Richard Harrel – Texas Legacy

TRANSCRIPT
INTERVIEWEE: Dr. Richard Harrel (RH)
INTERVIEWER: David Todd (DT)
DATE: October 11, 1999
LOCATION: Beaumont, Texas
REELS: 2052 and 2053
TRANSCRIBED BY: Robin Johnson

Please note that videos include roughly 60 seconds of color bars and sound tone for technical settings at the outset of the recordings. Numbers mark the time code marks on the VHS video copies of the interview. “Misc.” refers to various off-camera background noise, unrelated to the interview content.

DT: My name is David Todd. It’s October 11, 1999. And I’m here for the Conservation History Association of Texas. And we have the good fortune to be interviewing Doctor Richard Harrel, a professor at Lamar University here in Beaumont. And we’re going to be talking about his many efforts, both as an educator and as a citizen advocate, for protecting and understanding the environment in southeast Texas. I want to take this chance to thank you for participating.
0:01:53 – 2052
RH: Thank you.
DT: Doctor Harrel, could you tell us about your early days and mention any early influences in your interest in the outdoors and in science?
0:02:07 – 2052
RH: Well, I guess my real interest started when—as an undergraduate at East Central State College in Oklahoma. I had a teacher who I consider a mentor. It was an undergraduate teacher who was a true naturalist and a biologist and somewhat of a field biologist. And that was Doc—Doctor Cliff Dennis. I guess he’s the one that really got me started in this—this field that I’m in.
DT: Was he a—you said he was a field biologist?
0:02:43 – 2052
RH: He was somewhat of a—he taught courses that dealt with the field aspects of biology: collection, classification of organisms, ecological aspects of things rather than the medical aspects that will—you know, which a lot of other courses dealt with. But, I fell in love with the—the organismal type of biology. And that would lead to the environmental work, which was starting up at that time. That—that was back in the early 9—that was in 1950s.
DT: Can you talk about some of your early studies and maybe some of your early field trips when you were still a student?
0:30:26 – 2052
RH: Well, one thing I did under the guidance of Doctor Dennis was, there was a cave that was located a few miles from the University, 30 miles or so. And so, as an undergraduate research problem I mapped and made a survey of the organisms that were living in that cave. And so that was a fun and a—sort of an adventuresome type of thing. And as an undergraduate I published that—that was my first scientific publication, was the “Fauna of Wild Woman Cave.” So…
DT: That does seem to be an interesting beginning. I understand that a lot of cave fauna can be very rare and sometimes endangered.
0:04:22 – 2052
RH: Yes, I—I collected several species that were new to science. I didn’t describe them but I sent them to experts and they described them. And, so that was a—that was a interesting thing. Yeah.
DT: Where did your education take you from there?
0:04:40 – 2052
RH: Well, I graduated with my B.S. from East Central State College in Ada, Oklahoma. And then, I was married and had a kid already and had already been out of the service. So, I taught school, taught high school for three years in Guthrie, Okalahoma. And I went there so I would be close to Oklahoma State, so I could go to graduate school. I planned to go on and get a Ph.D., but I just couldn’t afford it at that time, so I moved there. And, you didn’t make enough money to go to school and teach too in those days. So, luckily I got an NSF fellowship and went to the University of Georgia after teaching three years. And was at the University of Georgia where I got my Masters. And then, after two years working on my Masters, I came back to Oklahoma and got my Ph.D. at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. And by that time the environmental movement was going strong. And water pollution work was very prevalent. And so, that’s where I did my work. In—and it was always invertebrates and their use in water quality monitoring.
DT: Can you give us some examples of the animals and the types of uses?
0:06:03 – 2052
RH: Yes, well, what I always worked on was referred to as ‘benthic macroinvertebrates,’ which literally means that they are organisms that live on or in the bottom substrate of water environments. And, they’re macro, they’re large enough to see with the naked eye. And, they’re things like worms, clams, insect larvae, some of the crustaceans like Sal bugs, Amphipods, Crawfish, things like that. And so that’s the group of organisms. They’re real good for working in water quality because they’re not very mobile. They can’t just get up and leave when the water quality changes. They have relatively long life cycles, so they can’t just bloom and then disappear and then come back again. They generally have only one, sometimes as many as three generations a year. So they’re long-term indicators of water quality. Also their tolerance is—to environmental conditions, all types of environmental conditions, organic pollution, toxins, heat, things like that are known fairly well. So you can equate the community structure of the invertebrates with the environmental quality. And so that’s the type of thing that I’ve been working on all these years.
DT: With that background and education and skills, why did you decide to come to Beaumont and to Lamar University?
0:07:37 – 2052
RH: Well, when I got out of—when I received my Ph.D. in 1966, it was a wonderful time as far as the job market was concerned. So there were jobs everywhere. And I went on lots of interviews for jobs. And I picked Lamar University, Beaumont, because Lamar was a growing, small university. It was located in an area that you don’t have very many freezes. And you don’t have to worry about ice, (?). And, there were lots of environmental problems here. So I said, this is a place I can really come and do my work. In fact, they were just about to start a graduate program and I could get in on the—on the ground floor of that. And I did. And so I came to Lamar and I’ve been here for 33, 34 years now.
DT: When you first arrived here, part of the feel was that there were some environmental problems. Can you describe what they were in the mid-60s here?
