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Christmas Mountains to remain in Texas’ hands, despite loosening of gun rules on adjacent Big Bend National Park
A couple of years ago, we spilled a lot of ink on the Christmas Mountains, a rugged 9,269-acre tract in West Texas that was put for up sale by the General Land Office.
At one point, the National Park Service offered to acquire the land from the General Land Office. The mechanics of such an acquisition was never fleshed out, and the story faded from public view in 2008, once the GLO backed away from the sale under political and public pressure and instead held onto the property.
On Wednesday, Environment Texas publicly asked the General Land Office, again, to release or sell the Christmas Mountains to the National Park Service, which operates the adjacent Big Bend. The request was prompted by a change in federal law that loosens restrictions on guns in national parks. (Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, a gun rights advocate, had cited restrictions against guns as one reason he would not sell the land to the National Park Service.)
Nothing doing, said the General Land Office in response. Patterson wrote Luke Metzger, the head of Environment Texas, late last week reminding him of his pledge “No guns, no hunting, no deal.” The rest of the note read:
The gun problem has been fixed, but the hunting issue remains.
Considering the fact that public hunting locations are few and far between, and the fact that TPWD allows hunting on land owned by TPWD, I see no reason why the NPS couldn’t do the same.
Until the NPS reconsiders on a case specific basis their categorical ban on hunting in national parks the property will not be conveyed to the NPS.
We may in the future again consider selling the property if we can find a buyer with a good conservation management plan and the resources to implement that plan.
We have considered leasing the tract for bow hunting and are looking at some other conservation uses as well.
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Wildflower season likely will be spectacular
According to an announcement by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas:
Widespread fall and winter rains should make for an excellent wildflower season in much of Texas, according to Dr. Damon Waitt, senior botanist of the Wildflower Center.
“The return of El Nino last summer brought much needed relief from the extraordinary drought conditions we have been experiencing since the fall of 2007,” Waitt said, noting that the ocean-driven weather system brought extensive, consistent rain from mid-fall into spring. “These rainfall patterns should make for exceptional early and late spring wildflower displays in many regions of Texas.”
Already, Waitt has spotted large clusters of Texas bluebonnet rosettes ready to flower alongside U.S. 290 near Brenham.
“El Nino favors el conejo,” Waitt said, referring to the Spanish name — the rabbit — for Texas bluebonnets, based on their white tip of flowers that resembles a cottontail.
Drummond phlox, another winter annual that grows in late fall-early winter and blooms in early spring, should also put on a dramatic show.
Wildflower Center conservationists have reported Texas bluebonnets prepping to bloom in granite along roadways between Marble Falls and Llano, Engelmann’s daisy along Interstate 10 heading toward El Paso, and Big Bend bluebonnet in and around its namesake parks.
Central Texas is among the regions that already has a scattering of wildflowers in bloom. They include lavender-petaled widow’s tear and clusters of windflowers with white, blue or sometimes pink flowers. Also spotted have been blankets of inconspicuous Whitlow-grass and denseflower bladderpod with tiny flowers.
The real show begins sometime in March, with North Texas lagging behind a few weeks because of its cooler weather. Besides Drummond phlox and Texas bluebonnet, other wildflowers to look for along roadsides and in fields include pink evening primrose, Indian paintbrush and prairie verbena.
Thousands of Texas bluebonnets will also flower in upcoming weeks in the gardens and meadows of the Wildflower Center. It provides comfortable, safe spots for Texans’ traditional baby-in-the-bluebonnets picture.
And for those who need a bluebonnet fix right away, the Wildflower Center has a live video of bluebonnets growing.
“If you like watching paint dry or are curious about seeing a bluebonnet develop from a juvenile into its flowering stage, check the BBCAM daily,” Waitt said.
The center’s extensive online resources also include a wildflower quiz to test participants’ skill at identifying 12 Texas natives.
To learn more about North American wildflowers, search the Wildflower Center’s Native Plant Database. To locate national distributors of wildflower plants and seeds, visit the native plant suppliers search engine.
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Texas sues EPA over greenhouse gas finding
Texas fired off another salvo in a struggle with Washington over environmental regulation on Tuesday, filing a suit in federal court to prevent regulation of greenhouse gases.
