to. This has the potential to open up a
Speaker 1: Pandora's box of legal liability for the companies that operate
Speaker 1: these industrial sites. And we'll get to that in a bit,
Speaker 1: But first I ask Jennifer to explain to me what
Speaker 1: fence line communities actually are and who lives there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean these could be communities that are in proximity
Speaker 1: to a factory, industrial metal shredder plant. They could be
Speaker 1: on the border of an oil refinery. They could also
Speaker 1: be on the border of a highway. Fence Line communities,
Speaker 1: as a term of art, can mean any type of
Speaker 1: community that is neighboring a major source of pollution. And
Speaker 1: as we know, these communities are largely low income, low
Speaker 1: wealth communities of color. That's interesting. I didn't realize that
Speaker 1: that it's not just communities next to a factory. So
Speaker 1: it could also be a highway, which, yeah, is a
Speaker 1: really big source of pollution, right. So I always thought
Speaker 1: that the Clean Air Act was really really strict in
Speaker 1: terms of like requiring the EPA to monitor these pollution
Speaker 1: levels really closely in these communities. But you spoke with
Speaker 1: some people who said that it's actually not as strict
Speaker 1: as you would think, and not nearly strict enough. Can
Speaker 1: you explain that. Yeah, So the Clean Air Act has
Speaker 1: done marvelous things for our air quality, you know, since
Speaker 1: it was crafted, since it was finalized in the seventies,
Speaker 1: But it really only manages criteria air pollutants and hazardous
Speaker 1: air pollutants up to a certain degree. So it regulates
Speaker 1: pollutants in the ambient air for states. So national ambient
Speaker 1: air quality standards will track criteria air pollutants like particulate
Speaker 1: matter and things like that on a statewide level, or
Speaker 1: hazardous air pollutants on a permit to permit level. But
Speaker 1: in terms of regulating hazardous air pollutants for certain fence
Speaker 1: line communities that are right on the border of these facilities,
Speaker 1: that's where the Clean Air Act kind of stops short.
Speaker 1: So for a lot of these communities that may be
Speaker 1: in a state that is meeting ambient air quality standards
Speaker 1: national air quality standards. A lot of these communities are
Speaker 1: still arguing, well, yes, so our state might be in compliance,
Speaker 1: but we are on the border of a facility that's
Speaker 1: still emitting all of these toxic pollutants into our general
Speaker 1: facinity vicinity. So even though they may be within their
Speaker 1: permit requirements, they're still releasing a lot of stuff that's
Speaker 1: affecting the surrounding community. Well right off the bat, I mean,
Speaker 1: I can just see some really obvious problems with that.
Speaker 1: Like for a state that's really big geographically, let's say
Speaker 1: Montana or something like that, it'd be really easy to
Speaker 1: meet air pollution standards for the entire state. But if
Speaker 1: you're living next to a huge emitter, that's still going
Speaker 1: to be a really big problem. And the according to
Speaker 1: the Clean Air Act, everything's fine. Am I getting that right?
Speaker 1: Or am I mischaracterizing it? Yeah? It's It's more like,
Speaker 1: according to the Clean Air Act, you know, a state
Speaker 1: and or on a facility level, could be meeting their
Speaker 1: permit requirements to their national ambient air quality standards, But
Speaker 1: for these communities right on the borders of you know, facilities, refineries.
