HOUSTON -- State environmental regulators have begun enforcement action against a county government facility that has been raining chemicals down on sidewalks and parking lots in downtown Houston, Local 2 Investigates reported Monday.

"It was a beautiful day like this, but it was literally raining on me," said one downtown visitor.

Jennifer Orozco, who works nearby, said, "I get this film on my glasses. Everybody who comes here, they think it's raining and it's never raining. You see everybody with their umbrellas. It's horrible."

Her car's shiny paint job now has a pasty white substance caked on the paint and windows, while fences and other metal are severely corroded and trees are dead or dying in the area around her office.

The chemical mist is coming from the Harris County Heating & Cooling Facility at 1303 Preston, which pumps heat and air conditioning through all the courthouses and other nearby county buildings. Six cooling towers on the roof of the building, each the size of a sport utility vehicle, have giant fans that blow steam upward. Foamy water can be seen pouring from the top to the bottom of the units, and nearby spots on the roof look like a constant rain shower as the water puddles and splashes outward . One man whose car was damaged while attending a Houston Astros game filed a complaint with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, prompting "notice of violation" to be issued against Harris County.

Local 2 Investigates obtained a copy of the full investigation, which found that the water contains acids that may have been mixed improperly. The water was also found to contain biocides, which are chemicals that keep mold from growing.

State investigators wrote, "The facility did not keep a calibration log or a pH measurement log of the cooling tower water."

Orozco said she is unable to wash the residue from her car since she started parking next to the facility seven months ago. She also expressed concern at the intense corrosion on light posts, fences and the building where she works.

"The air conditioner on the front, we've only had it for a few months," she said. "It's rusted out. The whole back of the building is rusted out. It's horrible. I don't know what this stuff is. If it ruins the car, I can only imagine what it's doing to everybody that's getting rained on by it every day."

The man who filed the complaint, who requested anonymity, said, "If it's getting on the metal and on my car and I can't wash it off of that, I was kind of concerned about, well, can I wash it off me? The term 'biocide.' They're putting stuff in water that, I guess, if it'll corrode metals and plastics and kill plants. I don't want to get it on me."

He said that if his own home air conditioning system would suddenly start spewing chemicals onto his neighbors, he would be held responsible and yet the county has continued operating the system without cutting back on the mist that coats the people who walk nearby, while also coating all the structures and plants up and down the street.

Fence posts are deteriorated, large sections of rust are caked on some electrical boxes and white film is caked on the exterior granite of a courthouse across the street. Modern parking meters, which appear new one block away, are covered with a heavy white film over the glass-like solar panels on top, while the bottom of the new meters have the appearance of metal that is 30 years old.

"It takes me a good 15 to 20 minutes every day before I leave work just to clean my windows so I can see out of it," said Orozco.

Soumya Rege, the chief operations manager for Harris County Facilities & Property Management, said, "We recognize the urgency of the situation."

She said the water contains salts and biocides that she claimed are "green" or eco-friendly.

"We are not aware of any health risks that have been identified with those products at those levels of concentration. They are fairly low levels of concentration and we haven't identified any health risks yet," said Rege.

She blames old cooling towers for spewing the water from the roof of the plant. While one was modernized and upgraded to cut down on the water splashing, she said the remaining five units would require around $1 million to modernize, which she said would cut back on all the emissions.

"We are aware that it's a problem, and that's why we have requested the funding to take care of the problem. We're anxious to get it done," she said. "If we actually get turned down for the million dollars, we'd have to find other ways to make this happen because we recognize it is a problem and we have to fix it," said Rege.

State regulators may levy a fine against the county as part of the enforcement action that is now under way, and investigators will be keeping a closer watch over the plant in future inspections.

Rege said better records are being kept on the chemical mixtures and all procedures have been overhauled at the plant in response to the complaints.