Travis County Commssioners Court
October 28, 2003
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Item 34
34. Consider and take appropriate action on recommendations to implement early action compact and associated clean air action plan.
>> good afternoon.
>> good afternoon. Thank you all for your patience, we didn't know how long the public hearing would last.
>> sorry about that.
>> I'm here with kathy stephens with campo, nearly of the early action compact, [indiscernible] with the clean air force executive director and bill gill from capco, also, we are all members of the early action compact task force, the technical group that advises the clean air coalition about the development of the early action compact. I know that you have a long day, we have a very brief powerpoint basically in your backup I mentioned that we have four basic I guess actions or proposed motions, the first is to consider the draft clean air action plan recommended measures that were passed out of the clean air coalition last week, judge Biscoe is Travis County's representative on that body. And just as a very brief powerpoint if media services has it cued up that we can go over to give you just a basically a summary of where we are.
>> okay.
>> all right. Travis County through participation in the 03 flex agreement and your commitment to the oac is helping to lead the way in community driven air quality policy. This update is basically a progress report on the early action compact and the crucial milestones that you have to meet as part of that compact. As ozone season ends this October, this month, the Austin-round rock msa is monitoring attainment of the 8 hour standard. Our current design value is 84, which is just below the 85 parts per billion that kicks you into non-attainment basically. Next year when an especially favorable year of data drops out of the three year rolling theanch we discussed before. We will almost certainly exceed that standard again. Basically if you look at monitoring data over the last six years, our region continuously hovers up above and below that 85 parts per billion and we never know from year to year if we are going to be meeting federal standards. The value of attainment to our region is number one improved public health. The 8 hour national ambient air quality standard is a court tested health based air quality standard. Oh zone irritates the throat and lungs, ozone reduces lung capacity, it can worsen asthma and in children and seniors are most affected. Athletes on who train outside regularly are also disproportionately affected. Another value of attainment is a healthy economy. Attainment protects the highway funding which can be withheld under the clean air act. It also lowers costs associated with health care and school absences. As your discussions on item no. 45 noted, it's important that you do whatever you can to decrease health care costs and helping clean up the air is one thing that you can do. Attainment keeps the region competitive in business recoupment as well. Many of you have heard the story of toyota going to san antonio. They would not even consider dallas and houston because they had non-attainment designations, they made that very clear. So it is an important issue. In order to reach attainment the area will have to reduce precursor emissions known as nitrous oxides and all of the volatile compound in all of the categories, on road and off road, 70% of our nox emissions come from cars and construction equipment. Area sources also [indiscernible] homes and businesses what they are, point source, 23% from industry and power plants. Cord to the modeling that we have been doing in this region you get larger, bill correct me if I'm saying this wrong, larger ozone reductions from riewngs nox than you do for [indiscernible], you have to generally reduce twice the numbers of vocs, nitrous oxides and vo c.s.'s mixed correct to create ozone. The next is a lest of our v.c.o. Emissions, your area sources from small businesses, homes, auto body, furniture finishing shops, those ciebldz of areas, kinds of areas, much harder to get a handle are. What we are presenting to you today is measures that you and other local jurisdictions should include in the clean air action plan, caap, those measures are in your packet. Attachment number 1 we are nearing the milestone for selecting the specific measures that we will have to submit to tceq and e.p.a., Texas commission on environmental quality. Table number 1 in attachment 1 outlines appreciates that -- that -- outlines measures that will apply to all of the counties or most of the counties in the region and will have to be implemented by the state. Table number 2 are measure that's may be selected by each of the local jurisdiction, Travis County will be asked to select its fair share just as we did in the 03 flex agreement emission reductions, those will have to be implemented locally. Following these presentations to [indiscernible] jurisdictions this week, this group of folks has visited with caldwell, visited with you today, the city of Austin, we will basically send these measures out to the public for public comment over the next month. During that --
>> what kind of a response did you get from Williamson county?
>> it went fairly well.
