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Report: Off the Books
by Eric Schaeffer & Dan Himmelsbach
Air pollution missing from Texas annual emissions inventory
Dec 8, 2005

Click here to download file. (pdf)

According to nearly 800 notifications to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) in 2003, twenty plants released a combined total of 19,200 tons of pollutants in 2003 as a result of upsets, maintenance, and startup and shutdown activity, including 7,894 tons of sulfur dioxide, 6,311 tons of carbon monoxide, and 4,947 tons of volatile organic compounds. But when submitting their total annual inventory of emissions to the state for that same year, the facilities admitted releasing only 3,430 tons of pollution.