Dr. Weihsueh Chiu: Environmental contamination after hurricanes
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The 2024 hurricane season has so far produced four major hurricanes at category 3 or above. Hurricanes damage not only homes but also other kinds of infrastructure, including power grid facilities, waste removal systems, and water treatment plants, releasing pollutants into the environment.
On October 31, SciLine interviewed: Dr. Weihsueh Chiu, a professor in the Department of Veterinary Physiology and Pharmacology and Deputy Director of the Texas A&M Superfund Research Center focusing on chemical contamination after disasters. See the footage and transcript from the interview below, or select ‘Contents’ on the left to skip to specific questions.
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Introduction
[0:00:20]
WEIHSUEH CHIU: My name is Weihsueh Chiu. I’m a professor here at Texas A&M University. I study the risk of chemical exposure to human health, first at the EPA for 14 years, and then for almost the last 10 years here at Texas A&M. I’m also the deputy director of our Superfund Research Center, which focuses on chemical contamination after disasters.
Interview with SciLine
What types of pollution are common in the aftermath of hurricanes?
[0:00:49]
WEIHSUEH CHIU: Well, there’s three general types of pollution after hurricanes. First, there’s often sewage and wastewater that overflows due to flooding. There’s also chemicals released into the flood waters, for instance, from storage or equipment that’s been damaged or that malfunctions. And then there’s air pollution, for instance, from industrial facilities or fires.
How do hurricane preparations lead to environmental contamination after a storm?
[0:01:19]
WEIHSUEH CHIU: Well, a typical example is from industrial facilities. Many facilities will shut down before a storm to protect their equipment, but shutdowns can actually lead to an increase in air pollution. It’s similar to how, if you’re cold starting a car or truck, that there’s more pollution compared to after it’s been running out for a while and it’s all warmed up. So, it’s the same issue with industrial facilities. When they’re shutting down or starting up, then there tends to be more pollution that’s released into the air. This can be a particular issue when there’s many facilities that shut down at once, especially in areas around the Gulf Coast, where there’s a very high concentration of facilities.
How does infrastructure damage result in the release of pollutants during or after hurricanes?
[0:02:03]
WEIHSUEH CHIU: Well, a common type of damage that leads to release of pollutants into flood waters is flooding of sewage treatment plants, which then releases raw or partially treated sewage into the flood waters. For industrial sites, then power outages and damage to storage tanks or other equipment can also lead to release of pollutants. One dramatic example is from Hurricane Harvey: the Arkema chemical plant. Their cooling systems failed after the flooding, then chemicals then caught on fire, and that led to release a lot of noxious fumes, and then local residents were evacuated.
What challenges do communities face when preparing for hurricanes?
[0:02:46]
WEIHSUEH CHIU: Well, it’s important to have good emergency planning that includes the potential for pollution, so we’re not just planning for evacuation and things like that, but that there can be increases in pollution. When people aren’t evacuated, it’s important to understand how to safely shelter in place when there’s toxic chemicals that are being released in the air. Of course, robust communication is also needed so that people can get the information reliably and quickly. This can be very challenging if there’s a loss of power, as happened after Hurricane Beryl. There were millions of people without power for several weeks. So, planning for those type of contingencies is really important.
How do disasters interfere with efforts to assess environmental pollution from hurricanes?
[0:03:35]
WEIHSUEH CHIU: One of the challenges, especially for the air pollution component, is that air monitors are often turned off or moved away in anticipation of the storm, because that equipment is very expensive and can be very delicate and could be damaged. So, this makes it more difficult to know if there is actually a problem. Low cost sensors and mobile monitoring can be part of the solution. Those are increasingly less expensive now and more available, and it can make it easier for residents or communities to also report incidents. And, of course, residents themselves, they— if there’s, again—having that robust communication so that they see something or smell something, they can quickly report it to local governments.
What impact does environmental pollution from hurricanes have on human health?
[0:04:15]
WEIHSUEH CHIU: Well, the impact really depends on the particular pollutant. Pollution from sewage, of course, can make people sick. High levels of air pollution can cause headaches and other respiratory symptoms—trouble, breathing, coughing. Longer term effects like cancer, say, that depends, really, on how much and how long the pollutants stick around. So, air pollution tends to dissipate fairly quickly. You just don’t want it to be sustained at those high levels. But soil, for instance, if it becomes contaminated, that could stick around for years. Or if it gets into the groundwater, then if people have private wells, then they could be exposed to those pollutants for many years afterwards.
How does climate change alter the environmental impact of hurricanes?
[0:05:15]
WEIHSUEH CHIU: Well, there’s two ways that climate change likely changes the environmental impact. First, warmer air holds more water, and that’s why it’s more sticky in the summer and dry in the winter. But that also means that hurricanes can produce more rain. We saw this with Harvey and with Milton, which really broke records for the amount of rainfall. Previously, we often were worried more about storm surge: those high waves that come in from the ocean from the hurricane, leading to flooding. Now some facilities, for instance, would build walls around themselves to keep the flooding out from the storm surge. But if the problem is rain, then those walls have basically created a bathtub, which means you could have made the flooding actually worse. The second issue is that it appears that storms are intensifying more quickly. Hurricane Milton went from Category 1 to Category 5 in 24 hours, more than doubling its wind speed. This means there can be less time to prepare. So, for instance, if industrial facilities are shutting down operations, if they’re doing it all at once, that’ll be much worse in terms of air pollution than staggering that over, say, several days or a week. And so that can lead to really high spikes in terms of air pollution.
Do some groups of people experience more environmental contamination after hurricanes?
[0:06:18]
WEIHSUEH CHIU: Well, there’s many places where hurricane risk and pollution risk intersect that also are places that residents are less affluent and more vulnerable to begin with, so they might have fewer resources to help prepare, recover from—not just the direct effects of hurricanes such as property damage, but also the secondary effects, like from pollutant releases. Soin going forward, it’s important to prioritize these communities for building resilience, since many of them experience a sort of perfect storm, so to say, of a high risk for natural disasters, being close to many industrial facilities, and having more limited resources.
