A Texas Town Faced Dangerous Benzene Fumes. Regulators Never Told Residents.

Dangerously high levels of the cancer-causing chemical benzene continue to plague Channelview, Texas, despite warnings from state regulators that began almost 20 years ago.

Data collected during the state’s most recent air monitoring trips include one benzene reading that was three times the Texas hourly guideline, the weakest in the nation. In two instances, benzene fumes were so strong that scientists with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, or TCEQ, experienced headaches and had to leave the area.

The scientists visited Channelview, an unincorporated community east of Houston, in 2021 and 2022, but the TCEQ didn’t finalize its reports on the findings until this year. Public Health Watch obtained them through open records requests.

Nearly half of the one-hour averages the TCEQ’s mobile monitoring team recorded exceeded what California says is safe. Three were at least 20 times higher than California allows.

The readings also exceeded what is considered safe by the city of Houston, which created its own benzene guidelines in 2020. If the levels found in Channelview had been recorded there, residents would have received one evacuation order, eight shelter-in-place orders and eight alerts.

Channelview residents received no notifications.

Short encounters with high levels of benzene can cause drowsiness, dizziness and unconsciousness, while chronic exposure has long been linked to leukemia and other blood cancers. Recent studies also link the chemical to diabetes and reproductive problems.

A TCEQ spokesperson said the Texas guidelines are “well below” the level where the state has determined health effects occur. Those guidelines are based on a handful of scientific studies from the 1980s and 1990s. The more stringent Houston guidelines are based on a peer-reviewed paper that evaluated 20 studies published between 2009 and 2019.

The TCEQ spokesperson said the agency has reviewed the science supporting benzene guidelines used by other institutions, but none of it has “warranted a reevaluation of TCEQ’s” guidelines.

“Just because a scientific study is more recent does not make it the best scientific evidence,” the spokesperson said.

The spikes the TCEQ monitoring team found in 2021 and 2022 are especially alarming because they weren’t recorded by the state’s closest stationary monitor, whose annual readings are used to gauge residents’ cancer risk. Public Health Watch discovered the discrepancy when it compared hourly readings collected by the field scientists with hourly readings from the stationary monitor.

Loren Hopkins, a nationally recognized expert in environmental science and a professor at Rice University, used data from the stationary monitor to calculate the total lifetime cancer risk from chemical exposure for residents of south Channelview. She said they face a risk as high as 78 cases in 1 million people — more than double the state and national average of 30 in 1 million.

The risk would be much higher, Hopkins said, if the monitor isn’t capturing benzene emissions from Channelview’s southeastern corner, as Public Health Watch’s analysis suggests.

Hopkins, who co-authored the paper that helped shape Houston’s guidelines, said Channelview’s benzene levels are “unacceptably high.”

“I definitely wouldn’t want to be the person exposed to this,” she said.

Yvette Arellano, founder of the Houston-based environmental justice group Fenceline Watch, wasn’t surprised that Channelview residents weren’t notified about the high concentrations — or that the TCEQ’s monitor isn’t positioned to capture emissions from an area with a history of benzene pollution.

“Folks who live in communities throughout the [Houston] Ship Channel know this isn’t new news,” said Arellano, whose group advocates for people who live near polluting industries. “Is it right? No, this is completely reprehensible. This is a lack of oversight. This is industry in the Wild West within a major city of the country.”

Channelview is a few miles upriver from the Houston Ship Channel, a 52-mile long waterway lined by hundreds of industrial facilities. The barges that transport chemicals to and from the channel’s ships and chemical plants often dock in the majority-Latino community of 45,700.

The most recent tests in Channelview were conducted in June by scientists from Texas A&M University, who have a monitoring van similar to the TCEQ’s. Their report hasn’t been finalized, but Natalie Johnson, a respiratory toxicologist who leads the team, said they recorded instantaneous levels of benzene similar to the spikes the TCEQ found in 2021 and 2022. An instantaneous reading lasts for one second.

Johnson said she will share the results with the TCEQ and will hold a community meeting for residents in January.

A TCEQ spokesperson said the agency has no plans to address Channelview’s benzene levels, because the annual averages recorded by the stationary monitor are within the state guideline.

