Travis County Commissioners Court
June 19, 2007
Item 13
Number 13, consider and take appropriate action for plat and recording on precinct one, lehne addition. Is that how you pronounce that?
>> I would like to -- in fact I would like to
>> [indiscernible] until we are able to thoroughly investigate what is happening here. It areas appears right now from this land usage, it's close to barbara jordan school. You have the subdivision and you have the
>> [indiscernible] school in close process siment, and you have -- proximity, and you have the elementary school, in close proximity. And what this particular use apparently for this particular property is under some company called sun coast inc. And they are a major chemical lubricant production company, and this area where they want to deal with this on a 55-acre lot site is adjacent to the entities I just mentioned. What I do not want to see happen is the creation of another tank farm scenario as we experienced where we actually were involved and shut down six major oil companies on the corner of spring dale and the boulevard in east Austin. This is still something that is being looked at I understand and this is what this particular company does, and this is what the proposed use of this particular property is going to be. And this is on slopes, it's on critical environmental area, and it's also infringes upon the wetlands. And so not only the populace but also the environmental aspect of what we are looking at that -- it has made me very nervous. And the community needs to know about this. Of course, we have continued to fight for quality of life issues and it just appears that we are going to have to continue to fight. So staff, if you will, I would like to ask you guys what is the latest and the greatest on this and could you go ahead and elaborate on what is going on here? Thank you.
>> well, first of all, Commissioner, we do not review for land uses. We review for the subdivision standards adopted by the Commissioner court. You know we do not have land use authority. So we are basically looking at the quality of the streets being put in, the drainage requirements and we would not recommend something to the Commissioners court that did not meet the count standards. That is not that you don't have a legitimate issue, but it's not something that we review for when we get such an application.
>> what is the plan? What is this project, I saw the general description but what is planned.
>> what is planned is there is going to be six fuel tanks and they are going to -- they are going to store and district fuel and lubricants to their clients. This project was reviewed under title 30 and so it has the city of Austin site of the single office reviewed the environmental com exoant and before -- component and before any site plan is issued it would be reviewed by tceq as well.
>> and where is the plant.
>> right next to a residential area of johnny morris road, right on the curve as you're headed south on johnny morris, where it takes a sharp curve right at the top of the hill.
>> this is a duplicate almost of the issue we had when we dealt with the shut down and closure of those major tank farms. Right adjacent to neighborhoods where we just enabled them to experience odors and the pollution in the air and undergroundwater contamination, the plumes that was expended through through-put uferts, and when you fill them up and transport out of there, it ends up in the water table and ends up what you call a plume, which is migrating. And we are talking about on whitney. And I would like to look into more detail on this, and if the city of Austin is promoting and trying to push something like this down the county's throat -- which I don't think they would end up doing -- we need to look at that because we don't want to repeat of this tank farm scenario as we had in the early 90's. So we need to alert the community what is going forward so we can prepare ourselves to look at this and see what we can do about it. Now, my question, is this is located in the city's etj, does the city have any other authority other than this single one-top -- one-stop shop where they share site plans with Travis County or do they have any other authority as far as land use is concerned that the county does not have, and senate bill 1690 it's unfortunately went up in flames and burned which would have given Travis County land use authority which we don't have now. So my question is, does the city have any authority since this comes up under -- what is in the city's etj, do we have any land use authority within their etj.
>> do not have zoning authority outside the corporate limits.
>> okay.
>> you the applicant?
>> alderson, I'm the engineer for the applicant, representing them. From the standpoint of this hearing, this is for the subdivision process, however you can answer some of the questions that Commissioner Davis has brought up. This is a class-a facility that is going in, sun coast resources is actually the number three petroleum distributor in the united states, and it's a minority owned distributorship, owned for 22 years and they do have a contract for refuelling services --
>> so you do business with the city of Austin.
>> and they also do the transportation of the diesel and biodiesel for Travis County, they are the only authorized districters or delivery services for that. And they are also in part of the state of Texas, fema program, for supplying petroleum products during emergencies. And let me look at this. As again I've said, this company has also been noticed as one of the top companies in houston as well as in the united states for minority owned businesses --
>> that ain't much, when you say houston, it's polluted there in houston, and it got so bad -- but go ahead.