Gov. Rick Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott are trying to get the federal Environmental Protection Agency to back away from a finding last year that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health. The finding sets the stage for regulation of the gases, which scientists have linked to global warming.
The Texas officials say curbs on greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide could cost state businesses and homeowners and jeopardize jobs. Texas leads the nation in carbon emissions. And they argued that the EPA had based its finding on faulty science.
Carbon regulations would amount to “sweeping mandates and draconian punishments,” said Perry, “undoing decades of progress, painting entrepreneurs as selfish and destroying hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process.”
With the suit, Texas becomes the first state to challenge the endangerment finding, attorney general Greg Abbott said. Some businesses and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have filed similar suits.
Referring to recent controversies over findings by a United Nations panel of scientists, Abbott said the science on which the EPA based its finding was laced with “cover-ups, and the suppression and destruction of scientific evidence.”
Among the controversies were emails from some climate scientists indicating that journals that publish work by global warming skeptics should be shunned.
He said that international panel of scientists was “an unelected body pushing a political agenda.”
Environmental groups struck back.
Tom Smith, the head of the Texas office of nonprofit watchdog Public Citizen, said the “overwhelming evidence” is that the globe is warming.
“There’s always a debate about how fast, how soon, how bad,” he said about climate science. But he said focusing on controversial scientists is “like saying that because a few kids fail school, the entire system is flawed.”
Tuesday’s actions, which include a petition for review filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and a petition for reconsideration with the EPA, are the latest sign of a profound rift between the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency and Texas government officials and regulators about how to address environmental and energy issues.
Already, the EPA has threatened to take over the state’s air permitting program.
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Is Texas preparing to challenge EPA on greenhouse gases?
The Governor’s office sent out a one-page press release this afternoon about a press conference at the Capitol on Tuesday. It said:
“Gov. Rick Perry, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples will make an announcement regarding environmental regulation.”
The governor’s press office said they couldn’t tell me any more about the meeting than that it was about “environmental regulation.” They referred me to the AG’s office; I followed up, but since it’s President’s Day and late in the day at that, I’ve gotten no other information.
Here’s a possibility: This could have something to do with the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health. The governor has held several press conferences warning that a curb on greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide would harm Texas businesses. (Texas leads the nation in carbon emissions.)
Given that the AG is involved, and given that Tuesday is the deadline for filing a challenge in the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, a suit involving the endangerment finding could be the subject of the Tuesday presser. We’ll see.
Already, corporations have challenged the EPA on the issue. On Friday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce also filed a petition in federal court.
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Speaking up about the future of water around Austin
The Lower Colorado River Authority has put together a 90-year plan aimed at meeting water demands in the river basin. Now the utility, set up by the Legislature, is asking the public to weigh in on the plan.
You can read a draft version of the plan and give your own take here. You can also email watersupply@lcra.org with your ideas.
The draft plan includes expanding conservation programs and building new supplies such as reservoirs, desalinating brackish groundwater or sea water, storing water in aquifers and recovering it when needed, and using of groundwater. Costs for such options range from $3 million to $1.6 billion.
The LCRA is also hosting public meetings on the draft plan:
Tuesday, Feb. 23: open house 5:30 p.m.; discussion 6-8 p.m. El Campo Civic Center 2350 N. Mechanic St. (State Highway 71) El Campo, Texas 77437
Thursday, Feb. 25: open house 5:30 p.m.; discussion 6-8 p.m. Burnet Community Center 401 E. Jackson St. Burnet, Texas 78611
Monday, March 8: open house 6 p.m.; discussion 6:30-8:30 p.m. Austin - LCRA Service Center 3505 Montopolis Drive, Building A Austin, Texas 78744
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Famed home recycler to speak at ACC this evening
Dan Phillips, a Huntsville man who has won write-ups across the country for his ingenious homes made of recycled materials, will give a talk at Austin Community College this evening.
The event, free and open to the public, will be held at 6 p.m. at ACC’s Riverside Campus (1020 Grove Blvd., Building G).
