Travis County Commissioners Court
April 1, 2008
Item 20
>> item number 20 is to the receive presentation regarding bee creek erosion event from Travis County residents and take appropriate action. I believe there is video presentation.
>> we have a monitor. I talked to al. He was going to come in and plug it in.
>> I知 sure al is headed this way.
>> I知 sure he is listening to us...
>> we're kind of beyond the one moment. All right...
>> looks more like Travis County Commissioners court than bee creek.
>> there you go.
>> all right.
>> these maps will kind of help us understand where we are as we go through.
>> thank you.
>> went away again.. . . . .
>> good morning. I知 christy mewes, a resident of southwest Travis County. Good to see you all. Thank you so much for your time. Bill, we're in the on the screen let's see. Okay. I had a little slide up there because I wanted to show how beautiful reimers ranch was. That's my kids on the require last weekend. Just amazing out there of the important your time. Wealthd to come down and talk to you a little bit about bee creek. Particularly the pollution and destruction happening in the watershed right now. I知 going to bring you up to speed very quickly with just a couple of slides and then my neighbor here bill is going to take you on a tour of the creek. Just to refresh your memory, we started coming down to talk to you about sweetwater back in 2004 in June. Sit --citizens came down to talk about traffic safety and water quality. I appreciate all the work being done to try to catch up on the traffic issues out there. We're really here to talk to you today about water quality. When the preliminary approval for the first section of sweetwater was granted it was stated in court that all future sections were going to adhere to new subdivision rules. That didn't happen. The staff was directed to work on new rules to address the very real threat this project and future projects like it would likely impose on water quality. Regret fully that was too late. Water quality rules were brought to you by the staff for approval on March 1 and March 8 of 2005. It wasn't until June of 2005 that the rules were finally passed. This was too late to make a difference for sweetwater, which was declared administratively complete on March 14 of 2005. The final approval for sweetwater happened on may 23 of 2006. There was a lot of testimony, a lot of citizens here, as you may remember, pleading with you to consider the traffic issues and water quality issues. One of the final pieces of testimony was a quote by hydrologist raymond slade, known as an expert. Raymond said the developer presented no details to demonstrate they can obtain water quality. There are so many things that are just ifs, safety valves for the developer, and really no safety valves here for us, meaning the community. There's no protection here for the community, is what raymond said. But moments later the project was approved. Now we're four years later. April of 2008. Sweetwater is under construction. Road construction within the development is at full steam. Huge chunks of hillside have been carved out and replaced with mountains of fill. 11 lives have been lost on the stretch of road. Three teachers killed as the car was slammed by a truck. Home marketing has slowed to a halt and every significant rain sends another layer of sediment down bee creek. I知 going to interest you to bill cahill, one of my neighbors.
>> thank you. I知 bill cahill, a home owner on bee creek road 3409 bee creek road. I also own add joining land that goes down to the creek itself. We talked about rainfall and its effect going through the sweetwater subdivision. I知 going to take you through four efforts, one in mid August, one in late August of 2007, again one in September, and one recently on 3-18 of 2008. I知 going to take you on, this is kind of the tour map. Starting with the basis with the lcra bee creek watershed assessment in December of 2004, they did a nice job of laying out each section of the creek, having something to say about it as well as some photographs. Because we have photographs from each of the events. It takes you upstream from beginning point at the travis settlement park and will go all the way up through sweetwater to beyond that. That the kind of the level set. This is a map you have in front of you. The cameras on that map show the point where the various lcra photographs were taken. Here we in July of 2007 at the settlement park. You can see it's quite clear. You can see the people's legs, the young children under the water there. Another view, another resident enjoying the park. You can see clearly that's about a five-foot deep pool. You can clearly see the bottom of it and the water is running clear. The lime stone has no sediment evident on it. Problems began with the construction runoff. First observed August 17. Laura broki talked about the very heaviy rain and the accident that evening and we became quite tent--attentive to what was going on we also talked to some folks, including john white, who took a look. His observation was we had a water quality issue, attributable to erosion and sediment quality controls inadequate at the bridge construction site at that time. I値l take you back to the travis settlement park. On the picture on the left, in in the back you can see some of the rocks under the surface of the water. The water is very clear. After the rains in August you can see that the water is know opaque. You can see from the picture on the left that in July of '07 water was running clear. The lime stone is clear. 