“These concentrations of benzene do not represent a risk to human health or the environment, and no further action is needed,” the spokesperson said.

“Persistent and Significant” Emissions

A Public Health Watch investigation published last year found that Texas regulators have known since at least 2005 that Channelview residents are being exposed to high levels of benzene — and that the TCEQ monitoring team has often recorded the highest benzene emissions in the southeastern corner of the community. That’s where a barge-cleaning and chemical distribution facility called K-Solv is located less than 600 feet from houses.

The agency cut back on its mobile monitoring program in the mid-2000s and partnered with Texas universities and a private company — FluxSense Inc. — to periodically monitor chemical levels in Harris County, including Channelview.

FluxSense’s most recent report, filed in 2023, doesn’t mention K-Solv by name but includes maps that label the area immediately around the facility as “Site A.” The report said that since at least 2013 FluxSense has “regularly noted” one source of “persistent and significant” emissions of benzene and several other chemicals that attack the nervous system. A TCEQ spokesperson confirmed that the source was Site A.

When a fire broke out among K-Solv’s chemical tanks in 2021, the TCEQ’s then director of monitoring said in an email to his staff that the facility was “known for benzene emissions.”

K-Solv CEO Todd Riddle has consistently denied that the company is a major source of benzene emissions. Riddle declined to be interviewed for this story, but in an email he said his company’s benzene emissions are “tiny” compared to “the other companies and barges upwind and around us.”

“K-Solv is deeply committed to environmental stewardship and prioritizes the health and safety of our Channelview residential community,” Riddle said. “We’ve invested millions of dollars in advanced pollution control systems to ensure a healthy environment for our employees and neighbors.”

The TCEQ has allowed K-Solv to expand four times since the agency discovered high levels of benzene near the facility in 2005. K-Solv can now legally release almost 20 times more volatile organic compounds — which include benzene — than it did in 2005. Last year the TCEQ allowed K-Solv to open a second, smaller business in Channelview, which washes trucks that haul chemicals. It, too, releases volatile organic compounds into the air, according to its permit.

Trivializing the Threat

The TCEQ has taken two steps over the years that make Channelview’s benzene problem look better on paper.

It loosened its benzene guidelines, even as other states were tightening their protections. The hourly benzene guideline was weakened by 620% (from 25 parts of benzene per billion parts of air, or ppb, to 180 ppb). The annual guideline was weakened by 40% (from 1 ppb to 1.4 ppb).

The TCEQ also moved the stationary monitor farther from K-Solv, and it’s no longer downwind of the company. The agency said it chose the new location so it could install a more sophisticated monitor that was too large for the old site.

During the 18 months before the monitor was moved, it recorded rolling annual benzene averages that exceeded even the TCEQ’s weakened annual guideline by up to 50%.

Since the move, annual benzene emissions have never exceeded the guideline, although they are rising.

In June, the TCEQ released guidelines to protect its field scientists from chemical emissions. It suggests they leave an area if instantaneous benzene levels exceed 1080 ppb, as they did four times during the Channelview trips.

TCEQ Returns to Channelview

Unlike earlier TCEQ monitoring reports from Channelview, the reports from the 2021 and 2022 trips don’t name K-Solv, or any other facility, as a source of pollution.

Tim Doty, who managed the TCEQ mobile monitoring team for 17 years, reviewed wind directions and sample locations included in documents filed with the reports. He said the data show that the scientists looked for benzene sources throughout south Channelview, including barges moored along the San Jacinto River and facilities south of Channelview’s homes. But, Doty said, they were clearly focused on emissions from K-Solv and from barges waiting to be cleaned at the company’s dock.

“There’s no doubt from looking at the data that the primary source of the elevated benzene concentrations was from around K-Solv,” Doty said. “It’s right there.”

A TCEQ spokesperson said the agency doesn’t identify sources of pollution until investigators follow up on the monitoring team’s findings. A review of agency records shows that K-Solv was the only company investigated as a result of the 2021 and 2022 monitoring trips.

On the October 2021 trip, the scientists collected data outside K-Solv and other facilities, including one of the country’s largest refineries. The 36.2 ppb 40-minute average taken outside K-Solv was the highest of the day. The second highest average, taken in a 20-minute sample on industrial roads south of Channelview, was just 3.4 ppb.