According to a New York Times story from last fall:
So far, he has built 14 homes in Huntsville, which is his hometown, on lots either purchased or received as a donation. A self-taught carpenter, electrician and plumber, Mr. Phillips said 80 percent of the materials are salvaged from other construction projects, hauled out of trash heaps or just picked up from the side of the road. “You can’t defy the laws of physics or building codes,” he said, “but beyond that, the possibilities are endless.”
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Billion-dollar San Antonio suit against LCRA dismissed by judge
The Lower Colorado River Authority scored a major victory over the San Antonio Water System on Monday when a Travis County district judge threw out a lawsuit against the river authority.
San Antonio had sued the LCRA, which provides water to more than a million Central Texans, after a multi-billion dollar water-sharing agreement fell apart last year. San Antonio was seeking $1.23 billion.
But Judge Stephen Yelenosky, in a ruling from the bench following the first public squaring-off between the two sides in court Monday morning, effectively short-circuited the suit, agreeing with an argument from LCRA that it was protected by sovereign immunity rules, which limits suits against governmental authorities.
San Antonio Water System CEO Robert Puente said he would recommend to the SAWS board that they appeal.
“We can’t walk away from this,” Puente said.
In court, San Antonio Water System lawyer Jim George told the judge that LCRA’s “intention was to steal from the people of San Antonio.”
George argued that LCRA was in breach of contract and never intended to follow through on the proposed water deal. In its suit, the San Antonio system claims the river authority killed the project to keep water in its basin for lucrative power plant deals. The system is seeking $1.23 billion, a figure it bases largely on the cost of finding an equal amount of water from desalination.
George said San Antonio had spent at least $42 million to study the feasibility of the water-sharing project, to reserve the water and to pay its own staff working on the deal.
He asked the judge for more time so that SAWS could depose current and former LCRA board members and staff members, state Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, whose district includes the LCRA’s lower basin, power industry officials, and Matagorda County Judge Nate McDonald.
“This is a complete fishing expedition,” Pete Schenkkan, a lawyer for LCRA, told the judge. “This discovery is enormously expensive and time consuming, delaying resolution of this issue.”
LCRA argued that it is protected by sovereign immunity meant to shield the public from the costs and consequences of improper actions by a government agency and deprives courts of the authority to hear a case at all.
Yelenosky agreed, saying that there was no “explicit waiver” to the sovereign immunity rule that would allow SAWS to press forward.
“The judge’s view of law in this case was that LCRA was right,” said Robert Cullick, a spokesman for the river authority.
But George said the ruling had important negative consequences since LCRA could pull out of contracts with other entities, including the City of Austin.
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Guide to Texas green jobs gets published
A new, impressive guide to green jobs in Texas, put together by an environmental organization and reviewed by the state, was published Friday.
The Texas Green Jobs Guidebook, published by Environmental Defense Fund, profiles more than 200 types of green jobs, giving information on job training and placement programs, and city-specific overviews of workforce websites and community college program listings. Green jobs typically involve renewable energy or energy efficiency work.
The guidebook identifies numerous types of jobs related to energy efficiency that people with a high school diploma or GED can pursue. The jobs pay $20 to $30 an hour, according to EDF. For those with a 2-year degree or who have taken part in an apprenticeship or trade school program, the guidebook profiles additional job types, many paying more.
The guidebook was reviewed by the Texas Workforce Commission.
EDF will be distributing the guidebook via email to all Texas high school guidance counselors, giving hard copies to counselors who request them. Others can download the Guidebook for free.
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Did Texas Association of Business truly get award from environmental group?
The Texas Association of Business put out a press release Tuesday afternoon that its president, Bill Hammond, was awarded a Certificate of Environmental Stewardship by Texas Interfaith Power and Light.
That announcement turned some heads in the newsroom, since TAB and Texas Interfaith Power and Light have opposite takes on most pieces of environmental legislation. TAB, whose membership includes Texas’ heavy industry companies, generally favors fewer regulations; Texas Interfaith Power and Light, on the other hand, is an environmental program targeting the religious faithful and promotes environmental protections and investment in renewable power.
Was this a hoax?
Well, technically, no.