>> pretty well. We were there this morning. They asked some good questions. [inaudible - no mic]
>> did they take any action?
>> no.
>> we are not specifically asking you to take action on this group of measures, I would like to know your initial response to them and I guess we are interested and there's some measure on here that you see that you just can't imagine ever -- ever considering implementing, we would like to know about that, but really we are just presenting it to this -- welcome send it out to the public and we will come back in December, I will get back to that about the calendar then you will have to make very specific decisions.
>> if there is a strong sentiment against a certain recommendation, now is the time to let you know.
>> yes, sir.
>> two of these are more important than probably all the rest.
>> yes, sir.
>> you are about to get to those two right now.
>> here we go. The inspection and maintenance program, vehicle inspection and maintenance program, basically chairman houston was at the last cac meeting and indicated that there are two measures this -- that is the vehicle inspection and maintenance program, there is a one-page summary on page 14 of attachment one, I remains there are a lot of attachments that describes the proposed vehicle inspection and maintenance program in some more detail. We also have resource staff here from tceq and the department of public safety who are behind me, hazel barber and dan -- I pronounce it wrong. Who are more than happy to answer any specific questions that you have. But generally very briefly, an inspection and maintenance program is being proposed and this would be implemented in hays, travis and Williamson counties as proposed. It would be an annual inspection just like they do in the dallas and houston areas, el paso areas with safety inspection. What we are proposing is some technology known as obd ii for 1996 in newer vehicles that tests for knox and two speed idle testing for the older vehicle, 19 the 5 and older. That is not what they use in dallas and houston, that is what they use in el paso, so this is not the same as what they are use in this those other cities, there are several reasons why we are proposing to do it a little bit differently. We would also say a low income repair and stance program, it has to be -- the counties have to indicate to tceq they want to do that, then that part of the program would be implemented by the counties and/or a third party that we choose to contract with to do that. Again chairman houston highly recommended that you consider running a lirap program as it's called for all three counties out of one office for efficiency reasons, that's what they are doing in the dallas and houston reason through their cogs, the dallas program I'm more familiar with, they have a nine county region and they run the whole program for all 9 counties out of ntc cog, they are havi to supplement that program and we can talk more about that due to a cap on administrative fees that they have. I don't think --
>> part of the fee structures does go toward that -- [indiscernible]
>> yes, sir.
>> as far as --
>> the program itself, the repair and assistance part of the program is covered by the fees charged to everybody, administering the program. It's a fairly not difficult program, but it's just there's a lot of customer outreach that tough do.
>> right.
>> that you have to do.
>> is it possible that this is implemented that Travis County at Austin could have to participate in the basically $20 inspection and Round Rock and Williamson could elect not to or if we do it as an msa are they going to have on just like us.
>> what we are proposing at the moment, the clean air coalition and the early action compact task force is that all three counties, hays, travis, Williamson county, we are assuming that all three counties will do the program and that's what we are basing our emission reductions on. If one of those counties chooses not to participate or decides there's just no way they want to do that, then the other two counties would have to make a decision whether they wanted to go forward or the other one county. I would say if Travis County were the only county that were going to do itronix would not be very effective.
>> but -- negative impact [indiscernible] as far as federal dallas and not abide by the -- federal dollars and not abide by the law.
>> Travis County alone cannot solve this problem. It's going to require a concerted effort, that's why we have been working together with all of the regions in the area and come to this point. But it's time to make a decision. We need to know now if -- if folks want to participate in that or don't.
>> exactly how will that be done? Will you all go and ask or will the judge call judge there and judge powers and say do you think you are going to get your court to go along with this? How do we know that.
