After Harvey, Houston suburb suffers a persistent problem: waves of foul air

Source: The Guardian

After Harvey, Houston suburb suffers a persistent problem: waves of foul air

Air pollution is a perpetual issue for the mostly Latino community in Manchester encircled by industrial facilities

Tom Dart in Houston
Mon 29 Jan 2018 10.00 GMT

When water reached the front steps of her house, driven by the storm, Yenny Ramirez was worried about more than Harvey’s floods. A strange smell drifted through her neighbourhood.

“The odour was extremely strong, thick,” she said. “During the storm we were inside. We couldn’t really go outside. At one point we turned off the A/C just so the smell wouldn’t be so bad.”

The Houston suburb of Manchester did not suffer the extensive flooding brought by Harvey around the region. But rainfall did cause a tank failure at a refinery, leading to a leak of chemicals including of benzene, a carcinogen – just a fraction of nearly 5.3m lbs of unauthorised pollutants that were attributed to the storm, according to an Environmental Defense Fund analysis.

The leaks underlined that Harvey’s damage was not only at ground level, but advocates and residents fear that the city’s full attention will be on reconstruction and flood prevention – and that air quality won’t be a priority. While August’s rains inundated rich and poor alike, air pollution in Houston disproportionately affects low-income, mainly Latino communities next to industrial facilities, such as Manchester.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/29/houston-manchester-hurricane-harvey-texas-foul-air