Houston Regional Group - News

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a new national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for ozone (smog). Every five years the EPA reviews all new information about ozone to determine if the NAAQS needs to be changed to protect public health/welfare with an adequate margin of safety. The EPA has proposed a stricter ozone standard (between 0.070 parts per million (ppm) and 0.075 ppm (using three significant digits for the standard), averaged over eight hours) because research shows ozone is harmful to public health/welfare below the present standard of 0.080 ppm.

Ozone is a respiratory irritant and aggravates allergies and scars lungs making it harder to breath. Children, older people, those who exercise, and those with existing respiratory problems are most susceptible to ozone air pollution.

Your presence and or verbal comments are needed at a public hearing for this proposal. Your written comments are also needed for the hearing record. The public hearing, one of six, will be held in Houston on September 5, 2007, from 9 am to 9 pm (a lunch break will be taken between 12:30 pm and 2:00 pm and a dinner break will occur between 6 pm and 7:30 pm), in Emerald Rooms 4 & 5, Houston Marriot West Loop (in the Galleria area) at 1750 West Loop South (phone: 713- 960-0111).

If you want to present verbal comments at the public hearing contact Ms. Tricia Crabtree via email (crabtree.tricia@epa.gov) or phone (919- 541-5688). You will have 5 minutes to speak. Even if you do not want to speak we need friendly faces in the audience so EPA knows that the public wants its health protected.

Your message should be, that to protect public health/welfare, you want the ozone standard to be as stringent as possible (no less than 0.070 ppm, using three significant digits for the standard, averaged over 8 hours).

Submit your written comments by the deadline of October 9, 2007 to the following address: Docket No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2005-0172, EPA, Mail Code 6102T, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Washington, D.C. 20460. Mention Docket No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2005-0172 in your comments.

For more information call Brandt Mannchen at 713-664-5962 or brandtshnfbt@juno.com.

September 2007

Last updated:  07/30/2007.   Content © 1999-2007 by the Sierra Club.