Here’s how the plastics fire in Grand Prairie is affecting our air quality
Officials are warning that a massive fire at a plastics plant in Grand Prairie is likely to burn through Thursday, prompting concerns about the amount of pollutants being released into the air and its effect on residents.
No one has been injured due to the flames at the Poly-America manufacturing plant, which have caused plumes of black smoke since firefighters were called to the scene early Wednesday.
The cause? A power line fell onto storage buildings containing plastic rolls, igniting the entire area, according to Bill Murphy, assistant chief of operations with the Grand Prairie Fire Department. Evacuations have not been ordered as of early Wednesday afternoon, but widespread power outages are expected as the fire continues to burn for at least another day, Murphy told reporters.
Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and city officials are monitoring air quality conditions in order to address safety concerns in the community. People with respiratory conditions, such as asthma or emphysema, should stay away from the area and remain indoors to avoid breathing issues or throat soreness, Murphy said.
“Nobody needs to seek medical attention unless you have severe, severe difficulty breathing from it,” Murphy said, according to KXAS Channel 5. “It’s just an irritant, but stay clear of it if you can.”
The weather conditions in Grand Prairie should allow the air pollution caused by the fire to disperse rather than linger in the air for a long period of time, said Melanie Sattler, a civil engineering professor at UT Arlington who has studied air pollution for more than 20 years.
The sunny weather and medium wind speed will play a large role in diluting pollutants, Sattler said.
“When we have sunny conditions, we get more atmospheric turbulence,” Sattler said. “You get heating of the ground, then you get the warm air that rises up, and so you get a lot of convective turbulent mixing of the atmosphere when you have sunny days like we have today.”
Public health officials are more concerned when there are inversion conditions, which occur when warm air above cooler air acts like a cap and traps pollution where people can breathe it in. Light wind speeds also contribute to this issue, Sattler said.
“You get pollutants that hang around for a much longer period of time,” Sattler said. “My guess is that today that we have pretty good conditions for dispersing things.”
Locals are still concerned about the potential consequences of the pollution. Patsy Ray of Grand Prairie told the Star-Telegram she wants her city councilwoman to ask the Environmental Protection Agency to test the air after witnessing a similar incident in the past 15 years.
“Things like this, we’ll tolerate it but we really don’t want to accept it,” Ray said. “That kind of smoke will bring another underlying condition with people of my age. I’m 74 years old, I don’t need something else to be fighting. I don’t need something building up in my lungs.”
The fire remains an issue for people with underlying respiratory and heart conditions, Sattler said. The main type of pollution involved with the plant fire is particle pollution, which involves the release of tiny pieces of plastic into the air and creates the black, visible smoke plumes coming out of the manufacturing plant.
“You would tend to associate respiratory impacts with this, but when people breathe things in, the lungs are taking the oxygen to the bloodstream,” Sattler said. “Anything that penetrates deep into the lungs can get carried into the bloodstream and go to the heart, so people with underlying cardiac conditions would be vulnerable as well.”
The second type of pollution involves the release of organic compounds into the air. Since plastics are organic compounds and made from petroleum, Sattler said, they should ultimately be converted into carbon dioxide after they burn. But in this case, there will likely be incomplete combustion, leaving some of the organic compounds suspended in the air.
Residents should be less worried about this kind of pollution, Sattler said, because it is typically associated with long-term exposure rather than the short-term, acute exposure coming from the plastics plant.
People living near the vicinity of the fire should avoid exercising or allowing children to play outdoors, since kids breathe in more air per body weight than adults and are therefore more affected by pollutants, Sattler said. Anyone with an underlying heart or respiratory condition should also remain indoors, she said.
“Even though our air indoors ultimately is coming from outside, concentrations are generally significantly reduced by a factor of two or so indoors,” Sattler said. “While the fire is going on, try to stay indoors.”
She added: “But I think after it’s over, given the meteorological dispersion, I don’t think there will be a concern for days after they’re able to put it out.”
This story was originally published August 19, 2020 at 1:26 PM.
