This story was originally published on May 21, 2016.

Somehow, George Freda was supposed to protect much of Harris County from chemical disasters. He had a stack of files in his house, with lists of one compound after another, but he was a committee of one.

He had no staff, no money and no clear directive.

Such are the shortcomings of Local Emergency Planning Committees, the groups that the federal government says could prevent the next major incident.

Under a mandate from Congress, thousands of committees were created in 1986, two years after Union Carbide's leak in Bhopal, India killed thousands.

About the series In November 2014, four workers died at a DuPont plant in La Porte after being exposed to a toxic gas. Responding emergency workers weren’t sure what was in the air. The surrounding community wasn’t, either. This Houston Chronicle investigation explores how another fatal mistake could have the largest consequences and probes the regulatory failures that put us in jeopardy. Click here to read the series.

The committees were the first line of defense, empowered to share information about local dangers and prepare the community for any emergency.

Thirty years on, Freda and others like him pose little defense at all. Scores of LEPCs all over Texas are disbanded or barely functioning, a Houston Chronicle investigation has found.

"If this were a battle and they were the front line," Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said, "our enemy is going to come through the front line real fast."

The Environmental Protection Agency considers the committees to be a cornerstone of reforms following the fertilizer explosion three years ago in West that killed 12 firefighters and three residents. At a minimum, LEPCs are required to disclose chemical inventories to interested residents or community watchdogs.

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But Texas has circumvented federal law by withholding those reports, and the EPA does nothing to stop the state.

The Texas Attorney General's office, under Greg Abbott and now Ken Paxton, have told committees that they do not have to make inventories available, citing a state law that restricts information that might be useful to terrorists. Despite the terror threat they cite, state officials do not stop LEPCs like Freda's that choose to make inventories public.

Former New Jersey congressman James Florio, who helped craft the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, calls the Texas approach "totally irrational" and said security concerns should be addressed by individual companies. The goal of the federal law "was to hold everyone to a minimal standard of disclosure," he said. "Can you imagine if we relieved nuclear facilities of their security responsibilities, and we just tried to hide where they are?"

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Collecting data from LEPCs across Houston is largely an exercise in futility.

Most of the 20 Houston-area LEPCs rejected the Chronicle's requests for chemical inventories, called Tier Two forms, including Brazoria, Galveston, Waller and Fort Bend counties. One of the committees that did release the information — Southeast Regional — had a trove of data from companies outside its jurisdiction, so an analysis included more than 2,500 businesses in greater Houston. Fifty-five of those facilities were found by chemical safety experts at Texas A&M to have a high potential for public harm. Close to 600 scored in the medium group, storing chemicals dangerous enough to impose serious harm in an incident.

The analysis, plus a string of chemical fires and explosions all over the area — about one every six weeks — is leading some to rethink old policies.

"There are still a lot of things being viewed through the lens of 9/11," Emmett said. "I would think people who live around a facility storing hazardous materials are going to want to know that information. That's more important to them than the risk of a terrorist attack."

Mathy Stanislaus, assistant EPA administrator, said the agency recommends that the public be made aware of facilities and what chemicals are stored there. But he defended the EPA's practice of allowing states to bypass the federal law, because it's a "locally grounded statute." The law contains a line that says it doesn't overrule state or local statutes.

The Texas Homeland Security Act, passed in 2003, made government information confidential if it could be used to plot terror attacks. For more than a decade, the law was never invoked to block release of chemical inventories. The state reversed course after widespread media interest in the data following the West explosion.

Then-Attorney General Abbott, quoting the 2003 law, issued a ruling that allows state and local agencies to withhold inventories.

Abbott told reporters in 2014 that private companies were still required to release them to the public.

"You know where they are if you drive around," Abbott said. "You can ask every facility whether or not they have chemicals ... and if they do, they tell which ones they have."

But it is virtually impossible to find all but the most obvious chemical plants, the Chronicle found. For instance, a warehouse in Spring Branch that exploded in May, about 1,200 feet from a school west of downtown, housed chemicals that had no public paper trail.

