On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:46:34 GMT, Jay Maynard wrote:

On 2008-04-10, Dylan Smith wrote:
It's for the adults, too. I've lived in an oil town, and even with the
environmental regulations we have today, the sky still turns green over
La Porte, and after flying a clean aircraft for a half hour, you land
and there's a film of gunk adhering to the leading edges of everything.
This is Texas City, Baytown, La Porte and most of the east side of
Houston today, not a story from antiquity. If you're flying the ILS into
Galveston, you can do without a marker beacon in your panel - the air
gets a unique stench as you approach the outer marker (and for most of
the rest of the approach). Texas City residents just have to live with
that stench.

I lived in Houston well past my 40th birthday. I learned to fly out of
Ellington Field, and flew back and forth to Galveston to practice. I didn't
notice any of this.

You must have lived in the alternate universe Houston.

I was born and raised there. I vividly remember a family reunion
picnic being driven from Milby Park by the stench of a nearby chemical
plant.

Houston, despite being located on a flat plain near the ocean, is
regularly among the smoggiest cities in the U. S. L. A. at least has
the excuse of being in a basin that traps the gunk.

http://www.ewg.org/reports/fuzzyair


I'd be happy to have a refinery in Fairmont. It won't happen, though, as the
regulatory climate in Minnesota is extremely anti-oil.

Refiners know they can beat environmental rules by upgrading existing
plants that are "grandfathered." They don't need to build new ones.