The Houston Chronicle
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Environmental 'air force' joins Texas' battle against dirty air

By BILL DAWSON
Copyright 2000 Houston Chronicle Environment Writer

August 25, 2000

Scientists on board six aircraft will only be measuring air pollution, not blasting it from the sky.

But officials have given the ad hoc fleet a catchy, combative name to make sure everyone understands that research conducted on board these planes will enhance the war on dirty air in Houston and across East Texas.

“It's the new Texas Environmental Air Force," Commissioner Ralph Marquez of the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission said Thursday. "It's an air force ready to go and fight pollution."

Marquez joined scientists and other government officials at Ellington Field to show off four of the planes to be used in the Texas 2000 Air Quality Study, which runs through September.

About 150 scientists and engineers will participate in the $20 million effort, which involves a partnership of 30 public and private institutions, including a variety of government agencies and universities, Marquez said.

The ultimate aim, he said, is to help target air pollution cleanup more effectively through a better understanding of the complex ways that pollutants mix and travel in the air.

Mayor Lee Brown said the "research will in no way reduce our commitment to take immediate actions to deal with our air problem" in the Houston region.

The study results won't be available in time to be used in a sweeping smog-reduction plan for this area, which the TNRCC will submit to federal officials for approval in December. The federal Clean Air Act says Houston must comply by 2007 with the national health standard for ozone, smog's main ingredient.

The Houston smog plan will have a built-in opportunity for revisions in 2003. Officials hope the results of the Texas 2000 Air Quality Study will help improve the smog plan at that midcourse correction point.

The study will help "ensure the ultimate success" of the smog plan, because "better data yield better results," said Gregg Cooke, the Environmental Protection Agency's regional administrator.

The research project is the latest in a series of federally sponsored efforts studying ozone in the Southern states. It will cover the eastern half of Texas, from Dallas-Fort Worth to the Beaumont and Houston areas.

Marquez said researchers will combine pollution measurements on the ground and aloft with meteorological readings to improve scientific understanding in three broad areas:

· How weather patterns complicate pollution-reduction efforts.

· How pollutants react with each other to produce other substances, such as the respiratory irritant ozone, in the process known as "atmospheric chemistry."

· How ozone and the pollutants that form it travel into and away from their areas of origin.

The Houston area presents "unique challenges" to researchers trying to answer these questions, said Peter Daum of the U.S. Energy Department's Brookhaven National Laboratory, one of the study participants.

As one example, he noted this region's shifting "land-sea breeze." This circulating wind pattern sometimes pushes ozone-forming air pollutants from cars and industrial plants over Galveston Bay, then brings them back over land the next day to create more ozone.

The specially equipped aircraft in the study are being provided by the Energy Department, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA and Baylor University.

Some will fly at about 1,000 to 2,000 feet to study the chemical and physical processes involved in ozone's formation here. Others flying higher -- 10,000 to 12,000 feet -- will use remote-sensing equipment to monitor not only ozone, but also tiny airborne particles.

Those readings will be combined with measurements on the ground, including some taken on Williams Tower, the skyscraper once known as Transco Tower.