30th of August you can see the sediment covering the lime stone at that point. Going to move down the creek a little bit to point 8, photo 8 on the chart. Still north of 71. Once again moving upstream in the creek. Neil spell, who also lives on the creek, looking at how murky the water has become, silt filled, can't really see as clearly as you could in what should be a pristine creek. November 1 and 2 the hazel sanchez, who is here with me, my lovely spouse, also observed this as we canoed upstream and pointed this out in a message to judge Biscoe, Commissioner Daugherty, county attorney, asking that something be done to address the runoff pollution occurring and coming down the creek. Once again, January 28, laura notes a very high level of algane accumulating, build-up of sediment, and we were concerned about that because of the impact on the creek as it runs through the homes and where the association maintenance a park. Going down to the location of the photo 9 a rapids and sharp bends there in bee creek. These are the lc a --lcra, water quality despite turbulent flow. In November of 2007 we were concerned about the mountains of dirt present on the site. We were told they were looked at and mounds of dirt on the site were stable and runoff would not happen again. Moving to photo 10, further upstream, now closer to 71. You can see that bee creek flows in this place, a resistant ledge of lime stone. The photo on the right taken on 3-18 shows the same area completely murky with lime stone sediment. In the next picture, just upstream of highway 71, bee creek meets an unnamed tributary from the north that drains an area nearly as large as the main stem of the creek. If you look at the map on the left, that tributary is the one that has the two camera shots on it and pretty much parallels the south of 71. I知 going to be calling that the eastern tributary of bee creek. You can also see the large area of the bee creek watershed that it drains. Most of that lying in sweetwater ranch. This was one of the first very alarming pictures that I saw, which on September 11 clearly shows the suspended particulate matter at the conflicts of that trib tore I described, flowing across 71 in front of the sweetwater ranch and the main branch of bee creek. You see the east tributary flowing in completely milky and murky with the sediment runoff. The main creek at that time in September is flowing clear as they merge and continue downstream. On September 18, once again we went back, excuse me, March 18, which is just last month, looking at the confluence of the eastern tributary and the main channel, this is looking upstream at the eastern tributary back towards sweetwater ranch. You can see the cloudiness and murkiness obviously persists there. More disturbing, if you look up the main branch you can see the main creek is flowing with sediment and suspended particulate matter primarily because the construction has moved further across the subdivision as the roads, bridges and cuts are made to expand the subdivision to the creek as well as across the creek to their location there. We can see here, this is the main branch of the creek south of 71, which is upstream of the confluence. These two, the eastern tributary meets bee creek actually a little bit north of 71 and now we're south. We're also up the main branch, upstream of the con flounce for the eastern tributary. You can see the further upstream you get the closer you are to the construction and the more dense the sediment becomes. Now we're moving across and under 71 on the eastern tributary. You can see where the camera is now moving across the southern edge of 71 there and going east. This picture is lcra photo 11, which you can see on the map, showing a shallow pool, obviously, quite clear. Both in August 29 of '07 and September 11 of '07 you can see the water breaches and sediment traps on the eastern tributary south of the 71 bridge. Water flowing through those traps, also running quite dense with sediment and runoff. Same position persists this last month on 3-18 a picture of the sediment in the east tributary south of the 71 bridge, but also in the upstream area of the am and g construct, also constructing on the creek. It was possible they could be contributing that. But you can see we're well jupupstream of their site and the water is still quite densely sediment atted. Another example, moving across that area. Looking at the eastern tributary south of 71. We reach a point at photo 12 about halfway across the frontage of sweetwater ranch, a small branch that feeds under the highway and drains into the tributary. You can see how clearly it was flowing and how picturesque the point was in 2004. You can see how that area looked two weeks ago. Moving further down, now slightly downstream of the summit parkway bridge. Creek continues to flow nearly white at that point. This picture shows some sediment barriers over the eastern tributary. You can note the steep slopes in the picture, numerous control structures. However, the final barrier is ineffective and is allowing runoff into the eastern tributary.
