Studies Suggest Health Dangers Float Through the Air and Water in Southeast Houston

Environment & Pollution
Studies Suggest Health Dangers Float Through the Air and Water in Southeast Houston
By Heather Nicholson
Nov 23, 2001, 16:32

In the cities along the Houston Ship Channel, 17,346 people died of respiratory complications between 1993 and 1999, according to the 1999 vital statistics report from the Texas Department of Health Bureau.

The cities of Baytown, Deer Park, La Porte, Pasadena and Channelview that make up southeast Houston and are home to the largest number of petrochemical plants and oil refineries in the state. Of the 809 chemical plants in the area, 89 percent handle hazardous waste.

“Petrochemical plants have the ability to pollute the air and water with toxic particles if not properly monitored,” said the United States Environmental Protection Agency. The agency also affirmed that coal combustion, a common practice at oil refineries, releases zinc and arsenic in toxic doses.

In southeast Houston, 184 plants were reported to the EPA for having released toxins from their chemical processes and 219 plants were reported for having released toxic pollution into the air. Another 138 plants in Southeast Houston have permits from the EPA to discharge waste into the local water source.

Dr. Kristin L. Fraser, a physician and journalist for Postgraduate Medicine magazine defines Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease as a “mixed group of common respiratory diseases united by the presence of persistent airflow limitation.”

In 1999, the Texas Department of Health Bureau reported that 5.1 percent of the southeast Houston population died from chronic obstructive pulmonary complications and that the disease was the fourth largest cause of death in the area.

The seventh largest cause of death for Southeast Houston residents is pneumonia and influenza, especially amongst children. The two diseases claimed another 2.4 percent of the population in 1999, according to the Texas Department of Health Bureau.

Dr. Margaret M. Grimes, a physician and professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and Medical School, defines pneumonia and influenza as “an inflammatory disease of the lung. Bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites usually are the cause of the two diseases.”

Other causes of death reported by the Texas Department of Health Bureau include respiratory tuberculosis and acute and chronic respiratory infections. The number one cause of death in southeast Houston during 1999 is cancer.

The EPA reports that many diseases can be caused by extended exposure to air and water pollution or both. Mental and behavioral disorders such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and attention deficit disorder can also be attributed in part to pollution.

Respiratory infections such as asthma, bronchitis, damage to the immune system, reproductive complications and damage to nervous and endocrine systems in some cases have also been connected to pollution exposure.