Accidental Blogger

Two events that occurred close to home yesterday have put me on edge a bit. One took place 175 miles from my home in Austin and the other unfolded a mere 5 miles away in Sugarland.

  (Updated photo : Dead bird on the side of Colorado highway. Link :Sujatha)

AUSTIN —  More than 10 blocks of downtown along Congress Avenue reopened this afternoon after police said the area where 63 grackles, sparrows and pigeons were found dead and sickened posed no danger to people.

Preliminary tests for pesticides and other harmful chemicals came back negative, said Dr. Adolfo Valadez, the medical director for Austin and Travis County Health and Human Services.

"There is no threat to public health at this time,” Valadez said.

Valadez said the massive shutdown of streets and buildings from Cesar Chavez Street to the Capitol was a "typical” post-9/11 precaution and wasn’t influenced by tomorrow’s start of the state’s 80th legislative session.

Officials still aren’t sure what killed the birds, whose carcasses were found overnight scattered along Congress Avenue between Sixth and Eighth streets.

I did not witness the birds dying and falling from the sky in the capital city. But the TV and newspaper reports were rather mystifying and unnerving. I know that Austin is a funky place, with Texas politicians and thousands of students and musicians crowding its streets (the State Capitol is adjacent to the UT campus).  Who knows what is wafting in the air in downtown Austin? But still.  Sixty three birds dying for no apparent reason?  Especially unnerving when one had just learnt that  a mysterious and menacing cloud had appeared in the skies of Sugarland, TX the same afternoon. This one turned out to be not very mysterious – just another industrial accident, a routine event in Houston and its vicinity. I didn’t see the cloud (a couple of my neighbors who were out driving, saw it) but I did hear about it on CNN Breaking News and could hear the fire trucks rushing to the afflicted area.

SUGAR LAND — A plume of white vapor was released from an industrial plant in this Houston suburb today, prompting schools to keep students and staff indoors for a short time. A shelter-in-place order was lifted around 3 p.m.

Three employees were hospitalized and 14 more were treated as a precaution at the Nalco plant this afternoon, officials said. It was unclear whether the leak, which occurred around 1:45 p.m., came from the facility or from a vehicle at the facility.

By 2:30 p.m., the plume had mostly dissipated. U.S. Highway 90-A, which runs near the plant, was closed earlier but traffic was flowing on it again by 3:30 p.m.

The chemical that leaked  was reportedly ethylene diamine, which is widely used in paints and coolants, and is a food and cattle feed additive.

Sugar Land officials had requested earlier that five nearby schools keep students and staff indoors as a precaution after the leak was reported. Those schools were Lakeview Elementary, Sugar Mill Elementary, Sugar Land Middle School, Kempner High School and M.R. Wood. Classes are expected to resume as normal Tuesday, when a letter will be sent home to parents detailing the incident.

A spokeswoman for the city of Sugar Land said area residents also were asked  earlier to stay indoors with windows closed, especially those in the Brookside Belknap,  Venetian Estate,  The Hill,  Hall Lake and  Mayfield Park neighborhoods.

Nalco Energy Services makes fuel additives and oilfield chemicals. It is a unit of Illinois-based Nalco, which makes chemicals used in water treatment and for industrial processes.

What really bothered me about the dead birds in Austin (apart from the fact that I love birds) is the following statement made by a city official:

"It really is not unusual to see a large number of birds die off,” he said. "I think we lose sight of that because we tend to live in the city and don’t really pay too much attention to that.”

Really? "Not unusual?"  Birds inexplicably keeling over and dying in large numbers is not unusual? Could these dead sparrows, grackles and pigeons really be Climate Canaries or Canaries in the Coal Mine of sorts, portending a peril we have not yet identified?  This is real life, not a Hitchcock movie. I hope the officials will investigate thoroughly and not just speak soothing words to avoid panic. And I wonder how they will explain this?