Bee Morehead, executive director of Texas Interfaith Power and Light, said Hammond served on a panel Tuesday morning at the Texas United Methodist Women’s Legislative Conference, held at the Doubletree Hotel by the Capitol. The panel was about immigration. To recognize panelists’ participation in the conference, Texas Impact, the host organization of Texas Interfaith Power and Light and the organizer of the conference, purchased a megawatt of wind power in each panelist’s name.
So Morehead presented Hammond a piece of paper that said “Certificate of Environmental Stewardship” and explained that a megawatt of wind power had been purchased in his name.
Morehead said Hammond did a great job on the panel and explained, laughing, “We didn’t give it to him because he was a big environmentalist, but to be more of an environmentalist.”
TAB, for its part, appeared to be having fun in its press release:
Austin - In the biggest news in recent memory for the Texas Association of Business, President and CEO Bill Hammond was today awarded a Certificate of Environmental Stewardship by Texas Interfaith Power & Light.
“I’m speechless,” said Hammond. “To be recognized for our organization’s commitment to real environmental change is gratifying. I am delighted that our charge to build a better Texas has helped our Earth as well.”
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Showdown between senator and Texas environmental agency on Wednesday
A showdown between state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality continues on Wednesday when the Third Court of Appeals takes up an open records matter the two sides have tussled over.
Shapleigh contends the Buddy Garcia, then chairman of the TCEQ, met out of school with lawyers for Asarco, which operated a smelter in El Paso. At the time, Asarco was petitioning the state agency for a renewal of its air permit. The TCEQ eventually issued the renewal to Asarco. Closed-door meetings with an applicant are typically not allowed. Violating open meetings rules can lead to a misdemeanor charge.
Shapleigh sees the case as an illustration of how special interests have polluted the democratic process. Always one to drop a doozy of a quote, he told me the other day that “This case is a road-map for how Rick Perry delivers value to donors.” Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for the governor, responded that the TCEQ is established by the Legislature and is expected to act within the bounds of the law.
TCEQ does not comment on pending litigation.
Shapleigh has asked for records of the meetings between Garcia and Asarco representatives, and TCEQ has refused to turn some of them over. Shapleigh has won the first couple of rounds — both the state attorney general and Travis District Court ruled that TCEQ had to turn over the documents. Now TCEQ has appealed to the Third Court of Appeals. (Technically, the case pits the Texas Attorney General’s office against TCEQ.)
From my earlier story:
An agency lawyer has said in an affidavit that the information withheld from Shapleigh relates to legal advice from the agency’s assistant general counsel to the commissioners. An agency brief in the open records case says Shapleigh’s request is an overreach into the confidential advice offered by a general counsel to the agency commissioners.
But Shapleigh says the environmental agency is stonewalling because it has something to hide. He says it is thumbing its nose at the Legislature by not turning over the documents. And he says the attorney-client privilege argument has no legs because a permit has been issued and because it is a public agency whose lawyers should be acting in the public interest.
TCEQ has the time on its side: Shapleigh is arguing for the records under certain special lawmaker privileges. But he is not running for reelection, so his term effectively ends in January, 2011, when a new senator will be sworn in.
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When it rains, it pours — just don’t say the drought is broken, says the LCRA
According to the Lower Colorado River Authority, we’re still in a drought.
That was the message at a meeting last week of the board of the LCRA, which oversees the doling out of Colorado River water.
Yes, we had a rainy fall, and, yes, the LCRA told cities along the Colorado that they could lift their drought restrictions. Yes, Lakes Travis and Buchanan, the main reservoirs for Central Texas, are now 60 percent full, up from 39 percent in mid-September.
But when you measure the lack of water streaming into the lakes, Central Texas continues to be in a water supply drought, LCRA officials say. Since Jan. 1, 2009, the lakes have an “inflow deficit” of about 240,000 acre-feet. Inflow deficit is defined as the amount of water flowing into the Highland Lakes as compared to a similar period during the drought of record, the 1950s drought which the LCRA uses for water supply planning. 240,000 acre-feet is roughly equal to the amount of water 720,000 average Austin homes use in a year.
“The drought as it affects water supply is not over,” Mark Jordan, head of LCRA’s river management division, told the board at the meeting last Wednesday. “The rains have not resulted in sufficient inflows to get us back to where we were just a year ago.”