0:08:47 – 2052
RH: Yes, the main body of water that I was concerned with was the Neches River. And the Neches River, of course, the lower section is very highly industrialized. And so it was real grossly polluted. In fact, the lower portion of the river was considered as a dead river. And you could move north of Beaumont and water quality would increase, so you had sort of a gradient of environmental conditions, which makes nice graphs to study its own water quality. So I—I started working on the river in ’66, when I came. And I’m still work—sampling it.
DT: You said that part of the river was essentially dead. What was the real threat to it?
0:09:42 – 2052
RH: Well, at that time, see in 1960—the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] did not form until 1970, and at that time they formed, the Clean Air Act was passed as well. Well, we have terrible air problems here also. And so, there was really no regulatory agency with any teeth whatsoever, to do anything. And so industry, as they always had in the past, dumped out everything into the air and into the water. And there was no regulation, otherwise. Well, when they started, when the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, then they started reg—formulating regulatory agencies by mandate of the Federal Government. You had the EPA formed. And then the EPA regulated that the states set up their regulatory agencies. And so we set up the Texas Air Control Board and the Texas Water Pollution Control Agency, at that time. And they started looking at water quality, giving permits for industry so they would know exactly what they were dumping into the water, how much was going into the water, and what they would have to do to clean it up. And so that sort of started everything in those early days. Well, I started sampling before it was mandatory to clean up and before the Clean Water Act. And so, I have samples that go, when it was a grossly polluted river and there was no pollution abatement going on. And then we’ve done studies up through the various stages of the Clean Water Act. In fact, we have one going on right now, to keep track of what’s going on now in the river.
DT: Can you talk about some of the long-term changes you’ve seen?
0:11:40 – 2052
RH: (talking over David) Yeah. When we first started taking samples there were very, very few organisms of any kind that would live in the river. There—microorganisms were about the only kind. And there was no measurable dissolved oxygen for maybe six months of the year. When you’d get low river discharge, you would get oxygen depletion occurring. And, so it was—you would occasionally see a fish like a Gar moving through that section of the river. But nothing else could live there. And so there was really a bad situation.
Well, when the Clean Water Act started, it was put in in three different phases. Phase one was 1972 to 1975 and that demanded that all industries and municipalities that dumped into the river had to have a permit. And those are referred to as NPDES permits. And that they had to start some type of water treatment. It was best practice practical treatment so you didn’t close down the plants and things like that. And that went on time. And then the second phase came in, in 1977, I believe. And in that phase they had to put in best available treatment, which would be at least secondary wastewater treatment. So they put in wastewater treatment plants, treat all the effluent before it went into the receiving waters of the Neches River. And that made tremendous difference in water quality. And life came back and invaded the river and it’s been fairly good ever since that period of time. It’s a tremendous improvement, now.
DT: Was the pollution problem just one of low dissolved oxygen, or toxins?
0:13:40 – 2052
RH: (talking over David) And toxins. It was both. It was both of them. And the—the first surveys that we ran—the real intensive survey went from 1967 until 1972. And that was when the river was in terribly bad shape. And the community structure of the organisms indicated that it was low dissolved oxygen as well as toxic materials that was responsible for what was going on. And by the end of the first and second phase of the Clean Water Act, which was in the later ‘70s, it was primarily low dissolved oxygen. But it had improved tremendously. And lots of organisms came back in, even clean water species that had never been there before. And so, that—that was the thing. Now, the third phase of the Clean Water Act, it was supposed to start before the end of 1970s, but it was delayed until 1987. And the reason it was delayed was because Ronald Reagan became the President and betrayed the country. And he did that by putting people like Rita Lavelle in charge of the EPA, who was later indicted. And also James Watt, as the Secretary of the Interior, who let the mining companies and everybody else have our National Parks and Federal lands. And he postponed the third phase, which was to get rid of toxics. It was specifically to look and find out if we had toxic materials going into surface waters. And if there were toxic materials then you have to have a plan and implemented structure to get rid of those toxins. And so that was delayed a long time during the Reagan Administration. It kicked off again about the time Reagan went off—out of office. And it’s been in effect now for 10 years. And so that’s why we’re doing this study now, is to see what the effect of the third phase of the Clean Water Act has had on the ca—on the biota of the river.
DT: Are there any early results that you can share?
0:16:16 – 2052
RH: We’re just now analyzing our first collections, which were taken in this last February. And from what we’re—we see, we’re going to have a very, very large increase in diversity. And get it—of the organisms from the second phase to the third phase. So it looks like the third phase has had a significant—that’s preliminary. We’ll have to do more analysis before we can say anything for sure on that.
DT: Do you see any carcinogenic affects or endocrine disruption problems?
