Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Charlie Edgren

Semantics. Playing with words. Playing with concepts.

The Asarco permitting morass is fogged up nicely because people are playing with concepts and words.

Take, for instance, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which taken merely by its title sounds like an agency concerned with keeping the environmental quality good.

So it may be a misleading title, because TCEQ is inclined to renew Asarco's air permit, a permit that would allow Asarco to pour into El Paso's air the following:

Allowable pollutants in tons per year:

• Lead, 7.69.
  
• Oxides of nitrogen, 230.04.
  
• Carbon monoxide, 287.68.
  
• Volatile organic compounds, 7.66.
  
• Sulfur dioxide, 6,673.15.
  
• Particulate matter, 352.60.
  
• Particulate matter (equal to or less than 10), 349.64.
  
• Sulfuric acid, 16.21.

This information is taken from a press release out of state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh's offices that quotes figures from the TCEQ Air Quality Permit No. 20345.

My trusty calculator comes up with a total of 7,924.67 tons of pollutants allowable.

So what TCEQ is saying here is that nearly 8,000 tons of extra pollutants in our air every year is OK.

It's skewed reasoning. If you're putting pollutants into the air, you're polluting the air. If you're putting pollutants into the air, pollutants that weren't there last year, you're polluting the air. If you put one pound of lead into the air, let alone 7.69 tons, you're polluting the air. If you put 6,673.15 tons of sulfur dioxide into the air, you're polluting the air.

Anyone who went to UTEP in the '60s or '70s might recall the unique taste that coated their mouths as sulfur dioxide from the smelter drifted over the campus. Was that harmless? We were breathing it, too. Was it possible that our lungs were harmed? What about people who drove to and from work through Asarclouds of pollution?

And how can the TCEQ, or anyone else, possibly know that some or all of those pollutants aren't going to hurt anyone?

Also, isn't the general idea around here to reduce pollutants in our air? Despite all the hoo-hah about air quality attainment, we still have serious air-quality problems around here. Sure, we don't like to talk about them, but we have them.

Isn't no additional pollution better than some additional pollution?

Of course, there are two sides to this, and as with anything involving the environment and people's health, the other side is usually money.

The Institute for Policy and Economic Development at UTEP came out with "Economic Impact of Asarco on the El Paso Economy" in April 2007. The report's overview concluded, "The current analysis requested by Asarco finds that if Asarco were to reopen and employ the (anticipated) 291 individuals, regional economic output would increase by $1.159 billion, 1,819 new jobs would be created, and 73 million dollars in new labor income would be generated."

OK. Some jobs. Some money. But what would be the real price?

If the city's economic gurus are to be believed, we're going to be attracting some high-paying jobs and some clean research industry in the next few years. That's where the city's focus needs to be, not on a throwback polluting industry, but on clean industry.

The cities of El Paso, Sunland Park and Juárez all have passed resolutions against the new Asarco permit.

Asarco should take the hint. It's nothing personal, but El Paso has finally outgrown the need for a polluting industry to help support its economy.