>> and the site, johnny morris road, there is the other distributorship in Travis County, which I'm not sure -- flint hills resources. So this is in the same general area. What sun coast does have is all of the applications we are talking about, the petroleum and the storage of biodiesel all have to have tcq approvals prior to the installation of the tanks and beyond that sun coast actually uses their above-ground storage tanks exceed the requirements by the tceq.
>> where are you operating from today?
>> right now they are operating off of -- it's east --
>> we'll need to get you up here on mic.
>> can you come up here and identify yourself for us, please? Appreciate that.
>> where are your current operations.
>> I'm mark childers, the general manager in Austin for sun coast, and we are operating on caesar chavez, and we bought this acreage out on johnny morris road because it was advantageous to be close to the pipeline that comes into corpus christi. That is where they moved the tank farm that you were talking about Commissioner Davis, and I share your exact sendments about what happened over there at spring dale road. Let me clarify one item if I can. This is not a tank farm --
>> what is it?
>> this is a warehousing facility where we sell prepackaged oils and lubricants and we are only going to be stored 120,000 gallons of gasoline or diesel, a small quantity of fuel, and only for emergency purposes. We are not going to have big tanks like what you're visualizing --
>> and when I found out that it was six tanks -- six tanks and you see, the point is -- let me say this to you. The gasoline storage tank farm at airport and spring dale was on a 52-acre site tract, and you had six major oilcompanies operating there, using through-put and you had several tanks there, several big large tanks, citco, chevron, mobile and texaco of course was the last to leave when they shut them down and thank goodness we had the county attorney working with us at that time. When they shut down, some of the complaints -- those above-ground tanks spewing and spurting that whatever, unwelcome component into the watershed and into the underground aquifer, and it just destroyed an aquifer over there. Now, this has wetlands and stuff like that and when I heard about the six fuel tanks being proposed, that raised a red flag and it's going to stay raised for me until I investigate what is going on here, and the community needs to be a part of this big time. For sure, we do not want to create -- what is the remaining 45 acres going to be used for.
>> only about four more acres would be developed for a place to work on our trailers and the rest will be left undeveloped, sir. The partial between the neighborhood and where we are developing way over to the north property line is -- along that north property line is the only belt -- there won't be anything over there by the neighborhood. And let me just clarify one thing on the tanks. Because I know we get the images of these million-gallon tanks like on spring dale. These are not the round big tanks. These are 20,000-gallon tanks like the city has on top lane. It's that sized tank, and those are 12,000 and these are 20,000 gallon, and they are about eight foot tall and they have an insulation between the inner and the outer wall. And three of those tanks would fit right here in this room. They are not the huge tanks you're visualizing and I understand your concern, but these are double wall tanks and will have leak detection and monitors -- I mean, this is a top-notch --
>> I have heard all of that before, and believe me, I have heard enough to last me a lifetime, I could write a book about it, but I would like to have an opportunity to investigate thoroughly because the same things you're telling me now, I have a list of things still in my head of what the folks said they were going to do and it didn't happen, and a lot of that could have been prevented and it didn't happen, and it was two different agencies and we got all kind of misinformation and misleading information on the performance of those operations and that still hasn't cleared my mind yet. What I'm trying to suggest is I would like to have thoroughly -- to have the community look at this and let the community know what's coming but for sure coming next to a residential area with schools and children and dealing with chemicals and all of these other things as far as the other things that you do, I just think it needs to be thoroughly investigated so folks with have a look at this. And environment -- regardless of whoever owns property, I don't think anyone has a right to destroy and override things as far as our environment. I think the environment is very important and wet lands --
>> I agree 100%. I was born in Austin.
>> and I was, too, thank goodness --
>> let me ask a question here, sir. So do we have a picture that sort of describes the project? I'm looking at this but we need something that is bit more layman friendly I guess, rather than engineer friendly. And it would have to have pictures of the storage tanks and if this is 58 acres it would help to see how you're going to use it, now, Commissioner, have you asking for one week or two --
>> two --
>> let me fish --
>> thank you, judge. Thank you.