0:16:55 – 2052
RH: (talking over David) Of course, I don’t study that aspect. That would be a Physiological Ecologist or somebody like that, that would look. Now I was involved in the—back in 1989, EPA determined that all craft paper mills have dioxins in the effluents that flow out. And we had a paper mill here, we have it, the Temple Inland Paper Mill. And they release 50 million gallons a day, a little over 50 million gallons a—per day, into the Neches River. And so they had dioxins coming out into the Neches River. And, as a consequence the EPA came out and made some surveys and they found dioxin in two fish that they sampled around that outfall. And so the Texas Department of Health put a warning on the Neches River that pregnant women, old people, babies should not eat very much fish out of the Neches River, because of the dioxin scare. And so we came in and said, well let’s find out where it’s located in the river. And they said it’s up where—their—their boundary lines for the warning were about two miles below the outfall and about 20 miles above it. And so we said, well let’s find out where the dioxin actually is. And so collected clams which stay in place, not fish. And we measured dioxin in the clams. And dioxin was below their outfall, but it was also above it, where salt water intrusion could come in and carry it one up stream. And so it was in clams up there also. And so we—we determined how much dioxin was there, in the clams. And where—where it was present. And after that the paper mill came in and changed their process, so that they no longer make dioxins. And we followed the study up two or three years after they changed their process to see if there were still dioxins. And there is some still in the river. They’re a long-term thing.
DT: Do you see fishing, either commercially or recreationally, as a problem in Neches River and Sabine Bay, or is it pretty safe?
0:19:39 – 2052
RH: No, I think it’s fairly safe. I think there are locations where I wouldn’t want to fish, or take the fish. One of them is right below Interstate 10 Bridge in the Neches River. And the reason for that, there’s an old creosoting site. And that creosoting site is sitting right on the side of the river and breaks by you. And it was in—it was functioning from 1890 until 1977, and creosote and the associated chemicals with that activity is—are down in those soils and they’re seeping down into the river. And so that is, right now it’s a state Superfund site. And there is creosote coming out, and there’s some dioxins, there’s some metals, things like that associated with it. So I wouldn’t want to eat fish that were in that vicinity.
DT: I know down in Lavaca Bay, they’ve had a problem with contamination of sediments. Even after the water is cleaned up you still have a problem with the benthic material. And I was wondering if that’s a problem in the Sabine or Neches River?
0:20:58 – 2052
RH: It—it has been, especially in the industrialized section of the river itself. Most of the discharge that comes out from industry follows the Ship Channel. The Ship Channel is 40 feet deep. Well, Sabine Lake is 67 feet deep. And so most of the effluents follow the—the deep-water channel and they end up going on out and into the Gulf of Mexico. But they—there’s a—there’s still a high concentration of certain metals in the sediments. Of course, they’re always doing maintenance dredging to keep the channels open. And when they dredge now, they take the spoils and they put them behind levies in assigned spoil, so you keep getting some of that stuff out. And they’re not putting near in what they did in the past, very, very little compared to what went in. But there’s some evidence that it still—the sediments are still toxic to some things.
DT: We’ve talked a little bit about the monitoring that you’ve been doing on the Neches, on the main stem and into the Sabine Lake or Bay. Can you talk about the monitoring you’ve done on the Big Thicket on some of those pristine streams?
0:22:23 – 2052
RH: Well in 1974, when they first formed—when Congress first passed the law—formed the Big Thicket, in fact it wasn’t even—the land hadn’t been purchased at that time. At that time I was contracted by the Department of the Interior to look at water quality in the Big Thicket National Preserve. And so from 1974 until 1981 we made studies on all the streams in the Big Thicket National Preserve. And we set up water quality monitoring stations in each of the Units and also in the corridors—the Neches River Corridor, the Pine Island Bayou Corridor. And we took samples from different corridors and Units a year at a time. And we collected—we set up sampling stations at the entrance to the Unit, the exit of the Unit and some stationed in between. And we would collect physical chemical data as well as bacteriological data and the Benthic macroinvertebrates. And we got a year’s data on each of the Units. And we—we made those studies form ’74 to ’81. And then the Big Thicket people took over that work themselves.
DT: I’ve heard the Big Thicket is known for its diversity in all types of life, from plants to animal and I imagine, to an extent, the aquatic systems.
0:24:04 – 2052
RH: There is a high diversity. In a lot of even the small streams in the Thicket, which is somewhat surprising because the geologic substrate is somewhat sterile. It’s mostly sand. And there’s not—not many nutrients. It’s also very shifty, so it changes with every flood and drought condition. And it—so you wouldn’t expect, in those conditions, that you would have very much. But there—there is surprising diversity there. The most of the food web in the stream is based on leaf litter and wood material that comes from the surrounding drains. Very little algal productivity at all. But, we do find large numbers of kinds of organisms, not extremely large biomasses. So it’s an interesting place to work in that way.
DT: Is there anything particularly unusual that you find there?
0:25:10 – 2052
RH: Not really. There’s not really nothing that, you know—we do reach—we have a few species of things that are considered to be Eastern species. We have some things that are considered to be Western species. So it—it is sort of a biological crossroad, even for invertebrate forms. But it—it’s considered to be a biological crossroads for plants, and that’s certainly true, where you do get Eastern and Western and Northern and Southern species all coming together.
DT: Do you also find any exotic species?
0:25:48 – 2052
RH: There are a few exotic. Like there’s a Clam Corbicula. And when we first started our work in the Big Thicket it wasn’t there at all. But by the time 1981—in those few years, it was found in a few places. Now, it’s all over the small streams in the Units. It’s not really a problem, but it’s there.
DT: Have you had any problems or experiences with Zebra Mussels or some type of mussels that have been very invasive?