>> basically over the next -- what we are presenting right now in the same presentation that you are getting today to the other courts and Commissioners, going out to the public. You will have until December 5th to decide exactly what you want to go into this clean air action plan. Table 1 of attachment 1, it has 14 -- 14 measures and including the I and m program which the early action compact task force is basically recommending that you seriously have to almost implement in order to really get a handle on the problem. Those are mostly regional, all recommendations for the whole mas basically except for the ... The other list, table 2 is where you goat pick and choose, but the I and m program is a clear one and turf which is the seconded by councilmember strategy that -- second strategy that the judge referred to the Texas emission reduction program. A state funded grant program actually an incentive based program where fleet owners and operators, both public and private can get grant funding to clean up their engines. It requires you to make a sizable investment in your fleet, however. It's not -- there's no such thing as free money. Grant only covers the incremental costs of purchasing new equipment. So you still have to go buy a new piece of equipment and then get reimbursed for the portion that is cleaner basically. So that's going to be a very, we are going to need leadership on that in this area, we have a workshop scheduled for November 14th to invite a lot of the fleet operators and that's item no. B on your agenda. A motion to allow judge Biscoe to send out a letter to all of the municipalities in this region. The clean air force is sending out a letter to all of the business owners, fleet, private business owners with fleets to invite them to this workshop and that's going to be a key emission reduction strategy in this area. Again, 70% of the nox emissions in this region have co-from cars and equipment and construction equipment.
>> will we still be penalized ftd other two counties do not pars pate, Williamson and hays, will Travis County still be penalized because of -- probably end up going to a non-attainment status [multiple voices]
>> yes, sir -- if we can't get the emission reduction that's we need to get in the early action compact we will basically default on the agreement. We will then sit around and wait for a non-attainment designation to occur and then it will be a lot tougher.
>> a lot tougher, yeah.
>> okay. So that's basically the presentation. I will have a month now where I will be working with other departments in Travis County to get you some more detailed information about some of those emission reduction measures on table 2. We will go to the public and hear what the public has to say about these measures. Basically on December 2nd is when we will likely need the court to again review this list and indicate which measures they think should be included in the clean air action plan.
>> what part of this is public --
>> [indiscernible]
>> no, sir. In your packet there is item no. D I guess a survey car, deanna is here with the clean air force, they have been working with us, they helped hire a private consultant working with both the early action compact function and the clean air force to --
>> survey.
>> yes.
>> but 100 people show up at john q.'s filling station and our goal is to explain to them the I and m program. What do we share with them to help them understand.
>> the one pager in your attachment number 1 on page 14, on the back of all of those emission reductions.
>> [indiscernible] people understand that.
>> we will have a whole list of books there to answer questions. That's a lot of what the meetings are about, people can ask questions and get them answered. We also have tv commercials coming up on kxan for the next two weeks, just sort of alert being people to the fact that this is coming, to flip where they can go for more information.
>> then once you implement an I and m program, tceq and d.p.s. Do a very extensive public outreach campaign. They might be able to shed some light on that for you.
>> is everybody understanding exactly what we are doing before we do it. We don't want them mad at Commissioner Daugherty because he did the right thing, we want them to know he did right thing [laughter]
>> part of that -- last Saturday we had a cart there for clean air day, we actually had the testing equipment out at the parking lot of highland mall. We had over 100, between 130 and 150 cars show up. That's one of the best ways is to let people see the equipment and takes 10 minutes to get the test .we very few people failed but there were a couple. We got coverage on that eshrent as welling. Yeah, it's an education process, going to be ongoing for the next two or three years. The I and m program just so you know cannot be implemented before 2005. The summer of 2005 is when the program would actually be implemented.
>> is what -- this is what it is? Enlarge the font and make it front and back, two pages, on both sides.
>> we could probably add more information --
>> I think it has enough information, the fiberoptic is kind of small for people over 35 like myself.
>> we could probably pretty it up a little bit as well.
>> do you have an opportunity to put this on access television for channel 17.
>> yes, that's what I was asking for in the backup. We would like to get this information about the survey, about the compact itself on our channel 17, on our website to get it on to -- out to as many people as possible. If nobody has a problem with that, I will go ahead and bring it to media services.