>> that is a color picture?
>> it was a cloudy day.
>> okay.
>> upstream of sweetwater on the same date, 3-18, the water is running clear. Just as it would have appeared in 2004. It is now above, the water flow is above the construction at sweetwater ranch. Another picture of how clear the stream was upstream on that date, March 18. In summary, you can see that sweetwater flows downstream. You can see in December of 2004 in the lcra settlement it's running clear. You can see in September, picture in August, picture from cement, the effect of the pollution, you can see two weeks ago, it's complete in that area of bee creek. This is a picture taken from the dirt road east of the pedernales summit parkway which is the source of the pollution and destruction of the bee creek watershed. Numerous piles of crushed lime stone taken from the various faces so the roads can go through as well as extended areas of bear dirt and land. When the project was approved, y'all, I appreciate that, Commissioners and judge we wanted to keep this area under observation and control, didn't want it to create the same problems that have happened in the past in other creeks in areas under development in west Travis County. Also that was approved with the understanding that if they did have problems, that they would stop the project and do what needs to be done to get those problems fixed. I知 here today, okay, to ask you to do just that. Recommendations would be to shut down the construction at the sweetwater ranch immediately and put in effective environmental controls to protect the watershed. Require native education upon all disturbed lands. There's a great surface area of open dirt on the site. There are huge piles, I知 not sure how many cubic feet, yards or acres of dirt is just being stored in huge piles on the site. We move those piles, replace them where their final fill place would be and cover them. Also, clean up bee creek. Bee creek has now been, in these rain events, covered with sediment from sweetwater ranch to its mouth at Lake Travis. We'd like and request that it be restored to it preconstruction condition. Also, I think this area while, as homeowners and residents of the area, we're very concerned, we go out and put on our boots and take these pictures but I think responsibly we should have independent water quality monitoring of the area at the developer's expense, because they are the source of the issue, so that we can continually monitor these conditions and make sure that once it's fixed and cleaned up, that these conditions do not reoccur. I thank you very much nor your time.
>> thank you for your time.
>> if we were to go out there right now, what would we see in bee creek?
>> in bee creek? You would see a murky, where I live, you would see a murky creek. As you go upstream as the lime stone emerges from the waters, they would be covered in sediment. As you went further upstream, closer you get to sweetwater, in any of the ponds and flowing streams you see increasing amounts of particulate matter in the creek.
>> not a lot of water in the creek. Very low.
>> a lot of lime stone deposited there from upstream. When the water flows, it would become the beautiful creek that we all enjoy and are quite proud of, the particulate becomes suspended again and you get a very cloudy creek.
>> okay. I know county staff has been out there several times, almost after each rain event, during the last couple years. We sort of exclanged e-mails. John.