0:26:24 – 2052
RH: No, we haven’t got. They—they haven’t come into Texas yet. They surely will because they’re in Louisiana. And they’ve been found in the Louisiana part of the Sabine River Basin. So they’ve got to get over into—into this area eventually, but they haven’t made it yet.
DT: Have you found any problems with some of the Grass Carp and other exotic fish that have been imported?
0:26:50 – 2052
RH: No. Not in our system at all. There are Grass Carp that are surviving it seems like over in the Trinity system. But there’s—I haven’t heard any reports of them in the Neches or the Sabine system.
DT: You studied macrobenthic organisms. I understand that much of the research money for the kind of the work you do is quite slight compared to the money and the attention that goes to much larger animals like the Black Bears and Bald Eagles of the world. Can you speculate about why that is?
0:27:40 – 2052
RH: Well, you always have a lot of money that’s available for fishery work, because of the recreational aspect of things as well as food source, things like that. So there’s more of a direct understanding of the public. And so the game fish, but also food fish for the game fish. So there’s always a lot more money for fisheries, type of thing that’s considered more practical. While when you’re looking at things like worms and insects it’s a little harder to convince that these are an important part of the ecosystem and that they are good monitors in indicating the health of the entire system. But, you know, in my work I was—I’ve been—I’ve been funded by the Department of the Interior, the National Park Service as well as Water Resources. And also, NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] and Texas A & M Experimental Station. The Lamar Faculty Research Funds and several agencies have been successful at getting moneys to support. Now, the study I’m doing now is paid for by Mobil. And they’re paying for the study of the Neches River at this time. And then the dioxin work that I did with the clams, I talked Temple Inland into funding it. And so, there are—there are funds available if you go out and hunt them up.
DT: The consultants we’ve talked to often mention the tension there is between the scientists and the entity that pays their bills. Have you experienced any of that?
0:29:41 – 2052
RH: I won’t allow that to occur. And before I ever take any money doing research I say, “I’m going to define the research problem, and set up the methods, and do the analysis and the data is mine to do as I please. It’s not yours. You’re not buying the data from me. And you don’t own it. So I can publish it and you don’t have any right to edit it, whatsoever.” And so I won’t—I won’t go into the work unless I have that understanding. And so I don’t actually serve as a consultant and that is also—one reason for that is because of the work I do with citizens’ environmental groups. And I don’t want a conflict in that area. So I don’t do consulting work for industries, at all.
DT: Do you ever act as an expert witness?
0:33:42 – 2052
RH: I have acted as an expert witness, yes.
DT: What’s that experience like?
0:30:46 – 2052
RH: Well, it’s not good. I don’t much care for that actually. Because an expert witness at hearing or a trial is only as good as the witness itself, as far as his morality and what’s his beliefs. And you hear so many of them that are up there lying through their teeth because that’s what they’re paid to say. And so I don’t put much faith in expert witnesses at hearings or environmental trials, things like that. Too many liars. Too many people are bought. And so I don’t—I don’t—I don’t really think that that’s a reliable thing at all.
DT: You talked about your work with citizens’ groups. Could you tell about your work there?
0:31:41 – 2052
RH: Yes. The first year I came to Beaumont there was a notice in the Beaumont paper that they were organizing an environmental citizens’ group to try to clean up the environment in and—and around Jefferson County area. And so I went to that first meeting. And this was a meeting that was organized by three local business people who were also very heavy into fishing and hunting; sportsmen. One of them was a man named Deut(?) Proctor who owned the Jefferson County Drug Company. And another one was Everett Brashear who was an accountant and sometimes sports writer. And then the other one was a man named Ernest Sample, who was an attorney, a local attorney. And they set up this organization.
Well I went to this first meeting and then I–we’ve been going ever since. And so it was set up—and the way the group set up, we meet the fourth Monday of every month. And we meet at J and J Steak House here in Beaumont, now. But, the way the group is set up, we have 20 members of the Board of Directors. Within the Board of Directors, we have Vice President, President, Secretary and the Treasurer. And every year we elect, or reelect 10 members of the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors meets the fourth Monday of every month. And that—at that same meeting we’re open to the general membership and to the public. And we talk about all types of environmental issues that go on. And we’re very active in calling public hearings. And we did that a lot in the early days, where we would call for a public hearing. And it was mandated that they had to hold it. And so we would go in and you would be—you would have the industrial side one side of the room and then us on the other side and the Hearing Examiner who was a—an attorney that would listen. And so, then decisions would have to be made based on the evidence. And we had some very, very long and drawn-out hearings that were held here locally. And some real surprising decisions were made due to those hearings. And our—our participation in the calling for them and participation in them. And as a—because of those decisions that were made, Clean Air and Water became known by all industry in this area. And, instead of just doing something, they’ll come to our meeting and tell us about it. And we’ll talk to them first. And say, “Okay, we still don’t like it.” And we—so we talk back and forth and a lot of times we’ll compromise to some degree, on both sides, to keep from going through those long hearings. But it’s always something that is going to improve the environment. We speak for the environment.
(Misc.)
DT: Could you talk about the early days of Clean Air and Water, the group? And why the founders of the group decided to call that first meeting?
0:35:14 – 2052
RH: Well the environment was so bad. You know, the river was dead. These were real sportsmen and they were concerned about the—at—at that time the industry was still increasing in the area of production and the river was getting worse and worse. So they were alarmed and said, “We’ve got to do something about that.” So they called a meeting to organize that organization. And so that’s where it all got started, right there.