Speaker 1: Everything is not fine, even though you know, on a
Speaker 1: surface level, on a legal level, the Clean Air Act
Speaker 1: is doing its job. And when we say everything is
Speaker 1: not fine, let's actually define what we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you mentioned particular matter. That's one
Speaker 1: air pollutant, but there are a lot of others. What
Speaker 1: are these pollution What are these air pollutants that we're
Speaker 1: talking about and what can they do to your health
Speaker 1: if you are exposed to too much of them? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's so Under the Clean Air Act, they're kind of
Speaker 1: pollutants are split into two major categories. There's hazardous air
Speaker 1: pollutants like benzine, things like that, and then criteria air
Speaker 1: pollutants particulate matter, ozone, smock, things like that. Depending on
Speaker 1: the pollutant, it does different things. So communities that are
Speaker 1: living on the fence line of facilities that say are
Speaker 1: emitting you know, particulate matter and benzine, like, we're looking
Speaker 1: at long term health effects and short term health effects
Speaker 1: depending on what the chemical is. So long term health effects,
Speaker 1: we're looking at pulmonary problems, heart disease, things that you
Speaker 1: know folks go to a hospital for and you know,
Speaker 1: on a death certificate it says heart disease. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, they've been exposed over a
Speaker 1: long period of time to these chemicals that are regulated,
Speaker 1: but you know, within a certain community are still really concentrated.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a really good point that you don't
Speaker 1: you don't read a lot of obituaries that say so
Speaker 1: and so died of air pollution. Yeah. Absolutely, And you know,
Speaker 1: as we know now, like air pollution kills millions of
Speaker 1: people a year all over the world, and short term
Speaker 1: health effects can range from stomach aches, nausea, headaches, trouble
Speaker 1: with vision, all kinds of all kinds of nasty stuff.
Speaker 1: And you know it's also again you already mentioned this,
Speaker 1: but it bears repeating that the communities that live in
Speaker 1: these fence line areas are typically lower income, often minority
Speaker 1: communities that already have issues with access to healthcare. So
Speaker 1: this just can kind of compound those issues, right, absolutely,
Speaker 1: cumulative effects. So let's get into your story. You know,
Speaker 1: we've talked about on this podcast before a very long
Speaker 1: time ago that air monitoring technology is getting cheaper and
Speaker 1: cheaper and more sophisticated and more sophisticated, and it sounds
Speaker 1: like communities, some of these fence line communities are taking
Speaker 1: this matter into their own hands and are gathering their
Speaker 1: own data. Can you talk a little bit about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I spoke to Juan Floras, who's managing an air
Speaker 1: monitoring network for airlines Houston for example. So that's an
Speaker 1: organization that's run out of Texas, and he is at
Speaker 1: the helm of this program where they're actually installing different
Speaker 1: types of purple air monitors and APIs air monitors all
Speaker 1: over all across five communities and like the Pasadena area
Speaker 1: Galena Park in Texas that are particularly Pasadena right on
Speaker 1: the border of refineries and you know, really polluting facilities.
Speaker 1: And I think he would there was a quote in
Speaker 1: your story where he said that, you know, when he
Speaker 1: was growing up, they called Pasadena stinkad here, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And he mentioned that, you know, these facilities that are
Speaker 1: permitted to operate in this area under the Clean Air Act.
Speaker 1: You know, the all of the legal checks are, all
Speaker 1: of the legal boxes are checked. But you know, one
Speaker 1: day there's a flare or a big chemical release and
Speaker 1: the surrounding neighborhood can literally smell the chemicals in the air.
Speaker 1: It's giving them headaches, it's giving their kids nausea. But
Speaker 1: you know, by the time he said that, by the
Speaker 1: time an official comes out sometimes oftentimes days later, there's
Speaker 1: no proof that, you know, a pollution spike occurred. And
Speaker 1: so this is kind of their way, he said, of
Speaker 1: putting the data back into their own hands and not
Speaker 1: only being able to use them for like future legal challenges.
Speaker 1: That's all down the road, but you know, putting it
Speaker 1: into a dashboard where community members can actually see what's
Speaker 1: in their air and for them to be better informed
Speaker 1: themselves about what kind of things they're being exposed to.
Speaker 1: This opens up a whole host of questions. Let's start
Speaker 1: with the legal questions. Can this be admitted into court
Speaker 1: like cold Could the people who live in these areas
Speaker 1: and are gathering these this data with their own error
Speaker 1: pollution monitoring, Could they go to court and either sue
Speaker 1: the companies who own the factories or sue the EPA
Speaker 1: and say the Clean Air Act is being violated here?