>> good morning, I have in fact been out there on numerous occasions the observe the conditions of the creek especially after the rainfall event and to look at the erosion sedimentation controls that have been put in place by the developers. So you would like, I can give you a very brief sin off assist of what synopsis of what we have sin out there. Between middle of August and September there were about three significant rainfall events, each one resulting in some substantial discharge of murky water down the creek. When we looked at where the confluence of the tributary, it was noticeable during the rain events that upstream the creek, bee creek itself was flowing very clear, and then there was this murky stuff coming in off the sweetwater development. We had our own inspectors and also staff from lcra and tceq out there with us. Lcra has been particularly involved with this and helping us in terms of evaluating erosion and sedimentation controls. At our request and at the request of lcra, the developers implemented a lot of erosion and sedimentation controls. These consisted of extensive use of di versions so that you are controlling the up, one of the principal sources of difficulty in a site like this is when you have upstream flow coming down into the construction site. You want to be able to divert that so it doesn't impact the construction site. Then within the site you want to try to break up the area so you don't have extensive areas exposed and subject to erosionment so we got them to put in di version berms, retention structures, and the like. We really focused on isolating the stream crossings because that was the focus of the impact. What we were seeing was all this material being washed down by roadway systems down into the creek. Then would you have had huge discharge right there. Now, to understand the extent of the discharge clearly you see the pictures, very turbid and muckmilky looking. The scope of the amount of sediment is probably not on the same sort of scope as we saw in other places. However, downstream from this site there are areas where the rock is extensively covered with a thin pa tina of sediment and then pockets throughout the creek with pockets of sediment collected in the bottom. Subsequent to each of the rain events August through September, we had meetings on site, stepsive modifications were done to the erosion and sedimentation controls, until we finally felt like we had a system there place that was going to work. Then we didn't have any rain event until middle of March. By that time it seems that some of the attention to detail had been lost. So when we had another significant rain event again, we had a discharge of turbid water into the creek. In each of these, in the latter instances, I would have to say in fairness, within hours of the initial discharge, water flowing through the creeks coming down out of sweetwater was clear. It was just that initial flush of material causing the problem. What we have here is sort of a cun undrum. On the one hand, residents are looking at bee creek which in their experience has been this clear wonderful pristine body of water. On the other hand we have the developers who are trying to carry out a development project, trying to control erosion and sediment.
>> but failing.
>> I would say that is correct. At least failing to some degree. Any kind of development under the current model in which we do development in the hill country proposes a lot of problems. Topography, erosion, rainfall that comes and basically erosion generating rainfall events. The creeks themselves are very clear under their natural conditions, but when you've got these risk factors there's a high potential for getting a lot of sediment and turbidity in the water. On the one hand we have folks who really have zero tolerance for degrattedation of the creek and on the other hand the pressure of development. The past model of development in the area has been basically wide open. You just accept the fact when you're doing construction there's going to be mud in the water. I don't accept that. I think that the folks that are trying to, that are doing this development, have done a lot of things that we have asked to do.
>> does the water code accept that? That there's going to be mud in the water?
>> not exactly. The standards are somewhat ambiguous. I think that the events that you have seen represented in those photographs would clearly represent violations. The extent of protections that have been put into place are laudable but they have not been as effective as we might like to see. They have been far greater than what we have seen in other developments in the area. There's part of the conundrum that we are faced with a developer who has been very responsive. They have tried do things. They just haven't gotten it right a hundred percent. So swee have had with each rainfall, every significant rainfall event, we have had some discharge.
>> if we were to ask the question, what in addition should we ask the developer to do, what would be the answer?
>> we're really asking them to do what we have asked them to do, is to tighten their controls. Attention to detail. Almost on a daily basis so that they don't become complacent over a period of time. I think what we saw in the most recent event, over a period of time, the di versions and retention structures and all the rest of it put in place lost their effectiveness because other critical di versions and other critical stabilizations were allowed to lapse. Again, it's attention to detail. Tightening the controls. Recognizing that it can be done.
>> what teeth do we have to make it stick? What if they don't?
>> if they don't we can use the water code to take civil enforcement action.
>> if we just do this, tighten the controls and pay attention to the it on a daily basis does that clean up the creek? And how fast?
>> not going to clean up the creek. There will be natural clearing out over a period of time because of natural rainfall and south of scouring out of the sediment in there. Over a period of time there will be some relief. There will be some pockets where somebody is going to need to clean out the accumulated sediment. It's not going to happen except with extraordinary rainfall events. In the long material, once the rodeway construction is completed, hopefully the controls will be sufficient alone the roadways that there won't be this continuing, really the roadways are the source we are seeing right now as the big contributor to sediment in the creeks. Once those areas are stabilized we should have pretty good protection. Again it's attention to detail all the time. Not accepting that we simply have mud in the water every time we do construction.
