Decades of warnings did nothing to stop extreme pollution in a Houston-area community, and then a state agency raised its allowable limits.

Residents of Channelview were never notified of hazardous levels of benzene, a carcinogen, because the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality changed its guidelines, Public Health Watch reported.

The tests were conducted in 2021 and 2022 but not made public until 2024. In June, another monitoring team detected similar problems.

Though Texas has the weakest benzene guidelines in the nation, according to Public Health Watch, one reading was almost three times the state guideline amount. Twice, TCEQ scientists had to leave the area because benzene fumes gave them headaches. Three readings were at least 20 times the limit in California, which has one of the strictest guidelines in the nation.

"The readings also exceeded what is considered safe by the city of Houston, which created its own benzene guidelines in 2020," PHW's Savanna Strott added. "If the levels found in Channelview had been recorded there, residents would have received one evacuation order, eight shelter-in-place orders, and eight alerts."

PHW noted chronic exposure to benzene has been linked to blood cancers and that short-term exposure can lead to drowsiness, dizziness, and unconsciousness. Other threats include diabetes and reproductive problems.

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People in south Channelview have a lifetime cancer risk of 78 in 1 million, which is 2.6 times greater than the state and national averages of 30 in 1 million, PHW reported. But the risk could actually be "much higher" because a stationary monitor used by the TCEQ to assess danger didn't detect the levels recorded by scientists.

The issue dates back to at least 2005, and K-Solv, a barge-cleaning and chemical distribution facility, may be to blame. Since then, the company has expanded four times. It is now allowed to release nearly 20 times as many volatile organic compounds and has opened another business to clean trucks that carry chemicals, per PHW.

"This is completely reprehensible," said Yvette Arellano, who founded the environmental justice organization Fenceline Watch. "This is a lack of oversight. This is industry in the wild west within a major city of the country."

In May, the TCEQ suggested a $164,996 penalty for K-Solv after it discovered 17 violations by the company in follow-up inquiries related to 2022 measurements. K-Solv paid $32,999 because it supposedly met deadlines, though the TCEQ clarified that it was because "K-Solv signed the order and paid the penalty amount in the proposed agreed order," per PHW.

"It's obvious that they didn't want people to see these numbers," Tim Doty, a former TCEQ mobile monitoring team manager, told the outlet. "Two years later is pretty outrageous — more than pretty outrageous."

Similar violations have cost other companies hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal fines. Associated health care costs can reach more than $10 billion.

The Texas Tribune and Inside Climate News reported in October that the TCEQ was "gutted" after a scandal in 2010. It temporarily eliminated mobile monitoring, and now the department is a shell of its former self. The agency also loosened its benzene pollution limits from 25 parts per billion per hour to 180 and from 1 ppb per year to 1.4 ppb, according to PHW.

PHW reported that "the TCEQ has taken two steps over the years that make Channelview's benzene problem look better on paper." Along with loosening the guidelines, it "moved the stationary monitor farther from K-Solv, and it's no longer downwind of the company."

However, that may be little solace to residents. The stationary monitor didn't detect levels outside the norm, and a spokesperson told PHW: "These concentrations of benzene do not represent a risk to human health or the environment, and no further action is needed."

Individuals who want to raise awareness about this issue can begin by talking with family and friends and advocating for the health of their community with the help of environmental organizations that have proven track records of success with these sorts of matters.

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