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New York may send more toxic waste to Texas than expected
I opened a story a year ago with this line:
“A project to bury tons of contaminated Hudson River bottom amid the rock of West Texas, seemingly biblical in its scope, could make the state one of the largest receptacles for hazardous waste in the country.”
Well, it turns out the project, which involves shipments of toxic Hudson River sediment from upstate New York by train for burial in West Texas, is even bigger than biblical in its scope, if such a thing can be said.
Here’s what I mean: The Associated Press is reporting that officials with the federal Environmental Protection Agency believe the amount of contaminated river bottom that will need to be dredged from the Hudson River will be “significantly higher” than initially expected.
The EPA says General Electric’s plants discharged as much as 1.3 million pounds of PCBs into the Hudson from 1947 to 1977. PCBs were banned in the late 1970s.
I reported in February that starting in the late spring, an 81-car train laden with the soil will leave New York for West Texas once a week until November. GE and the EPA will then evaluate the operation, and it could continue, with a train leaving every 2½ days, week in and week out, with a break in winter months, from 2010 until 2015.
The AP reports that dredge crews have found greater concentrations of PCBs than expected. In the draft report released Thursday, the EPA suggested reassessing the depth of contamination.
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With Kip Averitt’s departure, who carries the water?
The surprise departure of State Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco, from the Legislature has lots of immediate political implications.
But, of course, it has longer term policy ones as well, especially for big water projects. Averitt, the chair of the Senate Natural Resources Committee, had been a big proponent of major water projects envisioned in the state water plan (these are projects that could include moving water from rural areas to urban ones or the construction of reservoirs), and had been laying the groundwork to push more state money toward these projects in the 2011 session. He had hosted a big conference on water projects in November that had anyone in the state working on a deal showing up in Ft. Worth (the site of the conference) to pay fealty to him.
He told the Waco paper that he’s leaving for health reasons. I wish him a speedy recovery. In my short time covering the Legislature, Averitt struck me as a straight shooter. Despite holding a very powerful position, he was never condescending. And he seemed extremely well-versed and genuinely interested in the issues before him.
Ken Kramer, who heads the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club, said Averitt’s departure could change the political landscape for environmental groups.
“Senator Averitt was good moderate voice within the Republican party on dealing with environmental issues,” Kramer told me. “He had an open door for environmentalists and others. The question is, is the next head of the Senate Natural Resources Committee going to be in the mode of Sen. Averitt, or someone who has a more anti-regulatory viewpoint?”
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Austin Climate Protection Conference and Expo runs Friday and Saturday
The two-day Austin Climate Protection Conference and Expo kicks off Friday at Palmer Events Center.
The convention, free to the public, will include exhibits of alternative energy vehicles and energy efficiency programs at Austin Energy and Texas Gas Service, and panel discussions on climate change and water conservation.
Palmer Events Center is located at 900 Barton Springs Road.
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Climate scientists debate global warming at Texas think tank pow-wow.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation, a free-enterprise think tank, kicked off its annual policy orientation this morning by holding a debate between two climate scientists about global warming. The moderator was Bryan Shaw, the chairman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Needless to say, the Texas Public Policy Foundation opposes carbon limits: The debate was introduced by Kathleen Hartnett White, the former TCEQ chairwoman who has penned a policy paper that describes cap-and-trade as “a federal leviathan.”
And in many respects, because of the policy implications of climate science, the explicit intention of holding a debate was to beat back the notion that the science around global warming has coalesced and says that man-made emissions contribute significantly to climate change. In other words, by hosting a debate with two climate scientists (Gerry North from Texas A & M held what might be described as the more conventional view about climate change and Roy Spencer from University of Alabama held what might be described as the skeptical view), the Texas Public Policy Foundation was attempting to prove that a debate exists.
“The very complex science is inaccessible to almost all policy makers and the general public,” White said in her introductory remarks. “We don’t think any science can be settled beyond all dispute.”
Shaw said that he hoped the debate would “reignite the discussion about global warming science.”
“Hopefully we will be able to demonstrate that fruitful discussion can and needs to occur on this topic.”
North said that the vast majority of scientists had agreed on global warming and its causes; Spencer did not exactly disagree, but said that the vast majority of scientists had confused cause and effect.