DT: It must have seemed like a very big and imposing problem. How did you all decide to attack it? What did you do?
0:35:51 – 2052
RH: Well, the first thing we had to do was find out how we could attack the problem. And, at that time, see, we had the Texas Water Quality Board that was formed. Well, in law you had—if—if they were up for permit or revision of a permit, anything like that, then a citizen had the right to call for public hearing. And so we started calling for public hearings with industry and with the Texas Water Quality Board on particular permits and things like that.
DT: Were there any permits that you first got involved with?
0:36:42 – 2052
RH: Well, there were several of them that, you know, that didn’t go on and on. But we have several that went on for over a year, as far as the hearing was concerned. One…
DT: Were they mostly pollution permits?
0:37:58 – 2052
RH: Yes, those are permits concerned with release of wastewater into surface water. And so at that time the Eastex Paper Mill, which is now the Temple Inland Paper Mill and it was just bought out the other day, so it will be something else in a week or two. But, at that time, they were up for a change in their permit. And so they were requesting that they have a single permit. They used to have a dual permit. And the dual permit allowed them to release so much waste during hot weather and another amount during cold weather. Because it has different effects on the receiving waters at—in—under different temperature conditions. And so they wanted to change it so they could release a higher amount all year long. And so we called for a public hearing on it. And that hearing lasted for a few weeks. And when the Hearing Examiner made his decision, it was in our favor, not the paper mills’. And that was sort of surprising because there was about three citizens at the hearing and there was a whole table full of attorneys and environmental consultants for the paper mill. But the—what was going on was so obvious that the Hearing Examiner didn’t have much choice, as far as his decision. And as a consequent, they put in a whole lot of wastewater treatment facilities up at Evadale, at the paper mill. And improved the condition and they only got the one—they still have to comply with the dual permit rather than a single permit. So, that was—that was—we consider that a victory for us. And, of course, other industries found out what had gone on, so
0:38:57 – 52
before they would do anything they would come to our meetings and try to talk to us and tell us about what was going on and try to—try to make sure that we weren’t going to cause them all sorts of legal expenses. Now, you can’t do that nowadays. They don’t have public hearings. The laws have been changed. You can have public information meetings, but the only thing you can do is go in and talk. And nobody questions anybody. And so it’s been changed for industry’s benefit, from what it was in those early days.
We had another hearing with—there was a small refinery up by Silsbee, Texas, the South Hampton Refinery. And they were actually refining oil in the early 1970s that they had no permit for. And they were releasing waste down a small stream and the stream caught on fire. And some of the citizens that lived in the area reported it to us. We called for a hearing on that. That went for about a year. Some of the hearings would be held in Beaumont and some in Silsbee and then some in Austin. And they kept their permit, they got a permit. But they had to make considerable changes in what they were doing. And so that—we made a considerable amount of difference there also.
So we’ve—we’ve had several things like that, that have gone on. And we, you know, if you’re working in the environmental area you’re never through. You always have to stay up on it. Because things are always coming up. And there’s no clear winner and there’s no clear loser. But you make a difference anyway. And you have to be persistent and stay at it. And that’s what Clean Air and Water does. We go to all the hearings. I was at one last week, to last week, concerning the air business there.
DT: What was that one about?
0:41:04 – 2052
RH: This—that meeting was held by—it was called by the TNRCC [Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission] and it was mandated by the EPA. And there were two hearings. And they were both held the same night. One of them was considering the—it’s—it’s—EPA—it’s a federal law that electrical generating facilities have to phase out their grandfathered air emissions. And so that was giving citizens a—a chance to speak at those, so. They’re mandating that and they have until 2003 to get a permit for those grandfathered emissions, which is a long way down the road. But at the—right after that hearing they had another hearing and it was for all grandfathered emissions except the electrical generating facilities. And that hearing stated that they have an involuntary—a voluntary program to do away with grandfathered emissions and some regulations, some things that would go along with that. Like, they can—if they’re going to get a permit they can buy emissions from somebody else. That type of thing. And so we went to that hearing and said, “That’s stupid. You should not have voluntary. It should be mandated, just as the other thing here.” But that’s our good Governor Bush who’s pushing that type of thing. He’s..
DT: Speaking of Governor Bush and elected officials, how do you try to make your case with them?
