Travis County Commissioners Court
February 1, 2005
Citizens Communication
I bet pam thompson is not. And she's here with stefan ray?
>> right.
>> y'all have a video, should we run it now. We have a full three minutes apiece.
>> thank you, my name is pam thompson of icon media, we -- we made a documentary of the construction at the lowe's site for s.o.s. And we want to show that now. If you would run that video that would be helpful. What you are looking at is little Barton Creek, just adjacent to the lowe's construction site. And the -- in the village of bee cave. This is the creek, if you can see that, under normal conditions, where there's greenery, this is the construction phase where they are tearing council the trees. You can see that it's pretty dense there. They are tearing down a lot of trees, so that the effect on the creek from the cleared area is much greater than when it was -- when it was -- before it was cleared. So -- so they have been cited by the tceq as -- as -- unauthorized discharge into a waterway. This is the rain fall event, the date is there, I don't know if you can see it, it's October the 2nd. You might remember that we had some really incredible rainfall events, but this one, on October the 2nd, we went at 5:30 in the morning, is -- is within the canement of what their site should have held. The discharge. You can see that the silt fences did not hold. Now, that night was -- was Monday night and it -- it rained a lot that evening. So in the 24-hour period, if you look at the rainfall totals, it might be misleading. But they were within their containment parameters, you can see that the construction did not hold. This is what came off of the site and went down the ravine. There's the ravine, there's the site above, then there's the -- the water coming off the site and then it goes -- it's flowing down into little Barton Creek. So -- so at different times there's been been -- more, a lot more water coming down and the -- the controls did not hold. So there's little Barton Creek. As you just saw it, clear and now it's totally cloudy. Because of this construction, it's a plume out into the water.
>> the whole thing is cloudy because -- because -- okay. So we are on a different date now. The silt fences are still overflowing. So this is November 17th. In is after they -- after the tceq went out, you can see that they now have red, taller structural controls in place, they were simply overtopped by the amount of rainfall. This is the sediment, this is December -- what date was this? The 11th. It is showing that there is a lot of sediment on the rocks. And -- and the -- the plants and vegetation in the rocks were totally covered by the sediment there. I'm writing on some of the rocks and -- and I'm writing boycott lowe's because we are very concerned with the fact that they seem to be not -- not paying attention to this.
>> now, Saturday of the video footage that we have taken, we have submitted it to the tceq. The tceq has done two investigations of the shops at the galleria. One was on November 17th that was completed, the other one was januar 21st. The first investigation concluded that there were alleged violations of unauthorized discharges. The second one, on January 21st, concluded that there were unauthorized discharges and that there were four events that have been documented and that the matter is being referred to as consideration for formal enforcement. The -- the one report on January 21st is -- is dealing with -- with unauthorized discharges on October 2nd, October 22nd, November 17th, and November 22nd. Again, this is -- this is at the shops at the galleria site on the south side of highway 71 in the village of bee cave. On the north side we want to build the gallonry yarks the shops at the galleria. What we would like in addition to the tceq taking a look at what's going on out there. We would like the county to be involved. We would like the county to be involved with enforcement and oversight and we are particularly wanting to know what the process is for -- for getting the county involved and would like to see some of the issues resolved on the south side of highway 71 before they start any construction on the north side on -- on the galleria side of that. We -- we can get you copies of these two reports. I don't know if -- if anyone in the county has -- has collaborated yet or worked with tceq investigators on this or -- so we would like to know who would be the appropriate people to give these reports to. And so -- so but -- but again, I think what our -- what our goal is, is to see what the county can be doing and -- in this instance. I know they think that the bond project had to get county approval initially. I'm wondering what kind of follow-up the county can do to go back and take a look at this.
>> I think the best thing is they sent us a letter in which you ask whatever questions that you want, make whatever requests you feel appropriate and we can can respond to them. Why don't we do that. Remind me, is this in the city of Bee Caves or in the unincorporated area.
>> it's in the village of Bee Caves.
>> yeah, within the city limits. That section of little Barton Creek is.
>> that may pose legal problems for us, but if you would send a letter to any member of the court, really, including me, and on what you have there, if you will get with -- with my office or any court member's office, we can get copies and give those to the court as well as the county attorney's office and get back with you on what we think --
>> you want us to include both of these tceq reports with the letter?
>> may as well, since you have them here.
>> okay.
>> yeah, we'll make sufficient copies for court members and county attorney and whatever specific questions or requests that you have, just put those in the letter and we'll get back with you.
>> okay.
>> give us a couple or three days, we will be happy to do it.
>> one more thing that I wanted to say, their contributing zone zzp was not on site there. We went through the process at the village of bee cave and documented that on videotape. They came in at the last minute with an improved one. We are not sure if what they built was the improved version that they promised everybody when it was approved and that was of great concern to us. So the site plans have been put, there but the contractor did not have access to those when it's just been a sort of a mess. And so we want some help sorting it is all.
>> thanks a lot. Thank you all.
>> now, is bishop duke lower on a matter on the agenda or for citizens communication?
>> it's a matter --
>> [inaudible - no mic]
>> farmers market.
>> okay.
>> we'll be there shortly. Anybody else for citizens communication that's for any item not on the agenda? Any item not on the agenda?
>> okay.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, February 2, 2005 9:40 AM