>> I致e been looking here tent ofly --tentively this morning and over a period of years as far as protecting water quality, any site but within the county. Add --advocating for water protection. I think it's important that the sweetwater project, I didn't support it. But even that, I hear what staff is saying. I致e heard what the persons in the community are saying. I hear what the folks are saying just recently, March 11 of 2008, when this courthouse was full, talking about water quality for a landfill, possible landfill site next to webberville on a site owned by the city of Austin. And water quality was, of course, the issue there also, one of the issues of many on that particular site. Hearing what I知 hearing today, the developer of course, if I知 an understanding everything right, is really part of the problem as far as sediment being brought into and flowing into bee creek. Some of the same concerns about the city of Austin, whoever they end up dealing with on this same pristine precious site that has aquifer, flowing springs, all these other kind of amenities that you have mentioned today, question to me is water quality. There is no guarantees to protect it, especially after you let the cap out of the meaning that those things that we thought would be possible, as far as putting the sediment controls in place, erosion sediment controls, great idea, but at the end of the day it appears that it still has not taken care of the problem. And the problem being that it is degrad ating the water quality. And now I hear staff mentioning that if certain things aren't done accordingly, there are possibilities of enforcement on the water quality, I guess the code that deals with that, to ensure that things are beefed up enough to again protect water quality. We're being, I guess, reactive in a situation instead of being proactive. We're being more reactive, more so than proactive, more so than not. That's what's happening here in a lot of instances. Of course, under certain conditions, there are some things that we have to, I guess, approve by law, and there are things that I think we should really look into as far as making some changes. Proactive situations I think is the best remedy for a lot of things, to ensure that those things are in place way before things happen. Again, I want on make sure that everyone understands when this courthouse was packed and filled up on this past March 11, asking for the same thing, city of Austin not to go through what they are doing as far as the water quality on the east side, the same consideration should be allowed for the west side. I知 not going to deviate from my position whether east or west. I知 going to stay and stick with what I have consistently done, protect the water quality of all of Travis County. So again, here we are again, back to square one because of not proactive enough to take care of situation that we felt was going to happen anyway. And it did. That's where we are at this point. Just unfortunate that we have to be reactive in so many cases when we should be proactive in a lot of these instances. Thank you.
>> why don't we give the sweetwater representatives an opportunity to make any comments if you like. Certainly not required to, but you are here. In fairness, I think we ought to give you a chance to respond.
>> judge, I知 rike wheeler, we're engineers with the project. I do appreciate your invitatoin to make a few comments. A lot of the photos that we've seen today are photos that have been around for several months. They have been widely reviewed by officials here at the staff at Travis County and in particular at lcra, and those have been used as a basis to continually upgrade and improve the temporary erosion sedimentation control systems that were previously in place. And those that were greatly enhanced in September of last year. John white, I think, put it pretty well. It's quite a conundrum here that we are dealing with. The temporary sedimentation control system in place sweetwater, if it's not the most extensive put in anywhere in the county it's got to be in the top two or three. Extraordinary structures in place surrounding the stockpile material at all the bridge locations and all over the open areas exposed during construction. So sometimes it gets a little bit frustrating, I guess, because lcra inspectors are on site at least once a week, most times twice a week. They file reports with us every week. They give explicit directives and orders to the contractor on modifications and upgrades that need to be made to those temporary systems. Those are done immediately. Part of the system that we put in place in September was an agreement with the contractor that he is being paid for, through a change order being paid for by the developer, to have a crew on site every day that does nothing but clean up and repair the temporary erosion sedimentation control facilities that are on site. That is ongoing. That can be duly noted and identified by everybody working on site. It gets down to some very minute details. John would maintain that he thinks that those alleged discharges would indeed be violations. I don't agree with that. There's nothing in the water code that says that a construction site cannot have a single bit of discharge. Just not there.