0:42:53 – 2052
RH: (talking over David) We, we work with everybody. And what we try to do is inform them of our views. And we always, as far as the environment—we—we speak for the environment. And the regulators don’t necessarily speak for the environment. In fact, they—they talk more with the regulated community. So they’re more familiar with the industrial viewpoints of things. And, of course, every state has a regulatory agency concerned with all environmental issues that the EPA covers. Well, the state does what the EPA tells them. And then the state passes on what they have to industry. But they’re getting it from both sides, see? So what we try to do is think, well, what’s—what’s best for the environment? And when we look at the environment we don’t just look at the air and the water. We look at the economy, the aesthetic value, everything. And so we try to educate ourself on all of the issues that we can and then pass our viewpoint on to them, in one way or another. Maybe through a letter, we write letters to all the regulatory agencies in the industries. And we also have encouraged—and our group has been responsible for the great formation of a lot of what has been referred to as Citizens’ Advisory Panels for industry. Back during the 20th birthday, we gave a challenge to local industry to allow citizens to have more information as to what was going on inside their gate and their permitting and everything. And so we—we formed a challenge of—what was then Texaco, wouldn’t then, and then it was later changed to Star and then something else. But, Star Enterprise, well they took us up on our challenge. We formed a citizen’s advisory panel. Well, the Texas Chemical Council said, “That sounds like a thing that would be good PR for everybody.” And it would help both sides. And so the Texas Chemical Council said, “If you’re going to be a member of the Texas Chemical Council, you have to have a Citizens’ Advisory Panel. And you have to have the citizens that live in the area meet with you and then you can talk about all sorts of environmental problems, things that are concerned with the community and the industry, the whole thing.” So, we
0:45:36 – 52
started that, and it moved all over Texas. And we have lots of industries around here that have Citizens’ Advisory Panels. And Clean Air and Water always has representatives on all the Panels. So, we meet with them and tell them what we think, and what we think that they should do as far as improving things. They tell us why they do things the way they do, and sometimes we didn’t understand. And we understand what’s going on, so, it—it helps both sides. So, you know, we’ve been real effective in that way.
DT: Do you think it’s been pretty constructive? Have the industries been receptive?
0:46:14 – 2052
RH: Yes, they generally are very receptive. Much—it’s much more receptive, you know, it’s had to evolve that way. When we first started the gates were locked and nobody had an exchange that was going on. It’s not that way any more. Of course, we’ve had a hell of a lot of the old timers die. And we’ve had a change where people—right now, see all industries have an environmental division and an environmental branch. Well nobody had one in those days. And so a lot of the people that work in the environmental branch for the industry, they’ve been trained in environmental science. And their job is to make sure that the company is in environmental compliance in what they have to do. Well, that wasn’t true before.
DT: You talked about the old guard dying out. Can you talk about how the culture has changed at these companies?
0:47:13 – 2052
RH: Well, it’s caused much more exchange between—an open—you know, they’re concerned that we’re not going to be upset with them. You know, they want to keep us informed now, where they didn’t before, at all. They felt no obligation to, now they do feel obligated to do this. So, I think, you know, it’s a—it’s a evolutionary process that has happened. It’s a part of the environmental movement that’s been going on since the 1950s. And so it’s just taken a while to get to this point. And you have to stay at it. See, we’re up right now. The Beaumont, Port Arthur, Orange area, we’re out of compliance, as far as air standards are concerned. We’re considered moderately out of compliance. And we’re really right on the edge between moderate and serious. Houston is severe. There’s a—industry will do anything they can to try to stay in the moderate division. They don’t want to be first over to the severe. And so, they try to say that all the pollution doesn’t come from them. It comes from transport from Houston. And so we make sure that we’re represented at all those hearings and things like that and say, “If we’re so much like Houston, maybe we should be classified with them, and be severe.” Because we can’t put them—we can’t fence us off. And besides that, if it is transported here from Houston, it’s not added to it anyway, ours is going on through. Ours is going somewhere else, if theirs is coming here. And so we always are in conflict but we meet together and sort of keep each other straight, to some degree.
DT: Do you work much with the labor unions at these plants? Which side are they typically on?
0:49:26 – 2052
RH: (talking over David) We have had… We have had some work with the labor unions and we have had labor union people that attended our meetings and then would be a—also attend those Citizens’ Advisory Panel meetings. But, not—not too close. The labor union is pretty weak. It’s not like it was when we first started out. Labor unions were strong and everybody was in the labor union. And we—you had a big work force. Well, of course, a lot of the old facilities that were in—that were functioning in those days have been phased out. They weren’t competitive. And so they’ve had to build new units, rebuild units and all the new units are automated. So you don’t have the work force. Where you used to have 1500 people on one shift at a petrochemical plant, now you have 20 or 25. And so you don’t have the people involved. If you don’t have individual people, you’re not going to have a union, see? So it’s completely different world from what it was 30 years ago.
DT: Can you talk about some of the other players or participants? Do the Chamber of Commerce or the City Council or the County Commissioner’s office get involved in these issues about pollution? What do they have to say?
0:50:53 – 2052
RH: (talking over David) Sure, they always do. They always do. At the last hearing they had on what’s referred to as a SIP, State Implementation Plan, concerning air quality and the new air standards, that hearing. And it was held about a month ago, three weeks, a month ago over here at the John Gray Institute. Well, that meeting was held at 7 o’clock in the evening. It was put in the legal notice in the paper. And I went—I attended that meeting as a representative of Clean Air and Water and a few more of our Board members attended. The other people that were there were industry and a lot of our local politicians. And they let the politicians speak first. And the politicians, with no exceptions, stood up and said that we didn’t need any stricter air standards. We needed to be careful because we would keep industry from staying here and we would hurt our job market and our economy. And all of our local politicians, the state representative, our state Senator, the man from the Chamber of Commerce stood up and said the same thing. And then the—the—the politician introduced the industrial spokesman, speaking against the high—the more strict air standard. And then myself and one other citizen stood up and said that we thought that air pollution was bad, not good. And that we didn’t know of a single job that had been lost because of stricter air standards. In fact, we have an environmental industry here that wouldn’t be here otherwise. And a lot of people in industry will lose their jobs if we do away with… I said, “We think that that’s wrong.” And so, you know, that’s my answer, you know, you always—the politicians are always in with the Chamber of Commerce. And the Chamber of Commerce is made up of industry and businesses. And so they always speak in that term. They don’t think about health and the total environment. And they never seem to be able to relate it to health
0:53:31 – 52
costs and premature death. Now if they killed everybody outright, then they’d recognize it. But, you know, politicians and those type, they work on short-term scales. The state representative runs every two years. And so he’s working to raise money for… Who—who—who—who donates money? PACs. You know, citizens don’t give that much. And so, the PACs, they’re always influenced by that.
