Travis County Commissioners Court
April 8, 2008
Item A2
A2. Consider and take appropriate action on issues related to proceedings before the Texas commission on environmental quality (tceq) and the state office of administrative hearings (soah) regarding the requested expansion of the waste management of Texas (wmt) landfill located on giles road near state highway 290 east (tceq proposed municipal solid waste permit amendment no. 249d) including but not limited to: a, Travis County attorney accompaniment of transportation and natural resources representation at the April 14, 2008 tceq public hearing; and b, pursuit of party status in proceedings before soah commencing as soon as April 16, 2008.
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>> I’d be glad to discuss any of that today and answer any questions and see where we can go from here.
>> do we have -- it might be good to have the county attorney's office representative down here as well because there might be some legal questions. In regard to -- in regard to the letter, the next step, of course, you have already -- you will be going to the hearing on the 14th. The next step is the hearing before the state office of administrative hearings on the 16th, which is their initial setting. At that point -- and this is perhaps where the county attorney's office would be useful. It's at that point it's my understanding that the state office of administrative hearings judge will be requesting those who are interested in party status to go ahead and move for party status and set a calendar. So I am offering a resolution that I think is -- comports with the March 11th letter. To seek party status. So that can be presented as an exhibit to our motion for party status.
>> legal, is there anything that requested that you be here as far as any legal matters as far as what we're looking at now when this item comes up before -- as far as trying to seek party status and referring it to the proper persons as far as the state office of administrative hearings, accompanying that as she stated, the letter that the court unanimously approved as far as being part of the process, as far as going before per request. And is anything I guess within the resolution itself and also the letter that the court announced supported, is there anything within the resolution itself that you looked at that would not be an approval status this morning?
>> mr. Morris and I both looked at both the letter and the resolution, and have signed off on it. So we're comfortable with the way they're drafted.
>> okay. I want to move approval. Do you want to -- if you want to move, I’ll second.
>> I think there needs to be some discussion first, though. So the purpose of this hearing is what now?
>> there are actually going to be two different sessions. The first will be a public meeting to be held on the 14th. This is an opportunity for folks to comment on the application, so any kind of comments can be accepted right up through the time of the meeting itself. On April 16th, there will be a preliminary hearing before the state office of administrative hearings, and this is -- this particular item has been directly referred to soha, so the process is a little bit unusual, so we're not entirely sure how that process will work on the 16th. It may be simply to establish party status that. May go on beyond that or it may simply set future dates. But we have to be prepared for any eventuality there.
>> would it be helpful to you, mr. White, to have representative -- to have representation from the county attorney's office at the April 14th public hearing before the tceq?
>> I think that probably would be a good idea. Simply because the process is --
>> unpredictable.
>> and somewhat unprecedented. We haven't really seen this kind of action before.
>> have you before in this process before?
>> this process is unusual because of the direct referral. Normally you would expect there would be a public meeting and then an action by the commission and a subsequent routinely scheduled, regularly scheduled agenda meeting of the commission in which they would identify the specific issues that could be referred and then they would actually make the formal referral to soha. But this is certainly compressed since the preliminary hearing would be two days later.
>> so the full hearing would be weeks later, month later or do we know?
>> we don't know.
>> but that would be determined on the 14th or the 16th?
>> probably be determined on the 16th.
>> is it safe to say that on the 16th there is a possibility at least that on the 16th whoever is the state office of administrative judge astiend the case would at that point make -- would make a request to the potential parties to both move for party status and then once the party status is decided, to then decide on a schedule for both prehearing and hearing portions. That's at least what has happened in the past.
>> this is really carrying off what we've already decided pretty much.
>> I believe so.
>> judge, I guess -- and I thought about the residents that when we end up approving the letter in opposition to this particular expansion request by waste management of Texas, and there are residents in the audience present that day. And my question to staff is that the time line that's being made available today or being exposed today as far as what we're trying to push forward, the residents that were present, are they -- have they been notified that this particular action is taking place and it's kind of out of the ordinary as far as not going before the commission, but going directly to the state office of administrative hearings? Have they been notified of that? Are we aware of that?
>> I don't know what kind of notification they've received from tceq or waste management or anyone else. Frankly, we copied letters, for example, to a number of the residents who had expressed some interest; however, we're in the same boat in terms of trying to understand what the process is going to be. So they may not be -- they're probably less aware of what it might be than we are at this point.
>> but does tceq have a list of the people who have interested in this issue already to the point that they would notify them? Somehow of the continuation of this process? Because I’ve seen this already. It's been before the court. And we talked about these things and we took a vote, and we're going to do what b says.
>> although we do not have a piece of paper, and in my experience, we need an exhibit requesting that -- that says we are applying for party status. The letter that we previously did on March 11th is our comment to tceq. We don't yet have a document to be presented that's directed to the soha saying we want party status.
>> but also in our communication with them, I think didn't we attach a list of everybody who has appeared before the court on this issue? And then we would have turned in that list of people to tceq so that they would be able to notify people.
