Travis County Commissioners Court
June 28, 2005
Item 40
Number 40 is to consider and take appropriate action on Travis County comments to the Texas commission on environmental quality regarding proposed revisions to the municipal solid waste rules, 30 tac, chapter 330, particularly as it pertains to the passage of hb 1609. Do we need tom nuckols?
>> I think we can do it without him.
>> okay.
>> judge, this was -- is the action hopefully if the court decides to approve this, an action predicated on an early action that the Commissioners court had taken when we, the court, unanimously voted to ask the governor to veto house bill 1609. Because of the severity of it as far as public input and public participation as far as the public hearing type of format. And, of course, there is an opportunity to make requests and comments through the rules aspect of the tceq, so I’m going to let john, if he doesn't mind, go through what that impact is looking at the chapter 30 tac and go from there.
>> yes, sir. Good morning, john kuhl, environmental officer, t.n.r. I just wanted to I guess roughly tell you there are a number of rule comment processes going on that relate to solid waste within chapter 330 of the Texas administrative code. You know, there are a number of these and they are fairly complex. It's a pretty big body of regulations that's going on, review process that's going on there, and so after looking at all of those different processes that are going on, I felt like it was probably the most logical approach to just give them a general comment that relates to 1609 and let them decide within all of these different changes going on where they thought it would be most appropriate to put that. That's what you see in front of you is basically a general notice commentary from the Commissioners court of Travis County saying that, you know, we feel a bit nervous about the changes that this act has brought about and we feel like that it potentially threatens, you know, the credibility of the notification process that goes to the constituents in our county, and we would like for you to just keep this in mind. If you look at the body of the act or the bill, rather, 1609, house bill 1609, it kind of gets down to two primary areas where it allows the executive director to have the leeway to decide whether or not they are going to hold public meetings on, you know, permits that have to do with landfills. Landfill expansions. You know, sludge, land application sites, sludge composting sites. Those are just example, but it's a wide variety of solid waste facilities that would be new or expansions. And it turns on two basic requirements. The first being whether or not a legislator in the project area requests a public meeting. If they request the public meeting, then fine, it will happen. Second, the other decision point is whether or not there is substantial public interest. And that is sort of a term of art that is not defined in the body of regulations and so we are making basically recommendations in this letter that fit those two threshold requirements. The elected official notification is pretty straightforward, it would seem; however, there are times when those busy elected officials miss certain things or don't appreciate the significance to the neighbors or county or municipality. What we're saying is because that can happen, it actually makes the notification process to the local constituency that much more important because typically the legislators respond to their constituents and will ask for public meetings when they are asked for by the constituents. So what we're saying is that just makes it even more important now that we get that on the ground to the actual constituents in the community. Two ways that we suggest they do that are by -- the typical process right now is that the county judge receives notice of these types of permits and actions, but only after they are deemed administratively complete. The legislators, on the other hand, are notified about the executive director as soon as that application comes in. We're simply saying perhaps shorten that time frame and allow the local officials that same additional quick notice that the legislators get -- that gives you a jump start and the ability to notify staff and community and so forth. The second way is to require additional notification from the applicant themselves. Ask that -- right now basically they are required to mail out a notice to folks within a half mile. What we're saying is increase that, particularly if you know that it's in a fairly urban setting and there are subdivisions within a mile or two miles. And I think that that is a reasonable request because that can be put on the shoulders of the applicant as opposed to the tceq. And they can literally drive around and hand out flyers or post really nice signs or what have you. We'll leave the details of how they make that suggestion to the applicant up to the agency. Second, the major category of significant public interest -- or substantial public interest, rather. What we're suggesting there is that they simply define what that is. What is substantial public interest. And perhaps in their body of regs they can say that substantial public interest might be defined as a local elected official requesting a public meeting. A council or government requesting a public meeting. The homeowners or property owners association requesting a public meeting. Or just throwing out a number, more than six residents and/or businesses requesting a public meeting. So we're just outlining enhanced ways of getting the word out in this letter. The time frame is pretty quick on us. They've been very open about taking commentary on 330 in particular and 305.70. This is the third set of khepbts that they've entertained and they are trying to shut the process down by July 8th. So we just want to -- we've got a little time but not much. That's all i've got. If you all have any questions or if you would like changes, I would be happy to make shows and we can get them back out within the day.
>> the residents that I spoke to, a group, the east Travis County concerned citizens which comprised of many folks over in eastern Travis County along 969 route and areas over there along with other significant groups in the precinct 1 area are very much concerned about this, and I think as an end result, I think there was even a press conference that was conducted here a little bit ago protesting the government not signing, you know, not vetoing the hb 1609. The concern is because it just appears the way things have gone on over there that the limited public participation would be a travesty because of the influx of unwanted landfill or other type of operations, sludge farm and all of the other things basically located east of ih-35. So it would definitely be a concern for the persons in that area and I applaud the court nor unanimously supporting the opposition to house bill 1605 which we sent a letter at that time asking him, governor perry, to veto that particular bill. However, he didn't, he did not veto it, and of course this is one way of combining what we intended to do and that is to further maybe another avenue to look at the rules through the tceq to ensure that the comment period they will allow us to comment are still open to us to comment. And so this is basically the intent of this letter is for this brief comment period which Travis County hopes to get this reported will allow this to go through tceq along with [inaudible] that are coming from different sources through the community.
>> second.
>> so I move approval of this particular item.
>> motion basically is go ahead and submit the comments to tceq?
>> right. And one thing that I wanted to let you know is that it's addressed to dr. Richard car ichael and he has basically been put in charge of all the rule making changes. I think it's going to the appropriate person and it's generally worded so that he can take the nuts and bolts of that and put it wherever he thinks it makes the most sense.
>> and since the legislature is back in session even under a special session type scenario, that means that the Travis County delegation is readily available, and if it's at all possible I would like to include in the motion that this particular motion be sent to the Travis County delegation since they are mentioned here as far as legislative requests and other things that are tied into this particular letter. It does suggest that the legislative members would have a role in what we're doing here as far as the type of requests. So if possible, i'd like to see that this particular letter gets in the hands of our Travis County delegation.
>> i've made that note.
>> is that friendly, Commissioner Gomez?
>> yes.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 28, 2005 5:23 PM