Travis County Commissioners Court
January 18, 2005
Item 31
31. Consider and take appropriate action on notice of intent from the executive director of the Texas Commissioner on environmental quality to issue a permit to magna-flow international, inc. For the land application of sludge at a site near the intersection of taylor lane and fm 969 in precinct one. Now, john is this one of the projects that we've been a little concerned about?
>> yes, sir, it has. John kuhl, environmental officer with t.n.r.
>> sounds like this is overriding what a hearings examiner has come up with.
>> hasn't gotten a hearing yet. This is --
>> cap Texas.
>> that was captex, I知 sorry.
>> but a very similar project in one of those that -- that again probably predates Commissioner Daugherty's time with us. But the rest of you are quite familiar with it. We will run through that very quickly just a little bit of a time line. What I have handed you is just a brief set of bullets as a cover sheet to -- to the executive director's response to comments. We filed comments as a unanimous court back in August of 2003. And this is -- this is, you know, again just a sludge land application project out on taylor lane. And it's -- it's precinct 1. And I think the park springs neighborhood association and a whole lot of other folks in that area have been following this very carefully. It's -- it's a land application site has that had been operating on what was previously sufficient from a regulatory perspective which was called a registration. That -- that type of permitting process basically became outdated by tceq and they are required as of September 1st, 2002, to -- or actually September 1st, 2003 to have -- to have either ceased operations or have applied for a permit. As opposed to the registration. They are in that process right now. We caught the process and filed quite lengthy detailed comments. The tceq has basically, the executive director, legal staffs, have gone through and heard those comments and responded to those and that's what in your handout there. The only question really right now is -- we have two or three weeks to work on this. The question is for the court do we feel as if we want to go ahead and continue to pursue this matter and -- and there are, you know, three ways to do that. I have lined those out down at the bottom under options available. Obviously you can take no action or you can continue to take action. One would be to ask for a reconsideration. The other option would be to just go ahead and say we want to go to contested case hearing and we will be an affected party. Or both. You know you could do two and three together. There are -- I have visited with the county attorney, assistant county attorney tom nuckols, he and I feel like there are some grounds, they did a surprisingly decent job of responding. However the problem with the site is that virtually all of it is in the 100 year floodplain. Which goes counter to our ordinance that -- that prevents solid waste facilities from being in the 100 year floodplain. Their response to that, of course, is that it was a registration before we had a floodplain ordinance. And so it's sort of grandfathered in their eyes. There were many other items of fact, you know, technical items that we may comment on. I guess what I would suggest to you today is that you provide direction for tom and I and we will work on the technical aspects, if you should choose to do that. Then we can talk over those details at that time. You can make a formal decision as to whether you want to submit or not.
>> john, in talking with the residents, 7 they are still in a position of this particular permit now, it may be someone here, I saw them earlier, that may want to speak to this issue. I think we need to maybe hear from what the community is continuing to echo on this particular obligation to this type of permit. So -- so, judge, if you will allow me those questions, to come and speak, if that's -- if that's appropriate.
>> I知 with the park springs neighborhood association. And we would like a -- a contested hearing. We feel that -- well, from what I have just heard, just because -- because it was grandfathered because it was prior to the 100 year floodplain, doesn't mean that it's right. And I care a lot about the environment and from what I understand there -- there have been some changes in the water quality. There's -- from the -- from the watershed going into the creek that feeds from this field, there's a lot more algae growth, sign of nitrogen, extra nitrogen going in. Then it's just a mile or two from the colorado river, which goes into the colorado river and -- plus the sludge is not tested per load. It's coming from a multi-county area. So we have really -- we really don't know the quality of the sludge from any one time to the next. We do -- too bad that sludge isn't contained within each county and done with the dillo dirt program like we do here in Austin because we know our sludge is high quality. It's constantly tested. It's all rescued and put into the dillo dirt program. None of it needs to be sludge farmed. I wish every county could do this. That would solve this problem. I use dillo dirt on my vegetable garden. But I知 against the sludge farm because we don't know from any one time to the next, which county it's coming from, the quality of it, it's not tested per load. They had to cut off sludge that was coming from san marcos in particular because it was really foul. Had more odor than normal sludge. So they had to discontinue that. So I知 going obviously quality of sludge is different from county to county. And we don't know what's in it. Travis County is lucky because we don't have a lot of industry. Dumping chemicals down the drains. But who knows about other counties? And I知 just concerned. It's such a -- -- what's right is right. If it's interfering with the environment, why is it allowed?
