12-year-old asthma sufferer pleads for cleaner air - EPA says, Not so fast!

[Guest guest]

foto: " Tay'' Candelario, seated next to her mother, Tonia

Candelario, adjusts a microphone before appealing for tighter ozone

standards during a public hearing on Wednesday. The 12-year-old Catholic

schoolgirl has suffered from asthma all her life. :

Chronicle

POLL on url:

Getting tougher on smog

Should the government strengthen the health standard for ground-level

ozone, the main ingredient in smog?

(Poll closes: Sep 08 at 11:59 p.m.)

Yes, Houston's air should be as clean as it can be.

No, cleaning the air in Houston will be too costly and too restrictive on

business.

* Read the prepared comments of Tay Candelario, 12 (PDF)

* Read her mother's prepared statement (PDF)

- - - -

photos

Sept. 6, 2007, 9:14AM

12-year-old asthma sufferer pleads for cleaner air

Girl puts a human face on a long, technical meeting over ozone levels

By DINA CAPPIELLO

Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5109483.html

Changing smog standards

" Tay " Candelario does not want to live in a bubble.

That's why the 12-year-old asthma sufferer, who has been hospitalized for

asthma attacks nearly every year since her birth, skipped half a day at

St. Cecilia Catholic School on Wednesday to ask the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency to clean up Houston's smog.

" I don't want it to be about what I have. I want it to be about cleaning

up our air for everyone, " said Tay, reading from rainbow-colored type.

" I'm depending on you; my family is depending on you. Houston is depending

on you. "

The preteen's five-minute plea, encouraged by the American Lung

Association, was a rare emotional highlight in an hours-long meeting heavy

with technical jargon and statistics over a proposal by the EPA to

strengthen the federal standard for ground-level ozone, the main

ingredient in smog, to better protect public health.

In its first revision to the ozone standard in more than a decade, the EPA

is recommending lowering the ozone limit below what it is now, but not as

low as the agency's own scientists think it should be.

The current level — 84 parts ozone per billion parts air — could be

changed to a range of between 70 and 75 ppb. EPA's scientists suggested a

60 to 70 ppb threshold.

Based on available data, 533 counties nationwide would not meet the range

EPA is considering. By 2020, 203 counties would still not reach it,

according to the agency.

The testimony in Houston, one of five cities nationwide to hold a public

hearing, was split into three basic camps: environmentalists, health

professionals and Democratic legislators urging the EPA to adopt the most

stringent standard; business and industry representatives advocating for

the EPA to retain the current standard; and city officials who said they

would support a number in the range recommended by the agency's scientific

experts.

Out of compliance

The stakes are particularly high for Houston and Texas. The city, one of

the smoggiest in the country, fails to meet the current legal limit for

ground-level ozone and is not expected to attain it until at least 2019.

Statewide, a tightening of the standard would mean as many as a dozen more

counties would be out of compliance with the law, a state regulator

testified.

" The challenges Texas faces may be symbolic of what most of the country

may face under stricter standards, " said Schanbacher, a Texas

Commission on Environmental Quality chief engineer who said the science

was inconclusive on the need to lower the standard.

" Texas is using every opportunity to address the current ozone problem and

still faces insurmountable challenges. "

Local officials from Houston and Dallas, as well as the Greater Houston

Partnership, pointed to mobile sources over which the federal government

has sole jurisdiction as part of the problem.

They encouraged the EPA to expedite programs to reduce pollution from

these sources, and to not penalize states for failing to curtail emissions

they cannot control.

" We are significantly handicapped in making further progress more quickly

due to the many sources over which the federal government has control and

has pre-empted us from taking action, " said Elena Marks, director of

health policy for Mayor Bill White. " But we owe it to the public to tell

the scientific truth about the quality of our air. "

Industry presented a united front for keeping the current standard, saying

that a change now would derail the progress underway and is based on

questionable science.

" We do not believe that the current scientific evidence clearly supports

the lowering of the ozone standard at this time, " said DiMarcello of

the BASF Corporation. " The EPA's existing ozone standard ... will continue

to provide ample protection for public health. "

Asthma link disputed

Some industry representatives, as well as the TCEQ, disputed a direct link

between ground-level ozone and asthma, citing studies showing lower

hospital admissions for asthma in Texas during peak ozone summer months.

Ground-level ozone, which is formed when nitrogen oxides and volatile

organic compounds from cars, ships and smokestacks interact in heat and

sunlight, is widely accepted to be a respiratory irritant and aggravate

asthma, as well as contribute to cardiovascular disease.

For Tay's mother, Tonia Candelario, there is no question what's behind her

daughter's illness.

Despite building a new house, buying a new car and the Catholic school

replacing the gymnasium floor to reduce allergens, her daughter and son,

Colton, still struggle with the disease, she said.

On Wednesday, in testimony given before her daughter's, the mother broke

down in tears.

" We've gone to such extremes to keep our children healthy, " said

Candelario, who became affiliated with the American Lung Association after

participating in an asthma walk this year.

" It's now what we are doing or not doing. It's simply the air we breathe

in Houston. "

dina.cappiello@...

*

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