Also, many companies do not understand their responsibilities under the law.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis tried to get the data for the Chronicle from the Department of State Health Services, which ran the state's Tier Two program before another agency took over this year, but he was initially rebuffed.

Then he was told he would have to swear to keep the information secret. He declined.

"I've never heard of a legislator being required to sign an affidavit saying they were accepting criminal liability if (state records) got out of their office," Ellis said. "It makes me wonder what are they hiding?"

He pointed out that even Oklahoma, site of the worst domestic terror attack, freely divulges Tier Twos.

Ellis said legislators should carve out an exception for disclosure within the terrorism statute.

"I don't know how many tragedies like the one out in Spring Branch we have to have to do that," he said.

Abbott did not grant an interview.

A spokesman reaffirmed the governor's position that the information could aid terrorists.

At least 10 states release inventories, and no state has reported a terrorist attack on a plant, according to reviews by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Government Accountability Office. Some states don't release inventories or provide partial information, while others didn't respond to inquiries.

Houston Congressman Gene Green, whose district is among the most heavily industrial in the nation, called for a clear national standard.

Members of the Deer Park Local Emergency Planning Committee listen to a presentation about hurricane threats by Dan Reilly from the National Weather Service at their monthly meeting at Deer Park City Hall Tuesday, May 24, 2016. Attendees include representitives from chemical plants in the area, city personnel and first responders. less Members of the Deer Park Local Emergency Planning Committee listen to a presentation about hurricane threats by Dan Reilly from the National Weather Service at their monthly meeting at Deer Park City Hall ... more Photo: Michael Ciaglo, Houston Chronicle Photo: Michael Ciaglo, Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close EPA's fix on chemical safety is already broken 1 / 7 Back to Gallery

"We're not talking about state secrets here," he said. "We've ended up having 50 standards for the community's right to know."

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Federal law does little to spell out how committees are supposed to advance plant safety.

Charles Sluder, the fire marshal for the city of South Houston, flipped through files in a cabinet to figure out who was even in charge of the local committee. The man listed as the head of the LEPC had died two years earlier.

Sluder, who is now a member of the LEPC, said he tracks which facilities have hazardous materials and makes sure the companies' chemical information is current. He also stops by once in a while.

"I know we're supposed to be proactive, but who's going to put out the information on what we're supposed to do?" Sluder asked. "And who's going to pay for it? We don't have the resources."

Sluder's complaint was echoed by many committees in the area. Congress did not fund LEPCs.

Green said the committees must be funded and monitored by the EPA. He doesn't share the agency's opinion that the committees are at the center of chemical plant safety.

"I've never been to any of them that generated a complaint to the EPA," he said.

Under the 1986 law, LEPCs are to help formulate emergency response plans. In 2014, a federal task force reported that many are incapable of doing so and need training.

Most rules regarding LEPCs relate to being the point of contact between companies and the public.

By law, they must have a chairman and an information coordinator.

They are required to have representatives from local government, environmental groups, emergency management, the media, first-responders, facilities and community groups. A single person can represent multiple groups, and there is no minimum number of members.

Most LEPCs fall short of the rules but face no consequences.

A bigger problem: Many simply don't exist anymore.

Among more than 250 LEPCs in Texas listed with the Department of Public Safety, the Chronicle found 26 with disconnected phone numbers. Emails bounced back or weren't available for 22 percent.

In 2008, the EPA surveyed committees around the nation.

Sixty percent didn't respond.

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Greater Houston is one of the committees that answers the phone, but it also represents the struggles of the program writ large: trouble releasing information, money problems, no direction.

It initially asked the Chronicle for $8,000 to produce around 680 Tier Two forms. After months of discussions, the LEPC released all its digital copies without charge.

Tier Two Report



View a Tier Two report annotated by the Chronicle below.

Houston-Chronicle-Tier-Two (PDF)

Houston-Chronicle-Tier-Two (Text)

It later produced two boxes of documents, many in sealed envelopes, that had sat in storage.

Inside those envelopes were Tier Twos, but also uncashed checks totaling hundreds of dollars donated by some of the companies in their area.

Greater Houston covers the most territory of any local committee, stretching from Kingwood to just north of Sugar Land.

Last year, the chairman retired and moved to Kansas.