The morning after the scientists left, a worker at a nearby plant complained to the TCEQ that K-Solv was releasing “very strong and concentrated natural gas and propane odors in the area.” The fumes were so powerful that night-shift workers couldn’t leave the building, according to the TCEQ follow-up report.

The monitoring team returned to south Channelview less than two weeks later in November 2021.

One afternoon, the scientists heard a loud sound “similar to a pressure release or gasket opening from the direction of K-Solv,” according to the trip report. About 45 seconds later, the benzene level rose above 500 ppb. It remained that high for about a minute.

The sample’s instantaneous levels peaked at 1,940 ppb — far above the 1,080 ppb where the TCEQ now suggests that scientists leave the area. The sample’s maximum one-hour average was 85.2 ppb, more than 10 times higher than California’s guideline.

Two samples exceeded even the state’s weakened one-hour guideline of 180 ppb.

Before sunrise one morning, the scientists recorded a one-hour average of 203.5 ppb across the street from a residential neighborhood. According to Doty’s review of the TCEQ data, the sample was primarily downwind of K-Solv, about 500 feet west of the facility. The scientists smelled strong gasoline odors and suffered headaches and lightheadedness, according to a report by TCEQ toxicologists. The instantaneous readings were so high — between 800 and 1,000 ppb — that they left the area and monitored remotely.

In Houston, officials would have issued a shelter-in-place order, but Channelview residents received no notifications.

Eighteen-and-a-half hours later, when the scientists were working about a mile away, they had to monitor remotely again. This time, the instantaneous readings skyrocketed to 2,487.9 ppb, more than twice the concentration at which the TCEQ suggests its staff leave the area. The highest recorded one-hour average was 534.6 ppb, nearly three times Texas’ guideline and almost 67 times the California limit. Scientists once again reported strong gasoline odors and headaches.

If such readings had been taken in Houston, the surrounding neighborhood would have been evacuated. Again, Channelview residents weren’t notified.

Although the trip report didn’t identify a source of the benzene, it noted that the sample was taken near five facilities, including a refinery, a chemical tank repair company and K-Solv. K-Solv was the only company the TCEQ investigated afterward.

In addition to benzene, the mobile monitoring team recorded high levels of toluene, which can cause nausea and fatigue, and 1,3-butadiene, which can cause leukemia. The TCEQ report said it didn’t discuss these findings because the levels didn’t exceed state guidelines.

Three weeks after the scientists’ November trip, the worker who had complained about K-Solv in October contacted the agency again. The worker said the odor from K-Solv infiltrated the vents of their job site. Each time it appeared, the worker had watery, itchy eyes, a runny nose and a headache “due to the strength of the odor.”

The same worker submitted a third complaint in February 2022.

“The complainant stated that the odors have been occurring for more than two years and is mainly present overnight but disappears shortly after sunrise,” the follow-up investigation report said.

The monitoring team traveled to Channelview again in May 2022 and recorded benzene levels outside K-Solv that were well within the state’s guideline. But the results show large differences between readings taken outside the company and what the stationary monitor recorded. The lowest one-hour average outside K-Solv was 4.3 ppb. The highest average at the monitor during that period was just 0.1 ppb.

Four months later, FluxSense took chemical readings throughout Harris County for studies conducted by the TCEQ and the University of Houston.

The TCEQ’s chief toxicologist asked the scientists to pay attention to Channelview, “particularly for benzene,” according to internal emails. A TCEQ air official gave the team a Google Map showing “locations of interests.” K-Solv was the only facility labeled in south Channelview.

The FluxSense report said that when the wind blew from east to west, the scientists “almost always detected” benzene at the fence line of Site A, which is the immediate area around K-Solv.

“It is apparent that benzene emitted from Channelview Site A … is transported through the [neighboring] residential area,” the report said.

The average benzene concentration at Site A was the highest recorded anywhere in the county — almost 5 times higher than the second-highest average, which was taken across the Ship Channel in Deer Park. One plume downwind of Site A had an average benzene concentration of 168 ppb and a maximum instantaneous reading of 1065 ppb.