DT: What about the general public and voters? Are they very supportive of the kind of the kind of environmental arguments that you make?
0:54:21 – 2052
RH: Most of them don’t pay any attention to it, whatsoever. You know, you always have a few people that work hard and stay with it. And we have people that get into our organization when an issue comes up that they’re interested in. And, when that issue is over, then they’re gone. But we have a few that stay with it and are persistent. And that’s what you have to be. You know, it’s not—if it’s not really doing something to you right at the minute, it’s just not important, there are too many other things.
DT: Can you give me an example, like a NIMBY [Not In My BackYard] issue, something pops up in somebody’s backyard and that will bring in some members and produce a little spike in interest?
0:55:06 – 2052
RH: (talking over David) That would—that would be an example. Yes. Yes. I think so. That type of thing. You know, if the chemical waste incinerator is going to be built in your neighborhood. That type of thing. That’s the type of thing that spurs interest. And we’ve had like a landfill that was built out in the South County area. Well, a lot of people that lived right in that particular region, they became very active in environmental issues and particularly the ones concerning that landfill. But, when the landfill grant—permit was given, they started construction that was the end of it.
DT: Do they get burned out or just have other demands on their time?
0:56:00 – 2052
RH: I think that have other things on their mind. They just, you know, they just—it’s not a real personal thing with them. Different people have different interests.
DT: When you look at yourself and some of the other people that have been intimately involved in Clean Air and Water, and the other environmental groups you’ve been active with, what makes your concerns and your steadfast interest different from other people who don’t seem to take the same interest?
0:56:30 – 2052
RH: (talking over David) Well, see, I consider this to be a part of my profession, really. Because I am an ecologist and my area has always been water pollution, but generally col—ecology in general. And so I’ve always been concerned about the environment. And so I consider that working with the citizenry group is something that needs to be done. And so that’s—I think all decisions are made in Austin or Washington, D.C. And you get people there to make those decisions there by voting. So you have to work with citizens and try to convince them of what’s going on. And that’s the only way that you get anything implemented. And that’s why I work…
DT: It seems like a lot of these problems are health problems. Do you get much support or involvement from the medical community?
0:57:32 – 2052
RH: No, not really. No, they’re busy taken care of their business. And I don’t think, we’ve never had a physician in our organization. We’ve had several attorneys and other types, but we’ve never had a physician that’s been active in our organization.
DT: Any idea why? I mean I would think…
0:57:57 – 2052
RH: (talking over David) We did have a physician who was a, I think he was an allergist. We had a physician who was an allergist from mid county that donated a relatively large sum of money to our organization. Which was nice. Because we’re always—our membership—our organization is $2 a year. And our membership isn’t too large. Those are welcome donations.
DT: When there are just two of you standing up at a meeting and there are several other people from other camps, how do you feel? Do you feel frightened? What’s your personal reaction?
0:58:47 – 2052
RH: No. Never. I never feel frightened. You know, sometimes, it is a—maybe a little intimidating to see all these documents and a table full of people and a secretary to hand things out as they get our exhibits and things. But, you know, that’s just the way it is. We’re very small organizations with no financial support and they’re just the opposite. So, we think we’re—we’re speaking for what we think is right. And they’re speaking for what they want to achieve.
End of tape 2052
DT: We talked a little bit about your work with Clean Air and Water and other nonprofit groups. And also your role as an educator trying to get information out to your students and the public about the environment. I’m curious what sort of role the media have in helping you do that.
0:01:51 – 2053
RH: Well, we used to seek news media help in hearings and meetings and things like that. We don’t do that, that much as far as our group is concerned. But, the Beaumont paper, you can get about as much information as if you read Ladies Home Journal, about the environment. It—they’re not very good. If you—if we—if I want to know something that would be concerning the environment, I’d buy the Houston paper, even if I want to know about Beaumont. They don’t—they don’t—they’re not very good as far as the—being environmental ag—or—or in informing you much about the environment. So our local media is not so good. We don’t really seek news releases from the radio station and the TV and things like that.
DT: Why do you think that there’s not much coverage?
0:02:49 – 2053
RH: I think that it may not be, it’s sort of the same attitude—our local paper has sort of the same attitude as the Chamber of Commerce and industry. They don’t want to hurt anything. And when you talk about the environment you end up with some things that are somewhat negative. And so I think that they sort of shy away from the information altogether.
DT: One other way that people learn about the environment is through the state agencies. What sort of role have they played in being an arbitrator and an information source about the environment?
