WILL EPA LIST HYDROGEN SULFIDE AS A HAZARDOUS AIR POLLUTANT?
By Ella Tyler

The industry publication Inside EPA (9/2/05) has reported that staffers at the Environmental Protection Agency are considering recommending that hydrogen sulfide be added to the list of 188 hazardous air pollutants codified in the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act. Adding H2S would require industries that emit the air pollutant to install maximum available emissions controls. Although adding H2S was proposed in 1990, it was not included on the list, primarily because of pressure from the oil and gas industry.

In 1999, the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention sent a letter to EPA administrator Carol Browner, asking her to use her authority to list H2S. GHASP's request was supported by mounting evidence of serious and permanent neurological effects at smaller than lethal concentrations. The letter had been circulated internationally via the Internet, with more than 130 organizations and individuals signing on.

Because of the large number of cosigners, EPA treated the letter as if it were a formal petition to list H2S as a hazardous air pollutant and began a search for publicly available data in support of the request. A decision had been expected in 2002 but did not come.

Last week's report is the first hint of any action on the petition. John Wilson, GHASPs executive director, said, "I called every year or so to check in on this and each time I've gotten a total runaround with no answer and promises to call back.

The state Sierra Club's Neil Carmen, PhD, the chemical biologist who drafted the 1999 letter, said the review has languished at EPA probably due to pressure from industry not to take action.

Hydrogen sulfide, known by its rotten egg smell, is produced in a wide range of industries, including oil and natural gas, agriculture, and the chemical, pharmaceutical, and pulp and paper industries.

In high concentrations H2S causes death. The EPA does regulate accidental releases of H2S under another section of the Clean Air Act because of human and animal deaths associated with accidental acute episodic releases of the chemical during extraction of oil and gas. Flaring at plants often produces H2S. The chemical is difficult to remove except by scrubbing. One reason H2S is very dangerous is that the nose rapidly loses its ability to smell the gas in lower than lethal concentrations.

The GHASP letter focused on a broad range of chronic, adverse health effects associated with even low levels of H2S exposure.

According to the letter, H2S is similar to cyanide in toxicity. It interferes with an enzyme that is necessary for cells to make use of oxygen. Children, persons with heart disease, individuals with asthma, and persons consuming alcohol are most vulnerable to these effects.

According to the EPA Today report, EPA's consideration of listing H2S as a hazardous air pollutant is based on the recent ambient and emissions data provided by more than a dozen states.

IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER DISCOVERERS TO SPEAK WEDNESDAY

Tim Gallagher and Bobby Ray Harrison, who found the assumed-extinct ivory-billed woodpecker, will speak at the Audubon Society meeting on Wednesday, Sept 14, at 7:30 pm. The meeting will be at the Children's Museum of Houston, 1500 Binz, a new venue for the group. Gallagher, editor-in-chief of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology's publication, Living Bird, didn't believe the ivory-billed woodpecker was gone. He read all he could find about the bird, interviewed people who claimed to have seen it, and explored swamps across the South. In February 2004, Gallagher and Bobby Harrison, a well-known bird photographer, found the bird in Arkansas.
Gallagher's book "The Grail Bird: Hot on the Trail of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker" has recently been published. The talk is free and open to the public. The meeting begins at 7 pm with a social. For more information, call (713) 932-1639 or go to http://www.houstonaudubon.org

AUTHOR OF "TWILIGHT IN THE DESERT" TO SPEAK WEDNESDAY

Author Matthew Simmons will speak after a showing of "The End of Suburbia" on Wednesday, Sept 14, 7 pm, at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, 1001 Bissonnet. The film explores the American way of life and its prospects as the planet approaches a critical era, when global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. Simmons is interviewed often in the film. The film and talk are hosted by the Houston group of the Sierra Club. Admission $6. For details, contact Nan Hildreth at 713) 842-6643 or nan.hildreth@pdq.net.

BLUEPRINT HOUSTON'S SEPT 17 EVENT MOVED TO U OF H

Blueprint Houston's "Envision Houston Region" event on Saturday, Sept 17, will be held at Hilton UH Hotel and Conference Center at the University of Houston, 4800 Calhoun, rather than at the Brown Convention Center. Envision Houston Region is a program of the Houston-Galveston Area Council and local partners, such as Blueprint Houston, to examine how regional growth will affect area communities. There are five sessions across the region this month. Each four-hour session will feature workshops by Houston-Galveston Area Council staff and local experts. Community leaders, residents, elected officials, and others will participate in a hands-on exercise to map out alternatives for regional growth.

The workshops will be on Sept 17 at U of H; on Sept 22 at the Omni Hotel, 13120 Katy Freeway; on Sept 24 at Baytown Community Center; on Sept 30 at Lone Star Convention Center in Conroe, and on Oct 1 at the Angleton Recreation Center. For details, go to http://envisionhoustonregion.org

SET YOUR RECORDERS!

The June 13 speeches on environmental challenges by Robert Kennedy Jr. and Houston mayor Bill White, sponsored by The Progressive Forum, will be broadcast in their entirety three times next week. An impassioned Kennedy spoke for more than an hour to a large crowd at the Hobby Center. He spoke about the costs of air pollution and its effect on children's health, including his own children, and accused polluting manufacturers of imposing their costs of production on the public. Kennedy talked about how local fishermen used a little-known federal law to start the clean up of the Hudson River. Houston Media Source channels will run the show on two Saturdays, Sept 10 and Sept 17, at 7:30 am, and on Monday, Sept 12, at 11 pm: Time Warner, channel 17; TV Max, channel 95; and Cebridge, channel 98.

KEEP SEEKS AFTER-SCHOOL TEACHER IMMEDIATELY

Kids Environmental Education Project wants to hire a teacher to work about ten hours per week in the Spring Branch area. The job begins immediately and involves environmental education using a habitat. For more information, call Duncan Ragsdale at (281) 759-8343 or (832) 620-8343.

BOOK REVIEW: "TWILIGHT IN THE DESERT: THE COMING SAUDI OIL SHOCK AND THE WORLD ECONOMY"
Matthew Simmons, Wiley, 422 pages, ISBN 047173876x.
Reviewed by Ella Tyler

After reading "Twilight in the Desert", it is easy to understand why Matthew Simmons' thesis, that we cannot continue to rely on Saudi Arabia for plenty of oil, has achieved substantial credence. Simmons is CEO of Simmons and Company International, a Houston-based investment bank that has specialized in the oil industry for 30 years. Even if you did not know that Simmons bank has served as an advisor on more than $62 billion worth of transactions and that he is an advisor to the Bush administration, this lucid, meticulously detailed book makes it clear that Simmons knows what he is talking about.

The book examines the entire history of the Saudi oil industry from even before the first well was drilled in about 1935. Simmons discusses the wells and fields in such detail that they become animate, rather like racehorses.

He contends that Saudi Arabian oil production must decline because almost all of its production comes from a few super fields that have been producing for more than 50 years. He explains that as oil is pumped from the ground, pressure drops in the field or water often enters the field and contaminates the oil. The cost of production increases as a result of these events. Proper management of the fields may have prolonged their life but, for a variety of reasons, they have been overproduced.

Simmons confronts the many myths about Saudi capacity, including a discussion of the reputed oil glut of the late '90s. He also examines the change in the economic climate of Saudi Arabia as it moves from being a lightly populated country of many wealthy people to its current heavily populated state and rising unemployment.

Simmons reviewed more than 200 technical papers to compile the facts in the book. It is not a fast read, but it is absolutely understandable by someone who is neither a geologist nor an economist. There are enough details about personalities and real life effects of changes in oil prices to keep the reader engaged.

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