Speaker 1: Is that a thing? It could possibly be a thing,
Speaker 1: but not quite the thing you just mentioned. I think
Speaker 1: we haven't well, we first of all have not seen
Speaker 1: this type of case or this type of data being
Speaker 1: used for that kind of thing. Yet one of the
Speaker 1: lawyers I spoke to is just like, this is a
Speaker 1: case by case basis kind of thing depending on how
Speaker 1: people use it. Theoretically, people could sue under nuisance law
Speaker 1: under the Clean Air Act. So this, you know, factories
Speaker 1: or facilities emissions are creating a nuisance in the surrounding area.
Speaker 1: That's infringing on my quality of life kind of thing. Theoretically,
Speaker 1: you could have a community that is using really sophisticated
Speaker 1: monitoring technology on the fence line of these facilities and
Speaker 1: could compare that data that they were measuring ambiently in
Speaker 1: their own community with federal ambient air data, which is
Speaker 1: required under the Clean Air Act, like we discussed, and
Speaker 1: you know, if a facility was trying to come into
Speaker 1: the a new facility was trying to come into the
Speaker 1: area and be like, we'd like a permit here, Theoretically
Speaker 1: they could bring that data to the EPA and say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we're already faced with a lot of cumulative
Speaker 1: pollution impacts already. Here's the data we have compared, you know,
Speaker 1: our ambient data compared with federal ambient data. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think that it just seems like it's a
Speaker 1: whole new world now that getting air monitoring data doesn't
Speaker 1: require like numerous PhDs. It's you can almost even like
Speaker 1: buy off the shelf technology and just sort of profit
Speaker 1: where you want it to be and get some pretty
Speaker 1: good quality data. That's what it sounds like, right in
Speaker 1: some cases. Yeah, but you know that's that is also
Speaker 1: the problem of it. Like you can, like people are
Speaker 1: more and more exposed to what they are exposed to.
Speaker 1: But quality control, I think in terms of the legal
Speaker 1: check challenges to bringing this kind of data, you're looking
Speaker 1: at quality control challenges. A lot of lawyers that I
Speaker 1: spoke to mentioned, you know, how do you parse out
Speaker 1: attribution of these emissions in like the soup of ambient air.
Speaker 1: You've got a facility in between like a freeway and
Speaker 1: a refinery, and they're measuring ambient air in the community,
Speaker 1: and it's just all of the pollutants from both sources.
Speaker 1: How do you use that data against like a single
Speaker 1: source when a lot of sources are contributing to a
Speaker 1: pollution in an area. So there are a lot of
Speaker 1: challenges and that will need to be worked out, I
Speaker 1: think in court for this kind of thing. That's a
Speaker 1: really good point that I hadn't thought about that a
Speaker 1: lot of times. We're not just talking about a fence
Speaker 1: line community. We're talking about a fences line community because
Speaker 1: there are multiple sources of pollution that are affecting this
Speaker 1: one community. So yeah, that can be really really hard
Speaker 1: to say this is the cause of the pollution. Tell
Speaker 1: me about the reaction to this from the indust from
Speaker 1: from industry. I guess you know, I think you quoted
Speaker 1: one person is saying that, you know, this is just
Speaker 1: going to be a new normal. Like we have this,
Speaker 1: people are going to be able to get this data.
Speaker 1: We can't stop them. We're just going to have to
Speaker 1: sort of address it and live with it. That the
Speaker 1: idea that we can dismiss this data out of hand
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. Yeah, it's well, you know, EPA, for its part,
Speaker 1: is has mentioned community air monitoring as a an initiative
Speaker 1: that can be pursued as part of its environmental justice goals.
Speaker 1: So they just released I think like twenty million dollars
Speaker 1: in grant funding this week for community air monitoring projects
Speaker 1: for instance. I can't speak for industry, but you know,
Speaker 1: the lawyers that I spoke to said, you know, this
Speaker 1: is kind of an inevitable problem people are already. One
Speaker 1: lawyer mentioned that he's had folks bring in like wristband
Speaker 1: monitor data that actually like cold data from their personal
Speaker 1: ambient air and brought that into litigation things like that.
