CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Tuesday evening was the first open house held by the Coastal Bend Air Quality Partnership (CBAQP) at the Antonio E. Garcia Education Center. A group that’s been around nearly 30 years, looking out to uphold air quality standards.
“If we didn’t have oversight, we would be out of compliance and that’s the thing we were almost near in 1995 when this group started. And, the whole community got together and said we cannot let this happen,” Sharon Bailey Murphy said, executive director of CBAQP.
The CBAQP is just that, a collection of entities that combine to limit air pollution. It includes Nueces and San Patricio counties, the cities of Portland and Corpus Christi, the Port of Corpus Christi and even industry in the area.
For the last year, the non-profit has been developing a plan that includes small changes. They're actions any of the entities and even residents can voluntarily take part in, to reduce air pollution.
There are 10 parts to this plan including areas such as public policy, academia and industry objectives.
“One of the big ones our group was really pushing for is idling zones…When people are dropping off their kids at school or waiting to pick up their kids after school, maybe as a group we could put shaded areas there for you to turn your car off and save emissions that way,” said Travis Stephens, environmental chairmen of CBAQP.
The CBAQP has collected data throughout the year. Corpus Christi is home to about half a dozen air monitoring systems from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
The open house is the public’s chance to see the plan and give their feedback.
“We all contribute to the quality of air. So, it’s not just the business, it’s not just industry, it’s not just the municipalities, is all of us,” Murphy said.
Despite the occasional hazy conditions in the Coastal Bend, Murphy and Stephens said the air quality has been good in recent years and an example for other Texas metropolitan cities.
Although, the American Lung Association gave the Coastal Bend a failing grade for the annual amount of particle pollution.
The CBAQP plan doesn't focus on the things that bring the most troublesome particulate pollution like smoke from fires that happen down south, sea fog or Saharan Dust.
“Those things are out of our control but everything that we can control we are doing above compliance to make sure we stay in the [inaudible] of air quality standards,” Murphy said.
All partners contribute financially to the non profit's goal. Last week, Nueces County Commissioners voted to continue providing $10,000 a year for the next three years.
This was the first of six open houses for the CBAQP. The plan is to host them all across the region. The next is set for May 22 at the Portland Community Center.
CBAQP is a 501c3 as of 2019. If you're interested in volunteering with the group you can find that information here.
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