>> personally, I will say this is a daunting task. I mean, we -- the last that I heard envision central Texas had less than 10,000 responses back. And they have worked feverishly and I mean they have got after it. Now I'm even seeing handwritten signs on street corners about fill in ect. And this is a scary thing for us to have to do by December even though we know the implementation doesn't have to take place until 2005, we effectively have next year, but we are voting on it in December and I don't think so we can decide next April, we said December we are going to reconsider. I don't think that we will be able to do that. This is one of those things that people, just kind of goes by them, until they come into their inspection, that's when they will have to get this. By the way it's an additional 0 bucks for you to do this. Luckily they are having to do yearly inspections anyway, it's not like we are going to take a hit on that. But the educational time on this is really something that doesn't make me very comfortable given that we have you know, less than 40 days now to vote on this thing. Obviously I think that we would probably see it our way to do this, I don't really have a clue on what is going to happen with hays county and with Williamson. I have fear given today what Williamson has sort of like well, you all do your deal over there, we will do ours, knowing a lot of times if you compare Williamson county what they do and what Travis County does, sometimes we are not always on the same page, that's a little frightening.
>> Williamson county has been very involved in the clean air coalition with judge Biscoe that is Commissioner hilgdenstein, he has said very publicly on numerous occasions at press conferences that an inspection and maintenance program is one of the few measures that we know we can implement and will impact our specific air quality issues here in this region, which again have to do with combustion engine. I believe that through his leadership and from what he's telling us indicating that his other Commissioners are getting -- the information that they are getting, that they are very knowledgeable of the fact that an I and m program is likely. Honest in hays county we d't have as much input and we are trying to get the word out to them. We would appreciate any assistance in that as well.
>> I think that I can help you with judge powers if you need -- [laughter]
>> again, I don't want to speak for them. I think that they are aware of what is going on. I know that, you know, staff is. But I can't tell you with as much certainty that they are as on board with the program.
>> the reality is if we fail, they will fail. Because the people think that somehow magically that air will stop at the county line, they are wrong. The entire region will be painted with the impression that the air is not up to quality. The suburbs out in houston, it hey be harris county, but it's everybody surrounding there is being dinged as well. So it's just a matter of, you know, pay me now, pay me later. I am wondering kathy out loud which is always dangerous whether there's any way that's we can help encourage our friends on campo because there are campo dollars that go to heys and Williamson counties of whether we can have that as kind of an internal measure that we keep asking the question, gee, have you all sign odd board to do these voluntary measures? And we can figure that into whether we decide to put those projects with a higher weight or a lesser weight in terms of --
>> gun point. [multiple voices]
>> about a this Friday, I think chalene is going to discuss their response, but Commissioner boatwright was asking about that same memo this morning, what are you going to do transportation-wise for these measures, they are coming forth with measures, there's also a call for projects, many spent --
>> that could be a category whether they have to sign-off related to the early action compact, at least the voluntary measures, even if they are not forced to will they, it could be a weighting factor a as to whether we do some of these --
>> how many days have we exceeded the 8 hour this year? I mean i've heard -- i've heard -- very few.
>> this year, very few.
>> very few. Very few. Very few. Very few. I mean, so that is something -- I don't want information to just go out that I mean the sky is falling. What did we have last year?
>> five.
>> year before?
>> one, I believe.
>> twowp was a clean year 2001 was a clean year. The fourth highest is what really gets you in trouble. This year the fourth highest is 84. So we just made it under.
>> under that.
>> we did have a couple of high levels, one I think in 91 and '96 of --
>> we are getting there.
>> borderline.
>> wait a minute.
>> you just blanketly say that we are getting there.
>> we are getting there.
>> one thing that is irrefutable the automobile is burning cleaner today than it was five years ago and 10 years ago. Right?
>> true statement.
>> I see some heads going up and down. Those are the things that need to be -- because if you go -- you can get people so excited in this community about oh, my god don't even walk outside you'll die. I mean that's not helping us. Not to say that we don't need to inform people, but there are things that we still need to continue to look at. But -- but the automobile, that's what we attribute all of this stuff or 70% of it like you said of that and I guess off road. But the automobile continues to get cleaner burning and the more of the older cars that we get off the road, the cleaner our air gets from our auto emissions.
