Background - Meetings - Additional Information - Contact
Materials from the Dioxin and PCB TMDL stakeholder meeting on Wednesday, June 23, 2010, is posted below.
Background
The State of Texas currently requires water quality in various parts of the Houston Ship Channel and Upper Galveston Bay to be suitable for contact and noncontact recreation, fishing, navigation, industrial water supply, and aquatic life; however, not all of these segments are required to support all of these uses. | |
| Fishing is not supported in the area as a result of a seafood consumption advisory (ADV-3) for catfish and blue crab issued September 1990 by the Department of State Health Services (DSHS). The advisory was issued to protect consumers from adverse health effects caused by dioxin found in specimens analyzed from the area. Dioxin is a generic term for a suite of toxic and environmentally persistent compounds. |
Subsequently, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were detected in fish tissue, and the DSHS issued consumption advisory ADV-20 in October 2001, for all species of finfish in much of the Houston Ship Channel. In January 2005, the DSHS issued another advisory related to PCBs, ADV-28, for speckled trout, also known as spotted seatrout or spotted weakfish, in Upper Galveston Bay and a large percentage of the Houston Ship Channel. An additional advisory, ADV-35, for gafftopsail catfish and speckled trout in Galveston Bay was issued in 2008 for dioxin and PCBs. More information about seafood advisories can be found on the DSHS website: www.dshs.state.tx.us/seafood
In response to these conditions, two total maximum daily load (TMDL) projects, one for dioxins and one for PCBs, have been initiated to determine the measures necessary to restore water quality in water bodies affected by the consumption advisories in the Houston Ship Channel and Upper Galveston Bay. The goal of a TMDL is to determine the amount (or load) of a pollutant that a body of water can receive and still support its designated uses. This allowable load is then allocated among all the potential sources of pollution within the watershed, and measures to reduce pollutant loads are developed as necessary. The TMDL projects for PCBs and Dioxins are still collecting and analyzing data. One source for Dioxins has been identified: the San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund Site. The Supefund Project is being managed by the US Environmental Protection Agency, Region 6.
Meetings
There are no meetings scheduled at this time.
Past Meetings
2010 June 23:
- Agenda (PDF) 10K
- Presentation by Dr. Hinadi Rifai of University of Houston: TMDL for PCBs in the Houston Ship Channel & Survey and Snapshot of PCBs and Dioxin in the Houston Ship Channel and Galveston Bay System (PDF) 870K
- Presentation by Stephen Tzhone of USEPA, Region 6: San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund Site (PDF) 4.4M
- Presentation by Felicity Dodson, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Galveston District: Dioxin Permits (PDF) 181K
- Handout by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: San Jacinto Waste Pits Permitting Area of Concern (PDF) 234K
- Meeting notes coming soon.
2009 December 9:
- Presentation by Dr. Hinadi Rifai of University of Houston: TMDL for PCBs in the Houston Ship Channel & Survey of PCBs and Dioxin in the Galveston Bay System (PDF) 10M
- Presentation by Dr. Patrick Louchouarn of TAMU-Galveston: Dioxins and Furans in the San Jacinto River Waste Pits (PDF) 879K
- Presentation by Stephen Tzhone of USEPA, Region 6: San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund Site (PDF) 1.7M
- Meeting notes (PDF) 52K
2009 July 14:
2008 August 28: Summary (PDF) 39K | Dioxin PPT (PDF) 2.2M | PCB PPT (PDF) 2.3M
2007 October 31: Agenda (PDF) 9K | Summary (PDF) 11K
2007 June 21: Agenda (PDF) 16K | Summary (PDF) 10K
2007 April 5: Agenda (PDF) 16K | Summary (PDF) 10K
2006 September 19: Agenda (PDF) 16K | Summary (PDF) 10K
2006 June 16: Agenda (PDF) 16K | Summary (PDF) 12K
2006 January 12: Agenda (PDF) 16K | Summary (PDF) 14K
2005 August 31: Agenda (PDF) 16K | Summary (PDF) 73K
2005 February 2: Agenda (PDF) 16K Summary (PDF) 17K | Presentation (PPT) 17M
2004 January 7: Agenda (PDF) 7K | Summary (PDF) 16K
2003 March 26: Agenda (PDF) 15K | Summary (PDF) 12K
2002 June 12: Summary (PDF) 18K
2001 March 1: Summary (PDF) 15K
2001 January 16: Summary (PDF) 45K
Links and Additional Information
The TCEQ maintains webpages for the projects:
Dioxin TMDL: www.tceq.state.tx.us/implementation/water/tmdl/26-hscdioxin.html
PCB TMDL: www.tceq.state.tx.us/implementation/water/tmdl/78-hsc-pcbs.html
Brochure: Dioxin for Dinner? (PDF) 4.7M | ¿Dioxin para la cena? (PDF) 4.7M
San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund site status summary: www.epa.gov/earth1r6/6sf/pdffiles/0606611.pdf
Contact
For more information contact:
Rachel Powers, H-GAC
(713) 993-4559
Rachel.Powers@h-gac.com
Larry Koenig, TCEQ
(512) 239-4533
lkoenig@tceq.state.tx.us
Last updated: July 7, 2010