“There’s a need for greater science,” Shaw said to conclude the debate. “This debate is helpful because the consequences are immense.”
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UPDATE: South Texas Project reduces unit’s energy production by 25 percent
The South Texas Project has reduced power generation in Unit 1 of its two-unit nuclear reactor near Matagorda after officials discovered a control rod was stuck during routine monthly surveillance on Jan. 6.
Control rods control the amount of fission taking place within a reactor.
“We had a condition where we had one control rod that did not move in like it was properly supposed to move in,” said Buddy Eller, a spokesman for the South Texas Project, which provides power to Austin Energy.
Eller said the nuclear power facility has reduced power generated by that unit to 75 percent of capacity during “troubleshooting for the condition.”
“It’s stable,” he said, adding, “We hold safety over production.”
Eller said the control rod is not a fuel rod and said it operates like a piston in a car. He could not say how big the control rod is.
“This is something we’re working through,” said Eller, who said the same problem has happened before in the industry.
He said officials will decide in the next couple of days how to restore generation at the plant.
UPDATE: Austin Energy says that during the slowdown it has reduced its take of power from the South Texas Project by about 55 megawatts, or enough to power roughly 40,000 homes, according to Ed Clark, a spokesman for Austin Energy. He said Austin Energy is making up the deficit with production from its Decker natural gas plant.
Control rods are one of a couple of ways to slow down nuclear reactions in a plant like the South Texas Project, according to Pete Snyder, an operations officer at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
“Control rods are not actually a safety system in the plant,” he said, adding that reactions can also be slowed or shut down by adding boric acid to water in the plant.
South Texas Project has won high marks for its safety record. Austin Energy passed last year on a chance to invest in an expansion of the nuclear plant. San Antonio officials had considered investing in the expansion, but that seems an unlikely prospect after news of hidden cost estimates, lawsuits and tiffs.
A PBS-Frontline Web site about nuclear fission has the following description of control rods:
Nuclear engineers and technicians precisely control the amount of fission taking place by inserting control rods into the fuel assembly. The rods are made of a substance that readily absorbs neutrons, like graphite or cadmium. When things get too hot, technicians lower a few control rods into the core. The rods sop up some of the ricocheting neutrons, and the fission process slows down. The reverse is also true: control rods are removed to rev up the fissioning. This simplified graphic illustrates this principle.
When control rods are lifted from the fuel assembly, neutrons (from the natural decay of uranium) bounce around and bombard other uranium atoms, causing them to split. This process gives off more neutrons and causes more splitting. This is a chain reaction. The heat generated from all this fissioning is converted into steam, which turns a turbine, which turns a generator that produces electricity.
If the reaction gets too hot, the control rods are re-inserted to absorb neutrons. With fewer neutrons around, there is less bombardment and fissioning. The core cools; energy output slows down.
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Monday lecture on Colorado River ecology
In the latest of a series of free lunchtime lectures about the Colorado River, Kevin Anderson gives a talk about the waterway’s margins on Monday.
LBJ student Emiliano Benavidez, left, and Michael Todd Jackson of the Austin Watershed Protection Surface Water Team, remove an old tire they found submerged in the Colorado River at Hornsby Bend Tuesday, April 22, 2008. They were looking for organisms living along the shore of the river during the Ecology of the River Field Day on Earth Day when they discovered the old tire and removed it from the river. Photo by Larry Koolvord, American-Statesman Staff
Here’s a summary of the talk that will be offered by Anderson, who runs the City of Austin’s Center for Environmental Research:
The riparian ecosystem of the Colorado River has been greatly degraded through agriculture, development, and lake-building. This talk will focus on explaining the ecosystem services of riparian areas when they are in proper functioning condition and on assessing the current condition of the riparian ecology of the Colorado River in the Austin area.
The lecture is at the Waller Center, 625 East 10th St — between Red River and I-35 — in Room 105 at noon.
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UPDATE: EPA announces stiffer smog standards, putting Austin at risk for federal highway help
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed Thursday stricter smog standards, putting the Austin area in jeopardy of violating clean air rules.
If Travis and surrounding counties fail the new standard, they could face federal penalties that hamper business growth and delay transportation projects.