0:03:39 – 2053
RH: Well, I, you know, I have no gripes with our state agencies whatsoever. Most of the—a lot of the people that work for our district like the TNRCC, we have a district office here in Beaumont, and I imagine that about half of the people that are at this office are Lamar graduates. And they are graduates of the Environmental Science degree program and the Biology and Chemistry and Engineering degree, that they—here at Lamar. So, they do their job. They cannot do more than their job, or they would probably lose it. And so they have to comply with what they’re supposed to do. And so I—I have no gripes with them whatsoever. They’re—they do what they—they will help me and they’ll give me information and help me find information. And so I really have no complaints with our regulatory agencies at all.
DT: Speaking of the Lamar graduates that you spoke about. You deal with students every day and have for many years. What sort of concerns and interests do they have in the environment and how do they differ from say our generation or earlier?
0:05:05 – 2053
RH: They’re better informed. The ones that choose to be, are better informed. Like, I’m the Director of the B.S. Degree in Environmental Science and it’s a very tough degree. It’s interdisciplinary. It rec—it has a lot of chemistry, physics, math, biology and some civil engineering and political science. And it’s a very demanding degree. Well, we’ve had a lot of students—we generally will graduate four or five students every graduation, which would be December, May and August. And so we have students that graduate and they’re hired by regulatory agencies or they’re hired as consultants or they work in environmental divisions for industry, that type of thing. Well, they have been educated to think that, you know, this is what I’m—this is what it should be. And so I think that we made a lot of difference, that type of thing, through education. And then also, well, they—I can’t think what I was going to say, I was trying to lead up to something else. Oh, I’ve had graduate students—I’ve had about 30 some graduate students that have got a Masters in Biology. And I think about a third of them have gone on and got their Ph.D.s and most of them are in the environmental field. So, you know, they’ve—that’s their profession. And so that…
DT: Let’s talk about some of the other long-term changes. When you first stared doing this 30 years ago to the present day, what ongoing environmental problems do you see? And what problems do you think we’ve solved? And what problems have cropped up more recently?
0:07:18 – 2053
RH: Well, some of them are always going to occur. And it’s just because of the heavy industrialization. You know, you don’t have—you don’t go out and replace all your lines and your equipment and your valves and your tanks, and things like that. And so we’re always going to have accidents, equipment failure that occur. So you’re always going to have emissions from the air and wa—and water, coming out into the water from that. We have very frequent spills in the Neches River. One occurred yesterday or day before, la—the week before there, I know of two that occurred. And most people don’t hear about them. But we do have frequent spills of material, petrochemical products going into the water. And that’s going to always occur, probably. And it’s because of the high concentration of the industry in the air. And so we’re never going to have a—a clean environment when you have this heavy of a problem.
As far as on a global and other scale, rather than a local scale, the whole problem is people. There’s too many people. And the problem is not going to do anything but increase. Next week we’re going to have our six billionth person on earth. And then, a few years down the line, 20, 30, something like that, 20, 50, I don’t remember exactly. We’ll have twelve billion miserable souls living on this earth. And so, you know, the problem is not going to do anything but compound. And the environmental issues are going to be more and more and more important. And it all relates to population and products and demands for products. And so we’re—as our population increases we’re going to have more demand. And we’re going to try to maintain standard of living as good as we can. And so, there’s always more stress on the environment. And it’s always going to require more regulation, not less. And it’s always going to have to be more stringent, just to stay up, not to get ahead. And so it—it’s people—that’s a major—it’s population.
DT: You’ve seen the Neches River come back. How resilient do you think the global ecosystem is? Is there a breaking point, or do you think it’s relatively elastic and can sustain more and more pressure?
0:10:09 – 2053
RH: (talking over David) I think it’s somewhat elastic, but there is a breaking point. But, I don’t think that we’ll see it as far as the global condition is concerned. You know, we might be more fragile than that breaking point. Because we’re looking at it from an entire system, see? We’ve been here for a short period of time, evolutionary. Why…
DT: You’re talking about humans?
0:10:33 – 2053
RH: Yeah, humans. And so, you know, we might not be here much, you know, we’ve been here for a very short period of time and we don’t know how long we’re going to be here. Something else will be here.
DT: Maybe some of your Mussels and…
0:10:48 – 2053
RH: Well, if not my Mussels then probably the Cockroaches and some things like that, that are real generalists and tolerant to lots of different conditions.
DT: Do you have some message or thought that you want to pass on to people that will see this tape or read this transcript?
0:11:16 – 2053
RH: No. I just hope that everybody has a good environmental conscience and looks at things from a perspective that—a long-term perspective, not a short-term perspective. And don’t look at everything in terms of the dollar. And d—and don’t relate the dollar to increasing industry, things like that. I think that we should relate things in more of a long term and health—where do you want—how do you want to live. You know, do you want to have other things living in association with you? Or is everything going to be people? That type of thing. Do you want to have a forest? Do you want to be able to breathe clean air when you go outside? That type of thing.
DT: What do you mean by environmental conscience?
0:12:14 – 2053
RH: Well, an environmental conscience is where you’re—you’re trying to do what’s right. Rather than what’s going to give you immediate profit.
DT: Well I think you’ve done the right and good thing for many years and certainly the generous thing by spending some time with us here today. Thank you very much.
0:12:48 – 2053
RH: My pleasure.
End of tape 2053
End of interview with Richard Harrel