>> actually, no, we did not attach that. That was not one of the attachments we had in our letter.
>> it seems to me that we would have done that.
>> we can secialg communicate that to tceq.
>> because otherwise communications don't continue and there's always a cut in communications because it doesn't appear like we submitted everything that we had available to us.
>> I do know that at the time that people move for party status that individuals or entities move for party status with the soha, the state office of administrative hearings will then provide notice for all proceedings from that body. But they're separate from tceq. They're independent of tceq. So all those who either obtain party status or I think there's also a second category of those who aren't participating as a party, but are interested -- have interest in the outcome that can also be on the notice list for the state office of administrative hearings.
>> but tceq designates people, right, who have the party status?
>> no. It's the judge.
>> it's the administrative judge who will do that?
>> there are certain criteria that one has to establish to have party status, but you have to demonstrate that you meet those criteria before the judge.
>> that's what I mean, the judge then makes a determination who has the party status, and that's who the judge will hear from? On the issue?
>> that's correct.
>> ms. Schneider?
>> well, I’ve been sitting in a number of these, so maybe I can help clarify a few things. Normal contested case's a hearing process, the tceq Commissioners desi people as having party status. If they can't find anyone who is party status, they don't refer to soha. And then the soha judge can then designate other people who come forward. The problem as I see it with -- for the public is that normally these public meetings -- like the one that's going to happen on the 14th -- is when the community really has a chance to have their say. And they sign up at that point to get on the list for the permit. Some people are on the list already, but very few. Usually it's the public meeting where people sign up and say I want to know what's going on with this permit. And then months later when it goes before the tceq or before soha, they've already been getting the mailings. So people are going to sign up on Monday and they're not going to have time to input all those names and give them notice for what happens on Wednesday. Obviously we're going to tell people on Monday the 14th that if they want party status on the 16th, they're going to need to show up or designate a neighborhood group to represent them. But this very close timing of the public meeting and then the soha preliminary hearing is problematic.
>> and that's what I was trying to lead to when I told the question about the folks who were here doing the unanimous approval of the particular comment letter that we submitted some time ago, the process of notifying them and have they been notified. And if not, then how do we deal with that. And of course I recall some of the folks being here, but I don't really remember everyone that was here in opposition to this particular permit application. So again, I’m just -- and I guess my question is is there a list of those persons that did come down in opposition at that time? Did you get a list on that, robin?
>> no, I didn't get a list. I mean, the community, I would say, is organized. They have their e-mail lists. The word is going to get out, we're going to get it out to our lists, through our e-mail lists, but it is problematic because there is this tight timing.
>> right, exactly. It's a little different --
>> very different than a normal process.
>> so it's basically to express our ongoing interest in the application and to request -- formally request party status.
>> correct.
>> okay.
>> so I would move that we --
>> second.
>> anybody else here on this item who would like to be heard? If so, please come forward before we do the motion. I think you see how we're headed.
>> I would move that we instruct county attorneys to accompany mr. White to the April 14th meeting before the tceq, and also move the approval of the resolution formally requesting party status for the April 16th meeting before the state office of administrative hearings.
>> I second that. And I also would like to maybe, if you don't mind accepting a friendly, is to try to determine -- have staff to try to determine, help us determine who those persons are on the list so they can be notified, the person that came down here, notify those persons about the meeting. And ms. Schneider said she would work on that, but I think staff needs to also be involved. To make sure that we get -- that everything is as inclusive as possible.
>> I’ll take that as a friendly addition.
>> thank you.
>> any more discussion?
>> judge? Can I ask steve jacobs to come up? I want to ask steve a couple of questions. Steve, the expansion that you all are wanting to do, I take it, is what y'all call or some of us call the wilder tract, is that right?
>> that was the previous owner of the property. I’m sure they would prefer if we had another name for it, but that one kind of stuck.
>> but it is that 70 acres.
>> yes.
>> so if you all don't go there, you will just go ahead and go on to sell nine and 10 or eight and nine or whatever -- it's the two sales that does move forward, brings it closer to the residents. Is that what you're going to do?
>> yeah, we'll continue to fill under our current permit until we exhaust the remaining air space under that permit.
>> and how much -- I know this is always sort of a moving star get, -- target, but project for me how many years you all have if you just continue?
>> if we continue on excluding the arterial a, which is actually a line on the map that cuts across there, we have about six years at capacity at current volumes. Prior to going across the arterial line we have about three years of capacity before we start impacting the ability to build that highway.
>> okay. So you all, if you just tibl the way you're going -- if you just continue the way you're going and you didn't get an expansion, then you're saying that you guys might be through by 2014 or 2015?
>> at current volumes. Obviously we would have to go back and look at what we would allow in the gate, whether we would restrict the receives to just waste management trucks, which we could do, or whether -- how we would provide it. But if we kept the volumes at our current incoming rate, it would be about six years before we filled up that permitted space.
>> thanks, steve.
>> no problem.
>> any more discuss? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, April 9, 2008 8:51 PM