>> that's not what he was asserting, mr. Wheeler. I think we know that.
>> I understand. There's no construction site anywhere that does not have some sort of discharge of potential sediment or fines after any rain event. It's impossible to have a construction site that actually has zero runover. Just doesn't happen. We would assert this is probably the best controlled site that has ever happened in western Travis County. Certainly not satisfactory to the residents that are downstream who have a totally different opinion, and I respect that opinion. I would also point out that the tributary, the eastern tributary that mr. Cahill kept referring to has a drainage area of about 1435 acres. Out of that 1435 acres, there are 250 acres on the north side of 71 that are totally uncontrolled by anybody. Out of that 250 acres, about 70 of that was recently subjected to construction by tex dot when they did the center late turn improvements and shoulder improvements that widen 71 in part for the sweetwater project and in part to improve the intersection at bee creek road. Tex dot used a simple system of silt fence only. That area has been marginally revenge vedge . It has nothing do with our construction.
>> what percentage would you say that would represent? Of the drainage, the sediment drainage.
>> of the turbidity?
>> what percent of the runoff, suspended particulate? You're saying that it's a contributing factor. I知 asking you what percentage do you think the tex dot construction is contributing?
>> we have approximately 60 acres under construction right now. They had about 70. I would just do simple math and say it's probably half and half.
>> for their single road? They were just working one road.
>> but they were doing all the shoulder improve ments and regrading down to the bar ditch.
>> on a slope?
>> yes.
>> with cut and fill?
>> yes. The other point I would also like to make is that indeed, there are some materials that have been temporarily stored on side currently being used as fill material in other parts of the construction. In the construction sequence, you have to do your cuts first. Just is the way, you have to have that material to be able to do the fill later on in order to meet the street and drainage design criteria for all the regulatory agencies that review and approve those. Indeed, there have been materials stored on site. Those are currently being used. I can't give you a specific date, but they will not be there for very much longer, as this roadway construction proceeds to an end.
>> when will you complete the roadway construction?
>> we should be completed with section one of the parkway by July.
>> okay. John made reference to tightening controls, attention to details, stuff of that nature. What's your response to the immediate consider --need to do that?
>> judge, my response would be one of john's inspectors was on site probably either the next day or day following, and he issued a report with photographs. Lcra inspectors were on site immediately following that rain event and they a report with photographs. They had a laundry list of items that they wanted to have, quote/unquote, tightened up and improved and all those were accomplished in probably less than three days. They have all been done.
>> the implication was that, and you've been good at doing that, but I guess there's a day-to die immediate to --to do --to do that, john, thereafter?
>> yes, it's a daily attention to detail . We all have a tendency to become complacent. There's a certain discipline I involved. The other problem is during the anne event you see the weaknesses of the system . Whenever there's a rain event there's probably going to be things you will discover that are new problems that had not otherwise been anticipated. So we have to be able to respond to those as quickly as we can.
>> my question would be if there is a rain event, wouldn't you have staff available to ensure that the protections in place in fact work? Y'all may do it already. If it's not raining it's one thing. If it starts raining, I guess you don't wait until after the rain. You go out there while the rain is coming down don't you, and see what effect it's having?
>> this is, think, an issue with erosion and sedimentation control during the construction phase not only here but all across the country. The standard is to go out after a significant rain event and repair things that need to be donement by then the damage is done. So what we have been trying do is get people out there as quickly as they can. In all honest ty, mr. Wheeler's group has been very responsive to shows kind of things. Commissioner Davis was earlier talking about being proactive. I would echo that we would like to be more proactive so that in the future what we want to be able to do is to guide the entire planning process of a development with erosion and sedimentation controls in mind right from the very beginning. In this instance, the real hazard through the whole thing, and we have seen in other projects as well, is road building. Our guidelines right now, the interim rules don't have a limit for cut and fill for roads. Oftentimes the case is made that while we are phasing something because we are just doing the roads, we're exposing that much land that is the real critical phase. While there may not and lot of it in terms of the overall area of the site, it is the critical component early in the construction phase, the sus susceptibility during that phase that serves as a conduit and taking away the sediment with it. We would like the make that in the future something that we are working on in advance to try to control these things. These folks have been at mirrorable in their responsiveness after the fact. That's great. In the future we'd like to try to get out in front of the wave on this one.