The group lost most of its emails in a technical snafu.

Its bank account was closed because the LEPC didn't have a physical address.

The city of Houston took back the office it had once provided and also reassigned an employee tasked with helping the LEPC.

Denise Walker, chief emergency management officer for Lone Star College, became chairwoman in January. Walker wants the committee to be more active and organized.

The LEPC set up a physical address to apply for grants, reopened its bank account and hired a part-time staffer. It brought in an air quality expert this year, and ran a tabletop exercise, where members verbally walked through safety scenarios, this month. It was the first such training in years.

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Even the best-funded, smoothest-functioning committees have trouble fulfilling the government's expectations.

The La Porte LEPC meets every month and collects dues from each participating company. In 2014, the committee collected $193,626, making it one of the most well-funded in the state.

It readily provided its chemical inventories to the Chronicle.

It runs annual safety fairs for the public. It shares educational material with businesses and schools on how to shelter in place in the case of emergency.

At the LEPC's suggestion, the city does drills where dispatchers call a random company and say it is now undergoing a chemical emergency. The company then runs through its procedures.

"It's good practice for our dispatchers, too," said Kristin Gauthier, emergency management coordinator for La Porte and an officer of the LEPC.

Gauthier said she knows other committees aren't working well.

"Are you doing training? Are you reviewing plans? Are you communicating to the public? Or are you just checking off things on a list?" she asked.

All that effort didn't prevent multiple failures in response to the fatal leak at the former DuPont plant, where four workers died in November 2014.

The company's emergency vehicles broke down.

City firefighters didn't have enough oxygen for a sustained rescue effort.

The 911 caller from DuPont couldn't identify what chemical was leaking, but that didn't stop him from saying that there was no harm to the public. (In fact, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board has not determined the scope of the danger.)

The plant had a strong supervisor culture and, with the people in charge unaccounted for, no one knew what to do, said Jeff Suggs, the LEPC's vice chairman.

How could something like that happen in a community with such a strong LEPC?

"That was an anomaly. A catastrophic failure," Suggs said. "It could happen anywhere."

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George Freda remembers the heightened awareness after Bhopal, and he remembers when things at the Unincorporated Harris County LEPC made a turn for the worse.

It came in 1995, when an industry group, the East Harris Chemical Manufacturers Association, proposed that the committee be split into smaller groups, arguing that most of the facilities were near the ship channel.

The plan was approved, and interest in Freda's LEPC waned.

Freda kept attending yearly EPA conferences about LEPCs until 2005, when the funding for those events dried up.

For more than a decade, Freda was the lone person responsible for collecting and disseminating information about hundreds of facilities.

And for all those years, no one approached him for the reports until the Chronicle asked.

He retired late last year, handing off the Tier Twos to his successor.

David Wade, the industry liaison for Harris County's Office of Emergency Management, is the new administrator.

Wade plans to change its name to Greater Harris County, and he wants to coordinate with other LEPCs like South Houston.

It will look for opportunities to put together exercises, he said.

The challenge, Freda said, will be in keeping everyone engaged. Houston has become inured to chemical plant incidents. They produce spectacular TV news footage, then people move on.

"These things tend to get localized," Freda said. "That was on the other side of the channel."

Judge Emmett said he hadn't really paid attention to the committees until now.

He was surprised to learn they are at the center of the EPA's reform efforts.

"It strikes me that the whole structure was created by Congress years ago, and everybody said, 'We've solved that,' and moved on," Emmett said. "Nobody has ever gone back to look at it and see if it works. We'll find out where it doesn't work when there's a disaster. And that's not the way it should happen."

Lauren McGaughy contributed to this story.

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Read part 4: Federal agencies are at odds over regulation of 'critical issue'

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Mark Collette finds the information the government and corporations don't want you to see. Contact him at mark.collette@chron.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ChronMC.

Matt Dempsey is the data editor for the Houston Chronicle. He joined the Chronicle in 2014 and has worked on several major projects, including the investigation on the dangers of chemical plants. Matt previously worked for the Arizona Republic and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Contact him at matt.dempsey@chron.com. Follow him on Twitter at @mizzousundevil.

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