>> well, I think we ought to go ahead and instruct john to move on with --
>> yeah and I -- I知 sorry, Commissioner.
>> I think we need to do what needs to be done without wasting time.
>> we are not going to -- and I know some of the folks that were here last time when they did testify about the international sludge operation, they gave some very, very revealing, heart wrenching testimony as to -- as far as what they have to put up with as far as that particular sludge operation. I would like to move at this time we go with 2 and 3 of this particular request that you have, john, that is to basically request that we look at the decision of the reconsideration of the decision made by the executive director of tceq. Which I think is very important. I don't know how that would fit into all of this. But I think the basic point that the community would like to have seen in this particular regard is to ensure that we request a -- a -- a -- a case hearing on this particular issue and of course by doing this I think it will also allow to us look at the affected party status and stuff like that. So I would like to basically go with those two particular recommendations that you have and you come back I guess to the Commissioners court -- judge would you like that in the form of a letter or something in writing on the contested case hearing and also the formatted areas as far as the request for consideration to the -- for the -- to the executive director for them to reconsider that, they are requesting that decision, does that have to be a formatted letter, per se, in this particular request or comment for the Commissioners court for approval before the February 5th deadline? That's basically what I知 requesting at this time.
>> what we have typically done in the past is one letter that has five signature blocks, we will bring that, we will bring the text to that, give you in advance to look at it. We'll see if there's any excellent editing which at times is offered by some of the members then we'll file it assuming, you know, it's unanimous, everybody will sign it. That's -- I知 assuming it can be in one letter. But tom will let us know. If not we'll do it in two.
>> well --
>> would you request a reconsideration or contested hearing status, you put the reasons for the request in the letter or do you do that later on?
>> no, you put it in there. In fact you need to have it in there. It's your shot basically. You need to put the grounds, the factual grounds or the technical grounds, legal grounds that you intend to use as your argument from that point on. That's my understanding. And --
>> i'll second that motion.
>> and I guess the timeliness of having this back before the Commissioners court to ensure that we are in the time lines of the February 5th contest the case hearing date, which is a very important date.
>> business hours February 5th is our deadline.
>> exactly.
>> we can before it back either next week or the week after.
>> okay.
>> can you get that done in a week, john? Then if there's any editing we still have one more shot.
>> so you will just keep it on.
>> yes.
>> okay.
>> john, is -- is the executive director of tceq, are they hanging their hat on the fact that the first sentence, the executive director has made a decision that the above researched permit application meets the requirements of applicable law, that's -- that's the same thing happens to us with people wanting us to not do something when our rules say if you comply with this right here, you've met the application, I mean, much of what we do is subdivision and those kind of things, obviously we know that everybody or everybody has talked to us, you know, that lives, you know, east of i-35, certainly doesn't want this. But is that what's happening to the executive director? Is he going if we want to change these things and you are right, maybe they are not good anymore. And is that -- do you feel that that's what he is basing his -- his decision on?
>> essentially, that's correct. There are -- there are a few areas where they have -- they clearly have discretionary authority, though to deny or place additional requirements at the least on -- on the permit. So that's I think in my conversation with tom nuckols, that was one of the area, the grounds for -- for additional requirements and discretionary actions that we could take is one of the area that's he wanted to hit in our document that we would submit.
>> bring it on.
>> that's the motion and second. Any more discussion? So we will have it back on next week to review?
>> we will try to get that by Friday.
>> Friday? Okay.
>> so you will have some time to review.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
>> thank you. Thank you.
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.
Last Modified:
Wednesday, January 19, 2005 8:11 AM