Under the EPA announcement, smog standards will be lowered from the current 75 parts per billion to between 60 and 70 parts per billion. The EPA said it will announce a final figure at the end of August.
This year, the Austin area’s high ozone levels measured about 75 parts per billion. Thursday’s announcement kicks off a 60-day comment period, including a hearing in Houston on Feb. 2.
UPDATE: The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which is in the midst of a tug-of-war with the EPA over the future of Texas’ air permitting program, lambasted the more stringent standards.
“The EPA’s own data supports a conclusion that a standard of 85 ppb is protective,” TCEQ chairman Bryan Shaw said in a statement. “This EPA decision provides the illusion of greater protectiveness, but with no regard for cost, in terms of dollars or in terms of the freedoms that Americans are accustomed to.”
Commissioner Buddy Garcia called the new threshhold “arbitrary.”
But the stiffer standards were in keeping with a range proposed to the EPA by a panel of scientific and health advisers.
According to the EPA, depending on the level of the final standard, the proposal would yield health benefits between $13 billion and $100 billion. This proposal would help reduce premature deaths, aggravated asthma, bronchitis cases, hospital and emergency room visits and days when people miss work or school because of ozone-related symptoms. Estimated costs of implementing this proposal range from $19 billion to $90 billion.
Central Texans have already spent years staving off violations of current standards through a host of programs, including vehicle emissions testing in Travis and Williamson counties.
Air quality experts say that testing could spread to Hays and Bastrop counties as the area works to meet the new standards.
Central Texans are likely to face a menu of programs similar to those in Dallas and Houston, areas already violating clean air standards. In an effort to improve air quality, those cities have had to cut speed limits and require gas stations to sell reformulated gasoline (which leads to fewer emissions but gets 1 percent to 3 percent fewer miles per gallon) and diesel fuel mixed with additives (kicking up the costs by a nickel per gallon). Residents of Dallas and Houston also face pricier, more rigorous vehicle emissions tests, and road projects often take longer to complete because they face more air quality hurdles.
The new standard could lead to further efforts in Austin to cut emissions by educating dealers of heavy-duty trucks and construction equipment about emissions related to idling and state money available for engine upgrades. Environmental groups would like the new EPA standard to have consequences for the permitting of power plants in other parts of the state. Utilities are seeking permits from the TCEQ for about a half-dozen proposed coal fired power plants.
Though air quality has been improving in cities across the state, the feds in September rebuked the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for not sufficiently opening up the permitting process to the public and for offering too much flexibility to companies seeking permits. Manufacturing groups have said more stringent standards will cost businesses billions.
Smog, also known as ground-level ozone, is not emitted directly into the air but created through reaction of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compound emissions in the presence of sunlight. Industrial facilities, electric utilities, motor vehicle exhaust, gasoline vapors and chemical solvents are the major human-made sources of these emissions, according to the EPA.
This ground-level ozone is not to be confused with “good ozone,” which hovers at least six miles away in the atmosphere and protects Earth from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays.
The U.S. has made strides in reducing ozone in the past quarter-century. Since 1980, ozone levels have dropped 21 percent nationwide as the federal and local governments have established more stringent rules.
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Company that gained notoriety for big mulch fire applies to operate quarry
A construction company requesting permission from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to operate a limestone quarry and rock crusher in Medina County grabbed headlines a couple of years ago for a mulch fire that burned out of control.
H.L. Zumwalt Construction, which wants to operate the quarry just outside the town of Helotes, was in the news in 2007 for a mulch and brush fire on property it owned in Helotes.
Here’s the lede from a January 2007 story I wrote about the fire. (It wasn’t until late March 2007 that authorities announced firefighters had stamped out the fire, at a cost of $5.5 million. At the time, then-mayor Jon Allan said the city “still smells like a wet ashtray.”)
Photo by Laura Skelding, American-Statesman Staff
HELOTES - In defiance of firefighters, perplexed public officials and a mess of heavy equipment assembled to extinguish it, a fire has been burning in a brush pile the size of a football stadium in the middle of this town since Christmas. And it’s not likely to die for at least a month.
