Mayor Parker Addresses the Houston Bar Association
on Environmental Issues Facing Houston

Mayor Annise Parker recently spoke at the Houston Bar Association's Environmental Section monthly luncheon. Her comments outlined the environmental challenges facing Houston, including the effects of the long-running Texas drought and some potential actions that the City may take to fight the risk of wildfires. You can find a summary of her comments below as a preview from the upcoming issue of the EENR Center Brief.

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On September 14, 2011, Mayor Annise Parker spoke to the Houston Bar Association’s Environmental Law Section about the environmental issues facing Houston.   She spoke at the Section’s monthly luncheon to a full room at the Petroleum Club.

Mayor Parker began by noting that the City of Houston holds a dual position under environmental laws.  As a municipality, the City can act as a regulatory with the authority to promulgate ordinances.  Conversely, the City is also a regulated entity itself and must comply with federal and state environmental laws.

The number one environmental issue facing the City of Houston now, according to Mayor Parker, is the long-running Texas drought.  She did not view the drought as posing a challenge to Houston’s water supply.  According to the Mayor, the City has sufficient water rights to meet its needs for two years.  These supplies lie in Lake Livingston and Lake Conroe, which were constructed as early as 60 years ago by planners with vision and long-range planning.  Mayor Parker observed that the City had to draw down Lake Conroe for only the third time to help stabilize Lake Houston and preserve water levels near the intake to the City of Houston’s water treatment plant.

Despite the City’s water supplies, the drought is having an immediate impact.  First, Mayor Parker pointed out that the drought is causing water main breaks.  The City is currently responding to 1,000 water main breaks (by contrast, the City typically sees around 200 breaks at normal levels).  This trend has run since August, and the City’s repair crews face growing stress and fatigue as they repair up to 100 breaks a day.  The City implemented mandatory water conservation measures in part because the volume of water main breaks means that the City can’t maintain safe minimal water pressure without the conservation measures.  With over 700 miles of water pipes, such a significant drop in water pressures could allow infiltration of contaminants.  Unstable water supplies could also jeopardize vital air conditioning systems and hospital complexes.

In addition to affecting water supplies, the drought has also raised the risk of wildfires for Houston.  Mayor Parker noted that the Bush Park fire had led to a smoky haze throughout the City.  While the City of Houston’s air quality problems often center on pollen, lately the challenge has been high levels of particulates.

The wildfire risk has led Mayor Parker to “the most contentious decisions that I’m likely to make as mayor.”  While the City has already imposed a ban on outdoor cooking and barbeques in City parks, cigarettes pose a much bigger problem.  Two fires have already broken out in City Parks, and more are likely to happen.  If you drive on Interstate 10, according to Mayor Parker, you will see burned grass along the highway.  Many of those burned areas were likely caused by discarded cigarettes.  Mayor Parker noted that “a tree fire in Memorial Park would be impossible to put out; we’d lose the entire canopy.”

The Mayor then described some of the City’s organizations that work on environmental issues, including the Legal Department and the municipal courts.  But she added that most of the real work begins in the Health Department, Public Works Department, the new Department of Neighborhoods, and the Department of Solid Waste (which is often the first City agency to encounter environmental problems and issues).  The Department of Neighborhoods focuses on quality of life issues, such as junk vehicles and lots choked with overgrown weeds.

Mayor Parker observed that one of the difficulties with environmental regulation is figuring out what is truly related to public health, what s reasonable in that light, and what’s possible in terms of compliance.  It is already illegal to throw a cigarette butt onto the ground, she said, but “we have to see it.”  Most people, however, will do what’s right for the common good, but the responsible is on government to convince them of it.  For example, several city ordinances on environmental issues initially sparked strong opposition (e.g., ferret owners fighting the Exotic Animal ordinance).  Mayor Parker believes that Houstonians understand the risks and challenges posed by the dry conditions created by the drought, but that stepping up to a cigarette ban will be a challenge.

To get compliance by the community, the City will generally seek voluntary action via environmental compliance agreements struck after the City issues a Notice of Violation.  For example, the Dee Foundry (an aluminum smelter) agreed to take steps to control dust that had triggered complaints and concerns about elevated levels of nickel and copper.  Mayor Parker also pointed to the BlenTech chemical distribution company settlement, which yielded a relatively small penalty ($11,000) and compliance activities but assured that the penalty payment went to air conditioning units for low-income, disabled and senior citizens.

Mayor Parker then answered several questions:

• Will the widespread road construction work in the City ever come to an end?  In short, no.  Mayor Parker pointed out that the increased water main breaks resulted in part from shrinkage of the clay soil underlying the pipes.  When the City returns to normal rainfall levels, those soils will swell and rebreak the repaired pipes.  As a result, Mayor Parker believes that we’ll have “an epidemic of potholes” when the rains return.  The construction of three new Metro light rail lines will only add to the road construction efforts (Mayor Parker also noted that the City expects Congress to provide $1 billion in funding over three years for the light rail lines).
  
  Mayor Parker highlighted one regulatory issue that affected road work in Houston.  While the City passed a road cut ordinance several years ago (and it’s one of the best in the United States), she wants to tighten the ordinance so that a contractor cannot cut a new street for five years.  She hopes to pass the new ordinance by the end of the year.  The rule would require contractors to bore under new streets rather than simply cut them.
  
• How does the tension between EPA and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality affect the City’s goals and plans?  Mayor Parker began by noting that the City is committed to more effective environment enforcement.   In the current situation, however, she said “we get caught in the backwash.”  The previous mayor wanted to make a statement about enforcement and began to take action unilaterally.  Most of the refineries, however, are not located in the City of Houston, and when Mayor White initiated litigation against them he provoked tremendous backlash from the mayors in adjoining areas.  Mayor Parker said that the City had to promise that “we would not surprise them with a kamikaze attack at the courthouse.”  She added that the City has also invested in its own monitoring equipment to allow it to take proactive steps when needed.
  
• What is the City’s role with electric vehicle charging stations?  Mayor Parker pointed out that the City has hired a full-time sustainability director to look for opportunities and to move the City in a sustainable direction.  The City, she said, is the sixth largest entity (public or private) to purchase renewable energy.  Mayor Parker added that HVAC systems offer the best opportunity for energy savings, and that the City had moved strongly to seek LEED certifications for its buildings where possible (the City is now ranked seventh in the United States).
  
  Mayor Parker concluded by noting that the City will have ten electric vehicle charging stations downtown, and all of them will provide free electricity to any electric vehicle.  She hopes to have 250 stations up by next year.  In addition, the City took delivery of two electric cars that very morning.

Mayor Parker then left the lunch for a helicopter flyover of Memorial Park and George Bush Park to assess the status of the wildfires and the extent of burn damage.

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