>> there -- they are getting cleaner, but the problem is that there are more of them. So the good things that happen because of the -- they are cleaner burning gets eliminated quickly if rather than 500,000 cars, we have got 800,000 cars and with nav take traffic coming through, and I don't believe they have got to go through the emissions testing that we would have to, nafta, there's stuff passing through our vicinity that we have no control over.
>> until we really get on point -- you want to leave your car at home, you really want to force people, I mean, if you really want compliance with this, then, you know, you need to take the with us like Commissioner Sonleitner and I did to the reca meeting. If that doesn't drive you absolutely crazy --
>> it was a lovely trip.
>> it was a lovely trip.
>> I want to be mindful, I don't like to continue to have the word on the street is that the sky is falling, it's not to say that we shouldn't try to do as much as we can for air pollution. I think that we do the community a disservice by not telling people things some of the things that are getting accurate and the automobile getting cleaner is an accurate statement.
>> but there are more cars.
>> the way the formula goes, we expect next year to be worse than we are now, right?
>> the design value.
>> and explain that just briefly.
>> it's based on a three year average. I was based on the e.p.a. You take the fourth highest value for each year, you put that into a three year average. 2001 the fourth highest was 78. That's really low.
>> that one drops off.
>> the low one drops out.
>> then we are left with the numbers that are.
>> 891, 84 91, will 4, whatever we get next year, which generally is between 80 and 90.
>> we looked at the last six years, the average fourth highest is 86, that's what we would expect next year unless we have really good meteorology. We do have some beneficial things going on. We are getting low sulfur gas in here and next year, there are some improvements. You know, cars are definitely getting cleaner. But close to 50% of the on road mobile omissions are from the heavy duty diesel trucks. That's not going to get better for a few years. E.p.a. Has new standards going into effect in 2007.
>> you are saying be truthful but don't exaggerate. A little bit dramatic and I understand that. But it's a kind of serious situation. We have talked about these possible remedies for two or three years. Now I think that I half understand what they mean. I'm not sure three years ago I really had in inkling of what we were talking about. But I have the I and m programs in el paso, harris county, dallas county, have they made a difference, are they making a difference?
>> I think clearly in el paso, a combination of I and m program, and okay -- oxygenated fuel has put them in an attainment position. Something has --
>> it's become a big economic development issue.
>> uh-huh.
>> over the last 12 to 18 months there have been observable examples of where major economic development projects were lost to certain areas that had air quality problems and those companies went to area that's were not completely free of air quality problems, but didn't have nearly as bad as some much the ones that were rejected.
>> there are two things that kick in when you get designated non-attainment that affect industrial recruitment. One is what's called an offset provision. In houston, you have to offset by a 1.3 to 1. In other words if you want to come in and put in a facility that emitts 100-tons, you have to come up with 130 shut it down somewhere. You have to buy it and shut it down. Quite expensive to do that. The other thing is called lowest available emission rate. If you locate in a non-attainment area a stricter standards applies, not based on economics, it's based on whatever is available, there's one plan in the world that eases it, then you have to ease i. That does cause concern on some companies as far as increasing their costs in locating in a non-attainment area.
>> now, in proposed motion 1 what you would like for us to do is authorize you to take attachment 1 and share it with Travis County residents, get their input and report back to us. With the good news.
>> couldn't have said it better myself. [laughter]
>> that's my motion.
>> second.
>> any more discussion? Any idea how much time it will take?
>> to take it out to the public and bring it back to you?
>> right.
>> I'm -- on my schedule December 2nd is when you would reconsider the final recommendation -- recommended Travis County draft clean air action plan. Now, if you think that you need to do it before then --
>> three weeks.
>> three weeks would work, November 18th.
>> three weeks it is. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Now b there you are looking for us to do the same thing with attachment 2.
