Travis County Commssioners Court
February 17, 2004
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 16
[One moment please for change in captioners]
>>
>> ...so what we're doing is, I guess, the most recent effort to address that. The agreed order that you've got in your hands basically gives us a very reasonable find in my -- fine in my opinion. And it is made further reasonable by the fact that they are willing to allow us to do what's known as supplemental environmental projects, similar to what you've been seeing with bfi and waste management doing. So in lieu of just paying direct cash, we have the option of putting $1,600 towards some other environmental project. I think it's best to have are it as closely related to the issue that you're being fined for. And so solid waste would probably be a good area to be thinking about. But they don't limit us to that. There were all kind of examples, including endangered species projects, whatever the court thinks might be appropriate. Or we could just pay it. So I guess one of the things that occurred to us at tnr is it might be a good idea to either look at precinct 1, solid waste, illegal dump cleanups or one of the things that occurred to me specifically is that there are a lot of old roadways that illegal dumpers have found that are available either to a truck or four-wheel drive or what have you that might be able to be closed off with jersey barriers or something to actually prevent the ongoing problem. So while I don't have a specific project for you right now, I think that would be my recommendation is that you consider allowing tnr to work on that level of a solid waste remedy and take care of the fine obligation that way.
>> I have two questions. First is: are we able to use this money to, say, pay ourselves to remediate different solid waste problems?
>> yes, sir.
>> are we supposed to give tceq a specific plan of action before we --
>> right.
>> -- accept the settlement agreement?
>> there actually has to be an agreement between tceq and the county put into writing similar to the third-party agreement that we worked on with the landfills.
>> does that have to be in writing submitted to tceq before we take action on this?
>> yes.
>> so we just want directions today?
>> does it make sense that we could do laugh of this and do the remediation here in Travis County, in the long run that would be more beneficial than paying the state. So basically 50% of the fine to the state and take the other 50% and do remediation work here in Travis County. Yes or no.
>> we certainly can take that approach.
>> that was not the approach that you recommended?
>> it's along those lines, judge, it's just that you're taking a fairly low dollar amount and cutting it in half. That's the only thing I look at is 800 bawkz bucks, how far does that get you towards an effective project. And it may be that that's fine.
>> even if we just do landfill costs, we have places where there's illegal dumping that we basically can go and clean up and take the landfill and we offset the cost. A little bit different than paying ourselves, but actually we would just use that to pay the landfill, and I think it would be beneficial.
>> we can take that approach.
>> now, we ought to have a list of illegal dump sites.
>> yes i've got that in front of may. It was sent to you by -- it's actually for precincts, 1, 2 and 4. I don't see 3 here.
>> that would be mid why. And if the goal is to try to remediate in close proximity to the landfill itself, then I would start with the closest illegal dump sites to the landfill and work my way away from there.
>> i've got a couple right in mind.
>> since we're in the capco region, if we run out of sites in Travis County, there are others in the renal that we could assist and like you said, 800 dillard's won't get that far.
>> I don't think there would be any danger of getting more than two miles from the landfill.
>> I think those ought to be our directions unless there's objection. Can we get that done in a week?
>> certainly. We can have it back on the 24th.
>> have it back on next week. I would think that -- I would list four or five sites and say basically we use the money until we exhaust it, if they agree, and we can give specific descriptions or addresses of the illegal dump sites, right?
>> oh, certainly, yes, we can give them gps coordinates if they'd like.
>> do you know if a person caught illegal dumping, what is the fine for that particular individual? Do you have any idea? When I looked at that list of all the illegal dump sites throughout the county, I mean, it's horrendous. It's enormous. And I said to myself then, what is the fine for catching these folks that are illegally dumping and enforcing it. And do you have any idea?
>> I think kevin may be present for that.
>> the fines go from a class c all the way up to a major felony. They can go from $200 to a million dollars, depending on what's dumped and where it's dumped and how much gets dumped.
>> I was kind of thinking and leaning in the direction that with the new nine patrol officers that have been put over in the northeast, east and southeast Travis County that law enforcement maybe can -- with those additional nine law enforcement persons out there could be a little more vigilant and help everybody to kind of pitch in because it's really a very expensive cost for the county to have to come and take corrective action and do corrective action on illegal dump sites. So it just occurred to me that we need to be very aggressive. And a lot of these folks are doing such acts. Anyway, I just want --
>> I think the best way to get the message to people -- because it's hard to catch them, but I think that if we get hard line with giving one hefty fine, the reason you don't pull your car into an handicapped parking space is because it hurts. And they will get the money. I agree. I think that we ought to throw the book at somebody that illegally dumps. And it needs to get around this community that if you get caught that it hurts. And that I think is the best deterrent that we can have if we just get hard line with it.
>> I agree with you, Commissioner. And again, I'm really going to pursue that with all the departments, legal, sheriff, tnr, and we just have to get --
>> and the justice of the peace. They impose the fines.
>> justice of the peace, put them in there, and we just make a big deal out of this and those folks that are caught, just let them know that we're coming after you. I'm serious about this, folks.
>> make them come to Commissioner courts' meetings. That will do it. I was in Pflugerville, the kids that break occur view, they are forced to go to Pflugerville city council meetings. It changes their behavior to have to sit and listen to it.
>> tom?
>> judge, I just have one more thing to update the court on. In terms of how we are addressing the leachate problem, we first of all went back in and checked and double-checked all of the line work and the valves and everything associated with that. We found that we needed to improve the system a bit if terms of adding a french drain in one area that has been the most problematic. And the biggest time and expense that will be exerted is basically a hauling of excess soil really from northeast metro park to the site and recapping the old landfill site. What it does is kind of hopefully again puts an umbrella in place over the top of the landfill. What it happened over time, you can imagine with time and with sucking that water out of there we've had subsidence that had aggravated the leachate problem. It has a pooling effect. It goes out the old waste and comes down the bottom. So that's what's going on. We're about to actually open and award the bids for the hauling this week, and here's where we get into a little bit of the issue that I need to let you know about. They in the agreed order give us a 90-daytime frame; however, to achieve that compliance they also give us a bit of wiggle room to negotiate extensions. And I'm just notifying you that we feel certain given the amount of topsoil that need to be hauled, the distance it's coming from and the amount of time it's going to take to spread that, we will probably be going for 120 days and at least a 30-day extension on to that 90 days. So that's just letting you now. -- letting you know.
>> we put in place a fairly elaborate pumping system. That is working, isn't it?
>> yes, sir, that's what I was telling you. It's always been working; however, there were elements of it that were down and not in as good a shape as we thought it was. Once we started excavating and looking back into all the wells. So that's up to snuff now. And then to add the I guess the suspenders to the belt, we're recapping the entire surface of the landfill. Not the entire surface, but the area where there's been subsidence.
>> you mention on page 2 of joe's memo, that's already available? That's a matter of contracting out to get the work done and doing it?
>> right.
>> those are the directions, unless there's objection. Do we need to have this back on next week?
>> yes, sir. I can assure you that we'll have a traft of the agreement. I don't know if I can certify to you today ta tceq will have approved of it by that time, but we'll work towards that and.
>> if we approve of it and sent it to tceq, if they don't approve, we just put it back on the agenda later on, right?
>> right.
>> I think we ought to approve something and send it over to them. I have always found them to be more than reasonable.
>> I have too.
>> so this 50% use locally is pretty much tceq policy, right? They won't be surprised when they see something from us that sees we'd like to use half of this fine, do remediation work in Travis County?
>> no, I don't think they'll be surprised at all.
>> anything further? We'll have it back on next week. Thank you very much.
Last Modified: Tuesday, February 17, 2004 5:44 PM