FluxSense also noted that during daylight Site A’s emissions were “significantly diluted” by the time they reached the stationary monitor, likely “due to the distance” — about a mile — between the facility and the monitor.

Riddle, K-Solv’s CEO, said the company is “responsible for less than 0.01% of the share of benzene emissions in the area,” according to its environmental consultants. He did not respond to questions about the data supporting that number.

Riddle said that when TCEQ investigators visited the facility in 2021 and 2022, there were “at least four occasions” when they found no “visible emissions” or volatile organic compounds.

Investigations and a Fine

In May — two years after the TCEQ monitoring team’s 2022 trip to Channelview — the agency finalized its last report and proposed a $164,996 penalty against K-Solv for 17 violations found during follow-up investigations.

Doty, the former TCEQ scientist, said the delay between the monitoring trips and the finalized reports was “ridiculous.” He said it typically took his team four to six months to finalize reports.

“It’s obvious that they didn’t want people to see these numbers,” Doty said. “Two years later is pretty outrageous — more than pretty outrageous.”

The TCEQ said its timeline for preparing reports varies depending on the project.

“For this project, the scope was broad, there was new instrumentation, and there was a large volume of data,” an agency spokesperson said. “In the interim period before the report was final, communication between the Monitoring Division and regional office occurred to facilitate follow-up activities.”

The penalty document the TCEQ sent K-Solv detailed the company’s 17 alleged violations.

It said the company ran its pollution control equipment improperly for nearly 74 hours between November 12 and December 31, 2021. It said K-Solv committed the same violation almost a year later: this time for 202 hours and 55 minutes between January and April 2023.

K-Solv also didn’t load liquid chemicals in a way that limits emissions, the TCEQ document said, and it sometimes stored benzene at 100% concentration — twice as much as its permit allows. Five violations were for not maintaining required records, including annual testing for tank trucks and weekly inspections for several pieces of equipment.

The TCEQ gave K-Solv a month to respond to the state’s allegations, and then approved a two-week extension. After K-Solv missed that deadline, the agency sent the case to its litigation division.

Riddle blamed one of the violations on a clerical error that led the company to mistakenly record that it had stored benzene at 100% concentration. He said K-Solv went ahead and signed the penalty documents — including the benzene violation — because it was “the simplest way to resolve the matter.”

K-Solv did not pay the full $164,996 fine. Instead, it received a $32,999 “one-time” discount. The penalty document says companies get that discount if they “satisfactorily comply with all the ordering provisions within the time frames listed.”

Public Health Watch asked the TCEQ why K-Solv qualified for the discount despite missing the original deadline and the two-week extension. An agency spokesperson said, “in September 2024, K-Solv signed the order and paid the penalty amount in the proposed agreed order, thereby achieving settlement.”

An Unreported Release

In November, K-Solv had another major chemical leak.

On a Saturday afternoon, the Channelview Fire Department received a call about a strong propane smell from an unknown source. Firefighters discovered that a 250-gallon tank at K-Solv was leaking liquid butyl acetate and “creating a vapor cloud” that was approaching homes, according to the fire department’s report.

Butyl acetate is a highly flammable chemical found in lacquers and nail-polish removers. In large amounts, it can cause shortness of breath, confusion and fainting. In a statement to the media, K-Solv’s director of environmental health, safety and security described butyl acetate as “​​a product used in everyday perfume and personal care products.”

Firefighters suggested that residents of three nearby houses evacuate until the leak was contained, about two and a half hours later.

Polluting facilities are required to report butyl acetate leaks to the TCEQ only if the emissions exceed 100 pounds.

A TCEQ spokesperson said the agency contacted K-Solv about the incident and the company “indicated the release was below the reportable quantity.” The spokesperson said that the agency coordinated with Harris County Pollution Control Services and was told “there were no offsite impacts and further assistance from TCEQ was not requested.”

K-Solv said it is conducting an internal investigation to prevent similar incidents.

“K-Solv is proud of its proactive approach to environmental management,” the company said in its statement to the media, “and will continue to work diligently to safeguard the health and well-being of Channelview residents — many of whom are our valued employees.”