>> yes, sir. But this is a little bit more. This is one of the measures actually in that attachment 1 but because of campo's needing to actually plug all of these road projects, these term project as they are called transportation emission reduction measures into a model and get some calculations on them, they need at least a month to do that basically, so they are asking us to turn in something by Friday. So the first four pages of this hand -- of attachment number 2 are terms that you already agreed to included in the 03 flex agreement as part of the [indiscernible] we are rolling everything into one document. Those first four pages are projects that you already approved including an 03 flex agreement. The last two pages are additional projects that we have determined Travis County can do by 2007 with -- with the exception of one evidently that needs to come off of there. Which is on page 2 of the list titled Travis County transportation emission reduction measures, 03 flex agreement, bicycle and pedestrian facilities current status is one of the 03 flex ones. Wells branch parkway would be about three-quarters of the way down. Wells branch parkway and sidewalks and bikeways. I guess there's some un certainty as to whether or not that project will be on time. And so we don't want to commit to it being done by 2007 which is what you are committing to do.
>>
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>>
>> okay. That's attachment 2 with the changes that you've just suggested.
>> yes.
>> taking out two projects.
>> one.
>> one.
>> yes, sir.
>> you only described one or did you describe two?
>> I hopefully just described one. Wells branch parkway sidewalks and bike lanes between heatherwild and the city of Pflugerville.
>> is there a motion?
>> second.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes unanimously. Third one is real simple, authorize the county judge to look at your draft letter, we advise it as appropriate and then send it out.
>> yes, sir.
>> that's the motion. Commissioner Sonleitner seconds it. I'm sure it's a fine draft letter. We'll put it in final form. Any more discussion? All in favor? That passes unanimously. Four is the survey. The county website, channel 17, we can do that encourage all county employees to complete it.
>> second.
>> starting with the Commissioners court. All that's in the motion that Commissioner Sonleitner just seconded. Any more discussion?
>> I just want to mention that those surveys have postage paid on them thanks to the clean air force. You don't even need a stamp. Please take time to do so.
>> put a piece of tape right here.
>> return the survey by November 15th so we have plenty of time. Three full weeks. All in favor? That passes unanimously. This was easy. Anything else today?
>> my only other question is, we do have -- there are probably going to be lots of questions about the maintenance program, and if you ever need any additional information or your staff starts getting phone calls and you can't answer them, please do not hesitate to call. Myself, I can send you an e-mail and the staff as well who will be available to you can get all your questions answered. We apologize for all the short deadlines, but they are very critical that we meet the deadlines or the whole eac process falls apart.
>> we get our efficiency challenged daily, it seems. [ laughter ] we have representatives here from the state of Texas, including tceq. Open mic if you have something you would like to say.
>> could I ask a question? [inaudible - no mic].
>> you are always welcome to come back. Anything further on this item today?
>> no, sir.
>> thank you very much. This is not an easy project, but it's a necessary one. I don't want to cut you out as executive manager of tnr.
>> did we ever get that -- (indiscernible) off the road?
>> anybody from Williamson county make contact with us on the clean air force meeting?
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> from Williamson county. (indiscernible).
>> no. [inaudible - no mic].
>> so everybody at the court knows. Okay. Thanks.
>> at the presentation this morning, we were on before the big item of the day, so there was quite a large audience, and because of that there were a number of questions that came out on the inspection maintenance program, which you probably didn't hear today, but if you do have a large gathering, those questions will come out. And it was real helpful to have tceq and dds here to help. [ laughter ]
>> thank y'all.
>> thank you.
>> now, we do have executive session this morning and discussed two items in this. We discussed number 47. What's the amount of that.
>> nine thousand dollars, judge.
>> authorize the county judge to execute a resale deed to david that canner because he has made us the amount of nine thousand even dollars in and it was real helpful to have tceq and dds here to help. [ laughter ]
>> thank y'all.
>> thank you.
Last Modified: Wednesday, October 28, 2003 7:52 AM