Houston Mayor Bill White recently proposed a benzene reduction plan that would include negotiating voluntary agreements with petrochemical facilities outside of the city limits. Mayors of several cities east of Houston (including my hometown, Baytown) lashed out at the proposal, claiming that White was overstepping his authority.

On Thursday, March 15, 2007 White met with the other mayors and apparently came to an agreement on the issue, according to an article in the Houston Chronicle.

"It's a really big day in the region," White said after the closed-door summit with the mayors of Pasadena, La Porte, Deer Park, Baytown, Morgans Point and Galena Park. Precinct 2 Harris County Commissioner Sylvia Garcia also attended.

There's an article in The Houston Chronicle today regarding the Houston City Council's reluctance to act on several agenda items involving clean air issues.

The mayor is not getting a free pass in his march to clean up Houston's air. That became clear Wednesday, when a majority of the City Council questioned, and delayed, proposals to give Houston's attorneys the authority to sue two local industrial plants over air pollution.

The article refers to two resolutions involving Texas Petrochemicals and Valero.  The city is seeking to prosecute the companies for four air pollution incidents that occurred in 2006.

A City of Houston sponsored study released January 18th shows a 56% increased risk of leukemia among children within two miles of the Houston Ship Channel compared with children living further away.

In addition, the study estimated exposures to two carcinogens known to be at high levels here, butadiene and benzene.  Children living in areas with the highest levels of butadiene, estimated from monitoring data collected by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, had significantly higher rates of  any type of leukemia (40%, p-value=0.02), acute lymphocytic leukemia (38%, p-value=0.05), and acute myeloid leukemia (153%, p-value=0.03) compared with children living in areas with the lowest estimated butadiene levels.