Even as the fire remains contained and isolated on the brush pile, it has sent steady plumes of smoke into the city. The mayor has declared a state of emergency, calling the smoke an environmental hazard and begging for help from the state or federal government. Residents of the nearest houses, a quarter-mile away, complain of ash falling on their cars, smoky air, breathing problems and runny eyes. But other officials seem resigned that the fire will take at least a month to extinguish, and the county is offering free motel stays for anyone living nearby who has respiratory problems.
The enormous brush pile, a mass of dirt and trees 70 feet tall at its peak, 400 feet long and about 100 feet wide, has been assembled over at least 15 years. From certain angles, as it disappears into plumes of gray smoke curling from flaming fissures, it looks like the peak of a very active volcano oddly plopped in the Hill Country.
The Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance, a San Antonio based environmental group, is objecting to the limestone quarry operation, pointing to Zumwalt’s problems at its other property.
Lennie Turpin, general manager for Zumwalt, says the quarry in Medina would be used to for road materials for private use, on Henry Zumwalt’s own land.
“We only create jobs for people,” Turpin said. “That’s what this is about. It creates a product for himself. He’s not in the business of selling it. This is not a big quarry to sell to other people.”
Zumwalt continues to dispute claims by the state that it owes money for extinguishing the mulch pile, Turpin said.
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City of Austin suit over Hays quarry dismissed
A suit filed by the City of Austin challenging water quality protection plans at a Hays County quarry was dismissed Thursday by the Texas Court of Appeals, Third District.
The water quality protection plan for the Buda-area quarry, operated by KBDJ, L.P., had been approved by the executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on Oct. 28, 2005. The City filed suit on Feb. 23, 2006 challenging that decision. Judge G. Alan Waldrop wrote in Thursday’s opinion that the suit was not filed within 30 days of the executive director’s decision and therefore dismissed the City’s suit.
The quarry had faced opposition from neighbors in the Ruby Ranch subdivision, who complained about the potential for air pollution, water availability and traffic problems. In November, 2006, the TCEQ, by a vote of 2 to 1, approved an air quality permit for the quarry.
The quarry, which supplies road building materials, could pump 25 million gallons of water a year from underground to wash crushed rock and dampen dust.
Earlier this month, Industrial Asphalt, Inc., and KBDJ, LP of Austin announced it had received a Corporate Lands for Learning certificate from the Wildlife Habitat Council, whose membership includes some of the nation’s largest corporate and industrial companies.
According to a press release, the company won the certificate for its management of 50 acres of wildlife habitat on the property. The company was successful because it had built roost boxes for bats; held a Christmas tree recycling drive in 2007, with the wood used to create additional wildlife habitat; and because “rocks placed in the pond have attracted turtles.” KBDJ has also begun efforts to control invasive species and has started planting native grasses.
The quarry operator also opens the site to school children and university professors, according to the release:
Tours of the site include bat roost boxes, a native wildflower meadow, and the quarry pit and aquifer recharge area. Using activities to illustrate portions of the TEKS (Texas Education Knowledge Standards) classroom curriculum requirements, KBDJ teaches local fourth graders about wildlife habitat. Because of the severe water issues in Texas, especially during the months-long extreme drought in 2009, water education, with an emphasis on the aquifer and “recharging” it, are major topics of study on-site. This promotes environmental awareness by illustrating local land use issues to students as well as helping to teach local environmental educators ways to approach the subject with their own classes.
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LCRA to buy wind from South Texas farm
The Lower Colorado River Authority, a utility that provides power to more than 1.1 million Central Texans, is expanding the renewable energy component of its portfolio.
Under an agreement announced on Friday with Germany-based E.ON Climate and Renewables, LCRA will purchase about 200 megawatts of power each year from Phase II of the company’s South Texas wind farm, known as Papalote Creek.
Phase II, which amounts to 87 turbines, is expected to be operational by 2010. Power from the wind farm, which is located 30 miles north of Corpus Christi in San Patricio County, is enough to power more than 45,000 homes.
The agreement lasts 18 years.
LCRA already purchases 116 megawatts of wind power each year from West Texas. It also gets 1,025 megawatts of coal-fired power from the Fayette Power Project and at least 1,585 megawatts of power from gas. Six hydroelectric dams operated by LCRA provide another 292 megawatts of renewable energy.
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