>> I will have a list of legal questions for counsel after today, and we'll need to discuss those when we come back in two weeks.
>> and, judge, pictures of the storage tanks and a layman's depiction of how you would use your 58 acres out here. Now, are there standards governing how close to residences these storage facilities can be?
>> there are in this specific location, the standards would be from the tcqeq and the fire marshall's office, and as proposed, all of the development would sit on the north edge of the properties and between the single-family subdivision and our site is where one of the stock tanks that the city has declared a critical wetlands feature and we are not going to encroach on that.
>> all right, how we are complying or not at our next meeting.
>> also, it would be good to know -- you know, one of the things that I recall, especially when they was bringing in jet fuel to supply from this tank farm facility, one of the things we did in approaching and I recall was the pipeline itself and the distance it has to come to try to get fuel here. You mentioned this is not the only place that this pipe line goes. There are other locations where you can hook up to the pipeline, am I correct.
>> well --
>> am I correct or incorrect.
>> well --
>> am I correct or incorrect.
>> well, I really don't understand the question.
>> you located there because you said the pipe line coming from --
>> no, sir.
>> what did you say.
>> glenn hills, when -- which is where everyone within 150-mile radius, where all of the trucks go to get their fuel, there is one rack, and on spring dale they store 4 million gallons not 120,000 gallons in those tanks, the same type of tanks that leaked on spring dale --
>> and since it's coming from corpus, that means to me there are other locations between here and there that you can hook into --
>> we are not going to hook into the pipe line.
>> where are you going to --
>> we are going to go here, you have to pull from this on a day to day basis, and if the rack is down or the city or county has an emergency or we have to dispatch immediately for the state of Texas a responder for providing fuel for the hurricane evacuation on the coast line, we were the only oil and gas company that responded in a manner that fema found acceptable to hurricane katrina and rita. That is how they came to know us, and the small quantities we are going to be storing is for when the rack may be down and we need to make 7,000 gallons to the city or the county or others. It's a very small quantity, and I promise you in the coming weeks you will see that the fuel we are storing is no more than three times what Travis County stores at some of their sites right now in underground tanks or the city of Austin in above ground tanks.
>> so yours are underground or above ground.
>> above ground, and they are state of the art fire tanks. You could set one of these next to the governor's mansion and also be legal in the city of Austin. It's a double guard -- it's not just a tank that can have a leak and start leaking, it's a state of the art tank --
>> and if we want to drive, can you give us a location. Is there one up presently.
>> todd lane, 3408 I believe, it's the wastewater -- the sanitation facility for the city of Austin. They have two of the 12,000-gallon tanks that I'm talking about.
>> well, as I said, I would like to investigate this thoroughly. I don't know who you are. I do know that I have got to protect the quality of the life for the residents in eastern Travis County and I'm going to do that as long as I'm here --
>> absolutely.
>> but, again, there may be some things -- I don't know what is coming out of this. You got a 55-acre site there and it scares the heck out of me, and a 55-acre site and you say you only need this portion, but it appears to me there may be expansion there in the future, you don't purchase a 55-acre --
>> maybe like 12 acres.
>> well, maybe we need a restrictive cof nont, and I don't know -- covenant, and I don't know what the neighbors are going to come up with, but they are going to come up with something and I want to get the input from the community --
>> is flint hills located at the --
>> yes, sir, that is the new name for it.
>> flint hills and coke.
>> yes, sir. So should they contact you --
>> you hope y'all contact my office,
>> [indiscernible] we are going to notify the neighbors and I guess staff, be ready and available because there are going to be a lot of environmental
>> [indiscernible] coming out of this especially when you have this located on slopes and when you own slopes it's a drainage situation and wetlands, you're talk critical environmental areas. So we have a big deal here, and we just don't want to create another tank farm. That is ridiculous.
>> let's see what the city of Austin's take is. You said they approved this?
>> they reviewed the plan and the environmental side and looked at all of the things they do as a part of title 30 which has the same environmental components built in as in the land codes for within the city limits or over barton springs.
>> we may have to post this for July 3. Give us a chance to talk with legal counsel. And appreciate you all coming down.
>> 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, June 20, 2007 8:59 PM