Grand Prairie fire is out, but concerns about air quality, water contamination remain
By Wednesday night, firefighters had extinguished the massive fire at the Grand Prairie Poly-America plastics plant that had begun nearly 20 hours before. While some hot spots remained through Thursday, the sky was clear of the black smoke plumes that drew so many onlookers to the area. Environmental officials said there was no longer a need to monitor air quality and packed up by Thursday afternoon.
Although the immediate danger is gone, scientists, politicians and activists say that their concerns about the fire’s impact on the environment, particularly on air quality and water sources, have not diminished.
On Thursday evening, state Reps. Jessica González and Chris Turner, whose districts include portions of Grand Prairie, said they shared the concerns of their constituents and asked the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to clarify its findings and monitoring techniques at the plant.
“(The) fire and other incidents raise several questions regarding the safety of this facility and the environmental effects on the surrounding community,” the pair said in a joint statement. “We will be pursuing answers about this incident and what actions have and will be taken by the company, as well as the state and federal agencies charged with oversight to ensure that our constituents remain safe.”
Their central questions, also posed by activists, surround the amount of particulate matter pollution, or tiny pieces of solid particles trapped in the air, that residents may have been exposed to during the fire.
Any exposure to the smoke, which contained tiny particles of burning plastic sheets, is dangerous, said Jim Schermbeck, who has worked on particulate pollution issues for more than 25 years as director of Downwinders at Risk, a North Texas climate justice group.
City officials had warned people with respiratory conditions to stay inside and avoid the area while the fire was burning. Thinking of smoke as an inhalation problem that will only affect people with pre-existing lung or heart conditions is scientifically outdated, Schermbeck said.
“What we know from the last 20 years is that it’s a neurotoxin,” Schermbeck said. “It’s capable of affecting every organ in the body. … Even if you don’t have immediate effects, if you’re not coughing your lungs out, if you don’t have a heart attack right away, this stuff affects you at the levels that it was at in the atmosphere while it was happening.”
TCEQ, EPA found high levels of particulate matter near plant
Officials from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency were on site Wednesday and Thursday to monitor air quality and discharge from firefighting foams, said TCEQ spokesperson Brian McGovern. Staff with the TCEQ and its contractor tested for particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide and oxygen.
The air quality 2,000 feet south of the Poly-America plant had a particulate matter range of between 5 and 553 micrograms per cubic meter, McGovern said. The 24-hour National Ambient Air Quality Standard for particulate matter is 150 micrograms per cubic meter, but “instantaneous readings above the standard are not an immediate health concern,” McGovern said.
“Other than (particulate matter), no other air quality measurements deviated from background concentrations and the (particulate matter) concentrations varied depending on the wind,” McGovern said in an email, adding: “Now that the fire is out, there is no reason for concern from particulate matter from the fire.”
In its public update to community members, the Grand Prairie Fire Department echoed McGovern’s comments, stating that the news media had mischaracterized the air quality as toxic.
“The EPA flew a plane that detects chemical compounds through the plume yesterday to take readings,” the department wrote. “It found no exceedances of the Texas comparison values. … It is not recommended to inhale smoke or particulate matter; however, there is no data that shows the air is or was toxic at any time.”
Schermbeck said that the department’s reference to Texas regulatory standards for toxic air quality is narrow and would likely require the TCEQ or EPA to detect a specific chemical in order to classify the air as toxic.
“If they are right and there were 553 parts of (particulate matter) in the air, that is inherently toxic,” Schermbeck said. “There’s a regulatory perspective when you look at what’s reflected in their statement and then there’s the whole point of view of science and what a researcher would tell you. The regulations and the policies have not kept up with the science.”
Foam with dangerous chemicals was used by firefighters
In the wake of the massive flames on Wednesday morning, the Grand Prairie Fire Department realized it did not have enough firefighting foam on hand to put out the Poly-America fire.
Firefighters from the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport delivered foam to the scene, telling Grand Prairie officials that the foam contained PFAS chemicals that are potentially harmful to the environment, said Grand Prairie fire chief Robert Fite. The foam regularly used by Grand Prairie firefighters does not contain PFAS, he said.
“The battalion chief on scene that night knew that all this water was going to be in a containment system because there was a huge containment area where the water goes,” Fite said. “The EPA was aware that we used the firefighting foam that has the PFAS and they are going to test for that as well as part of the reclamation process. … To get that fire out, that was about the only thing that we could use at that time.”
PFAS chemicals, short for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are commonly found in food packaging and other plastics as well as firefighting foams. The family of chemicals is associated with negative health effects such as the development of kidney and testicular cancer, elevated cholesterol, thyroid problems and changes in the immune system, said Dr. Katherine Pelch, a professor at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth who studies how chemicals in products can impact public health.
The danger of PFAS chemicals is that they are notoriously persistent in the environment and accumulate in people’s bodies and water sources rather than breaking down over time, earning them the name of “forever chemicals,” Pelch said.
“They are extremely hard to remove from the environment, and that creates a big opportunity for humans to be exposed to them, and then once they are in our bodies, they can concentrate in our bodies as well,” Pelch said. “That’s where they can cause a lot more harmful effects that we can see over time.”
In this case, the runoff of the PFAS firefighting foam was contained to North Cottonwood Creek and ponds on Poly-America’s property, according to McGovern, the TCEQ spokesperson. Poly-America has hired a contractor to use vacuum trucks to collect impacted water, which is being tested for metals and suspended solids, among other contaminants, McGovern said. Those samples are still awaiting final analysis.
“The TCEQ is continuing to monitor Poly America’s response to remove this runoff and address any areas of the property impacted by contaminates,” McGovern said. “The TCEQ will continue to work with the city of Grand Prairie and responsible party to ensure the areas impacted by the runoff are adequately cleaned up.”
Fite said that most of the PFAS chemicals evaporate once they hit the fire. But Pelch pointed to an incinerator facility in New York that sparked outrage among community members when it was found that those chemicals were not completely destroyed by burning them.
She added that there is still more research to be done on how the persistence of PFAS chemicals stemming from firefighting foam affects long-term human health.
“We’re beginning to better understand the exposure side, but I don’t know that there has yet been enough work to better understand the health impact,” Pelch said.
Schermbeck hopes that the TCEQ and local officials will further consider scientific research on particulate matter pollution and look into continual monitoring of sites like Poly-America. But that type of change in attitude will take time, he said.
“They need to appreciate the science surrounding exposure to particulate matter and what it means to human health to be exposed to fallout from a fire like this,” Schermbeck said. “Right now they’re playing Whack-a-Mole, not only here but all up and down the Gulf Coast. They need to approach it in a proactive way rather than a reactive way. But that, I fear, will take a change in several administrations.”
