The ability of Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to detect airborne pollution has improved after a series of additions and enhancements to its emergency response assets. TCEQ said last week in Houston $1 million from the Texas legislature in 2019 allowed the agency to upgrade two existing mobile air-monitoring vans and purchase a third, enabling TCEQ to expand the number of pollutants it monitors and more quickly analyze results. The vans supplement a network of more than 200 air-monitoring stations across the state maintained by TCEQ and its partners equipped with more than 400 individual air-quality monitors. TCEQ regional offices – including Abilene, Amarillo, DFW, El Paso, Lubbock, Midland and San Angelo – also deploy advanced handheld monitors that take realtime readings of pollutants that reflect air quality at a particular location.
The agency has invested about $2.2 million in the last three years to improve air quality monitoring, including the three SMART vans, four drones and three automated gas monitors in Houston ship channel. Tom Randolph of TCEQ told Texas Tribune Nov. 10, “We can drive around in a neighborhood and, effectively, in 10 minutes see if there’s a problem. In the old days, it may be a week before we get that information. Now we can do that in a matter of minutes.”