>> can it be done? Can it be done?
>> can you stop this kind of happening? Can a construction project have a situation where you cannot have any of this? In your opinion, in your environmental expertise opinion.
>> I wouldn't say that it can ever be perfect. But we can do a lot better than we have done up to now. This has been a pretty good effort. But again, they could do better.
>> and let me ask mr. Cahill. Is better permissible? Or do you all just want this project shut down? Where you walk away from this project. Give me some help here.
>> these people have more expertise than I do. I think there's a presem shun that begs the question as to whether that level of construction should have ever been done on that site.
>> you're right. That has been a question for two and a half years.
>> I think you have to go back two and a half years. I think that's where things started to go awry. In my business things can never be perfect. But if you realize that you're building on a very marginal site with great slopes, thin soils, then you're going to do a lot of cut and fill, moving around roads, you know you're going to generate a lot of sediment. I知 not surprised that they are very attentive to putting in the controls. It may be a case where it's an uncontrolled situation because you're building on a site that's just not suitable for that level of development so yeah, I壇 shut it down.
>> mr. Cahill, this is a conundrum and I think you just expressed exactly the issue here. You cannot build this legal of density on this type of dirt and not expect to turn a natural gift into a drainage ditch for the cut and fill. We all know that we cannot prevent, we can't regulate density in the county. How do we skin that cat. How do we get the legislature to understand the deleterious effect of refuse to go allow us to do anything about density in this kind of economic, ecologically fragile environment.
>> I do not know the answer to that. I知 not a politician.
>> perhaps it was just a rhetorical question. It's my job to figure that out and not yours. But you exactly describe the circumstance. The problem occurred when we were unable to regulate the density of the development on this ec logically fragile terrain.
>> any additional comments?
>> judge Biscoe, Commissioners, my name is bill gunn. I知 the developer partner of this project. I have several partners one of course is lehman brothers in new york. I have as fine a group of partners as this Commissioners court could ever ask for. None of us desire to have these folks' property values in any way detracted upon because of something that we do. Last spring when our erosion and sedimentation controls were breached by the same flood that caused the damage in hamilton pool, which you are now in litigation over, obviously, our site was not quite that severe, or we too would have had those problems. We accompanied our county Commissioner of that precinct to the creek. We walked the creek together. We discussed some things that we could do. Me and my partners spent $300,000 in erosion and sedimentation controls that we were not provided designs for by anybody other than our own imagination and engineers. I voluntarily stropped work on the project. My contractor is here today and I want to publicly thank him for allowing us to stop all work on the project that had to do with our contract so that we could do erosion and sedimentation controls and see if we could come up with something that would be a better answer than what we obviously had last spring. We did get it back under control. We did have an additional rains. You did not hear complaints. So we could for some rains, we could control what was leaving the site. Obviously, when you are on a construction site and you have removed the topsoil, and underneath that top soil is an old sea bed which is lime stone, and any time a track loader touches that lime stone it will scrape off a powder when you bore holes in that lime stone for bridge supports, you will create a powder. That powder is very susceptible to going into solution in the water, and it will find whatever holes in whatever silt fence or anywhere it can to go downstream. It's happened since the beginning of time. In this case we are in a reactive sense. But you have the best attitude you can have. We will react, and we will react fast. We will do our best not to have these people unhappy. We are trying to be friends. But it is sure difficult. That's what dem crass is about. We're still trying and we're trying very hard. Commissioner Daugherty, do you have anything that I could add?
>> no, bill, I don't have anything to add.
>> yes, sir.
