The Collin County Observer

Frisco city officials fear battery recycler's expansion plan would worsen lead levels

Tuesday, December 22, 2009
By MATTHEW HAAG and VALERIE WIGGLESWORTH / The Dallas Morning News
Staff writer Randy Lee Loftis contributed to this report.

"Frisco conducted a health risk assessment in 1994 and a follow-up in 1995 that focused on three families who lived a few blocks north of the lead smelter and east of the new City Hall. The studies found elevated levels of lead in three children but couldn't conclusively connect them to the plant's emissions."

"'I believe we may have the distinction of having the only wastewater treatment plant in the country that ever produced hazardous waste,' Purefoy said."

Thousands of people in the heart of Frisco are exposed to toxic lead pollution from a battery recycling plant that wants to expand production.

Exide Technologies Inc. operates the decades-old lead smelter that's flanked by Frisco's downtown, a high school and several neighborhoods and businesses. Its lead emissions make Collin County one of only 18 counties nationwide not expected to meet new, more stringent air-quality standards. It is expected to be the only such designation in the south-central United States.

Recent research shows that lead poses a greater risk to people than scientists once thought. And it's especially detrimental to children, who can suffer from learning problems, diminished IQs and brain damage.

Exide, whose plant is not in violation of current air-quality standards, responded to only a few specific questions. Exide also declined a request to make available Don Barar, its plant manager in Frisco.

The company issued a brief statement that said in part: "The desire and intent of Exide Technologies is to operate responsibly and in compliance with applicable regulatory requirements."

Frisco officials object to the production increase and are challenging Exide's plans through a trial-like contested case hearing with state regulators. Their letter to state officials says the expansion "will have a negative impact on the City and its residents."

Late this summer, Exide officials proposed spending more than $1.3 million to reduce the plant's lead air emissions in hopes of moving its application forward. The projects outlined in documents sent to the state would capture so-called fugitive emissions – the lead released through cracks in a building or by vehicle traffic leaving the plant.

But City Manager George Purefoy said, "I don't understand logically how they can increase production and not increase the amount of emissions going out of the stacks."

City grew up with plant

Frisco is in a unique position: Few, if any, burgeoning suburban cities nationwide have a lead smelter in the middle of town.

Gould-National Battery Inc. originally built the plant in 1964 on 55 acres along South Fifth Street with views of rolling prairies. At the time, the city's population was less than 1,900.

But Frisco grew up. Farmland has been eaten up by subdivisions. And the city's population has exploded to more than 106,000.

Exide Technologies acquired the plant in 2000. It's one of nine battery recycling plants worldwide operated by the company based in Milton, Ga. It employs 130 people.

The Frisco plant crushes used automotive and industrial batteries, uses heat to extract the lead and converts it into lead oxide to make recycled batteries. The process releases some of the lead into the environment.

A year ago, Exide submitted a request to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to allow the Frisco plant to break down more batteries. Finished lead production limits would increase to 500 tons a day, up from the current limit of 400 tons a day.

The commission is still reviewing the request. Officials there said they cannot comment on pending permits.

A key question remains unanswered: What impact would a production increase at Exide's plant have on already elevated lead-pollution levels?

In its application to the state, Exide said its production change wouldn't increase the plant's lead emissions, but it didn't offer any evidence.

Exide's 100-page application to Texas regulators didn't include an air modeling study – common in such applications – that estimates lead levels in the air around the smelter.

In addition, the map Exide sent to state regulators to show what's near the plant is so outdated that the Dallas North Tollway isn't listed. Neither are Pizza Hut Park, Frisco Square, Frisco High School and several newer neighborhoods.

Purefoy said the city didn't know about the expansion proposal until after Exide submitted it in October 2008. Later that month, Purefoy fired off an e-mail to Mayor Maher Maso after a meeting with Barar, the plant manager.

"I told him that the city was committed to reducing the emissions falling on our citizens every minute from the plant," Purefoy wrote. "And if Exide wasn't committed to the same goal, then the relationship between the city and Exide was taking a dramatic change of course."

Stricter standards

In November 2008, the EPA gave notice that the federal air-quality standard for lead emissions would become 10 times more stringent – from 1.5 micrograms of lead per cubic meter of air to 0.15 micrograms per cubic meter.

"After being quiet for 15 years on the lead front, it's now a priority for the EPA," said Guy Donaldson, chief of the planning section for the agency's Region 6, which covers a five-state area that includes Texas. "It's happening now because the scientific evidence says you have health effects at these levels."

The new standard for lead, which wouldn't be enforced in Collin County until 2012, is the level expected to protect public health.

A monitoring station on Exide's property recorded violations of the 1.5 standard in 1985, 1989 and 1990. The plant, then operated by another company, received violation notices in 1989 and 1990. A year later, the EPA designated the facility a nonattainment area, meaning it violated air-quality standards. The area was declared back in compliance in 1999.

The new proposed nonattainment area is at least twice as big as the one designated in 1991.

'Any exposure is bad'

In recent years, the tools for measuring the effects of lead exposure in people have become more precise, allowing scientists to detect lower levels in blood and measure damage in greater detail.

"Lead is toxic even at the lowest levels we can measure," said Philip Landrigan, an international leader in public health and a pediatrician at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. "Any exposure is bad, but more exposure is worse."

Health effects are particularly acute in children, who breathe in more air than adults relative to their size. Lead exposure can cause learning disabilities, decreased growth, hyperactivity and brain damage.

In adults, high lead levels can contribute to high blood pressure and heart disease. Pregnant women exposed to lead also put their unborn babies at risk.

While lead-poisoning symptoms aren't always apparent, Landrigan said, there could be some underlying health effects. The only way to know for sure is to test the amount of lead in a person's blood, he said.

Frisco conducted a health risk assessment in 1994 and a follow-up in 1995 that focused on three families who lived a few blocks north of the lead smelter and east of the new City Hall. The studies found elevated levels of lead in three children but couldn't conclusively connect them to the plant's emissions.

Purefoy, Frisco's city manager, said last month that he hopes to conduct a larger health study to determine any effects from lead.

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