Huge and mildly terrifying list of issues so far reported at petrochemical facilities after #Harvey, via @SierraClub pic.twitter.com/JkVNM2iOTq — Emily Atkin (@emorwee) August 30, 2017

These combined threats pose a truly unprecedented challenge for the regional office of the Environmental Protection Agency that covers southeast Texas. “I can tell you, there was nothing even remotely like this during Sandy,” said Judith Enck, the former EPA Region 2 administrator who handled the environmental response to that historic 2012 storm. “We had some refineries in New Jersey that were impacted, but nothing like this.”



Fortunately, the regional EPA office covering Houston and the surrounding areas appears to recognize the magnitude of the challenge. On Wednesday, EPA’s Region 6 office activated the National Incident Management Team, said David Gray, the office’s acting deputy regional administrator. That team consists of on-scene disaster response coordinators from other regional EPA offices across the country to handle the multiple threats. And though President Donald Trump has not appointed a Region 6 administrator, the acting administrator, Sam Coleman, was in charge of EPA’s response to Hurricane Katrina. “Our team here in Region 6 has a lot of experience over the years in responding to emergencies,” Gray said in an email.





Specifically, Gray said EPA officials have inspected two Superfund sites near Corpus Christi and have visited two wastewater and drinking water systems that may be contaminated. (Gray did not specify which ones.) He said aerial assessment aircrafts are conducting reconnaissance over the impacted area. And he said the regional office is coordinating with FEMA and EPA’s D.C. headquarters. “Administrator [Scott] Pruitt is in regular contact with EPA staff across the agency who are part of this hurricane response effort,” Gray said.

It is far too early to assess the effectiveness of the EPA’s response—and too early to say what the human health effects will be. While the Arkema chemical plant situation was drawing significant attention from the media on Thursday, it is not the biggest threat to public health, according to Dan Cohan, an environmental engineering professor at Rice University who specializes in air quality management. That honor will likely go either to contaminated drinking water or to the air pollution coming from the many petrochemical facility shutdowns and startups.

“I think the shutdowns and startups and other exceptional event releases are likely more important (though less dramatic and visible),” Cohan said. “They’re likely to release far more pollution overall, and the startups coming during weather when the pollution could more easily impact air quality.” Mass shutdowns of petrochemical facilities have already released thousands of pounds of carcinogenic compounds into the atmosphere, but the wind and rain from the hurricane likely dissipated the emissions. Now, as the rain and winds clear, multiple petrochemical facilities will be starting up at the same time. Startups are huge emissions events, and many will likely be happening in unison.