Speaker 1: But you know, and yet another source I spoke to
Speaker 1: is like it kind of behooves industry to just start
Speaker 1: doing this work themselves, not only because it's an inevitability,
Speaker 1: because it's just something that a lot of people are
Speaker 1: doing now you can get purple air monitor sensors on Amazon,
Speaker 1: but it's also just you know, being good stewards of
Speaker 1: the area that you're in by you know, having a
Speaker 1: firm handle on your emission's profile and not contributing to
Speaker 1: these cumulative effects that are you know, devastating communities that
Speaker 1: are again in areas that maybe under Clean Air Act
Speaker 1: compliance but are really suffering like from source specific pollution
Speaker 1: that's just not going anywhere. And then finally, one last
Speaker 1: thing I wanted to ask you about is the Biden administration.
Speaker 1: You just mentioned that the EPA has released some grant
Speaker 1: money for to help sort of citizen scientists do this
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Does that indicate that the Biden administration
Speaker 1: is in favor of this, that they want more data
Speaker 1: out there, they want more local monitoring. Because I could
Speaker 1: also see that the EPA would not be thrilled with
Speaker 1: this because they do not they no longer have the
Speaker 1: monopoly on data about air quality. What is the EPA
Speaker 1: and the Biden administration's stance on all of this data.
Speaker 1: I am not going to speak for EPA and the
Speaker 1: Biden administration on their stance, but I think in supporting
Speaker 1: this kind of work, it's it's not any kind of
Speaker 1: violation of the Clean Air Act because again, the Clean
Speaker 1: Air Act doesn't cover this kind of like source by
Speaker 1: source specific monitoring. It's not that they're, you know, relegating
Speaker 1: their legal duties under the Clean Air Act to someone
Speaker 1: else kind of thing. So, in terms of good ways
Speaker 1: to enforce environmental justice priorities, community air monitoring, particularly with
Speaker 1: an emphasis on letting people know what is in their air,
Speaker 1: like giving citizens like more an idea of what they're
Speaker 1: exposed to on a day to day basis, makes total sense.
Speaker 1: So I think, yeah, initiatives like the community air monitoring funding,
Speaker 1: and I think part of some of that funding is
Speaker 1: also going to go to like local air agencies doing
Speaker 1: that kind of work and you know, cooperating with tribes
Speaker 1: and communities and organizations to do that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: So that makes sense. I guess it's, you know, from
Speaker 1: the EPA's perspective, it's like, we don't need to be
Speaker 1: the only ones who can monitor air quality. In fact,
Speaker 1: it actually takes a lot of the burden off of
Speaker 1: us if we can have you know, everyone monitoring their quality,
Speaker 1: even on their with wrist watches you know that monitor
Speaker 1: air quality. So it's I guess EPA is is you know,
Speaker 1: maybe their perspective is the more the better, the more
Speaker 1: people know the better. Certainly I think everyone can agree
Speaker 1: on that. All right, Well, that was Jennifer Hejazi speaking
Speaker 1: with us here at Bloomberg Law World headquarters. Thank you
Speaker 1: Jennifer talking too. It's a really pretty sure Thanks David.
Speaker 1: And that's if today's episode of Parts Pervilion. If you
Speaker 1: want more environmental news, check us out on Twitter. We
Speaker 1: use a pretty easy to remember handle. It's just at
Speaker 1: environment Just that I am at David B. Schultz. That's
Speaker 1: b as in burning your tongue on pizza. Today's episode
Speaker 1: of Parts Pervilion was produced by myself, David Schultz. Parts
Speaker 1: Pervilion was created by Jessica Coombs and Rachel Dagle and
Speaker 1: is edited by Rebecca Baker and Sean McCutcheon, and our
Speaker 1: executive producer is Josh Block. Thanks everyone for listening. You
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