>> I need to stand correctd on a comment that I made earlier. That was the date where the folks from all over the community were in opposition to the city of Austin use of the 2800 acre tract near webberville. The date that the folks were here trying to protect the water quality and other things there was March 18 instead of March 11. I think I said March 11. The actual date was March 18 when the text were here in on signatures--in opposition.
>> I move that we direct staff to get with the lcra inspectors to try to figure out what if anything we can do that we are motor doing now. Then get with the resident and the developer and report back to the court. Three weeks? Is that soon enough? I didn't leave anybody out, did i? Developer, residents, tceq, lcra, Travis County. I don't know that bemoaning the lack of authority helps any. We can certainly put our heads together and figure out what we are doing and whether we can do something better. The court may as well see in writing a brief description of protect already in place. We have been advised that actions were taken sort of post event and that staff was available. I don't know that I knew it was daily, but certainly available to respond to any problems that occurred out there. So basically it is a let's look at what we are doing and see if we can do something better. We do appreciate that we have already gone maybe beyond what the ordinary to try to protect the area. If we can do additional things, then I壇 like to at least see us considering them.
>> the other thing would be to the see if lcra or tceq or somebody has some idea of how would they recommend that some of these controls be put in so that they are stronger. Then they would have something to follow, to show that there's more, a stronger control.
>> Commissioner Gomez, can I speak to that? Early in the project, one of the recommendations, of course, was to put in a temporary, if you will, retaining wall to breach the creek. And make it high enough. The creek out there is when it comes through, sweetwater is very steep. It's, we have slopes, the depth of the creek about 60, 50 feet almost vertical as it comes through. You can imagine if you wanted to put in a temporary retaining wall, a dam which would be a vertical concrete wall and have it temporary to be removed upon completion of the project, that one could hold maybe more than just the two-year, five-year, 25-year flood. One might even hold a hundred year flood. Breaching a creek became very offensive after lick creek, if you all recall. And so, the concept of breaching the creek was rejected. We have tried to make our water quality ponds and our water quality catch basins at the end of proposed cul-de-sacs and I say proposed because they are not yet paved, but we have attempted to do nothing in the creek that was not absolutely necessary. I will say that adds a degree of difficulty to the problem. Because once something is in the creek, and if you have nothing there to help or divert it, it's simply going to go downstream.
>> from the erosion from the source? Do you know how much is in there?
>> we are allowed to do some things in the creek such as rock berms. Those Round Rocks with what looks like chicken wire wrapped around.
>> I know what it iswe can't jisjust willie nilly stack them up. It makes it very difficult on us.
>> my question was do you know about how much sediment the runoff exactly has gone into the creek itself? Do you have any idea?
>> as far as a tonnage, we could never tell you. I can tell you this, Commissioner, it doesn't take a lot of fine white chalky material in solution in the water to make it look awful. If it occurs for say an hour straight or so running down the creek or two hours straight or in the case of last spring, it was a day long, it took us a day to get it under control. It looks awful. Yet it might not be a huge quantity.
>> have there been any considerations taken on you and your partners to maybe clean what has been released into the creek from the south?
>> we don't have any objection. My engineer and I have been unable to identify what these folks, in all respect, have said was our material that had leached unto their lime stone. We are having a hard time identifying that, Commissioner.
>> you are only willing to clean up what they can prove is your lime stone stuff.
>> I don't mean it in that way.
>> what are your prerequisites? It would be very nice if we can identify things that would require physical clean-ups.
>> Commissioner, I think groki's children like to swim in a particular swimming hole. I have little girls myself that are not little anymore. We don't want them swimming in a dirty swimming hole. If we did that, we don't mind cleaning up at all. I have told her that and neil spells that.
>> perhaps we can identify some areas.
>> yes. One thing, when we were on the site we were told that we had done, I hope the neighbors forgive this because I知 not meaning in any way to detract from their emotionalism about this, okay? We were told, if you want to rub the surface of the lime stone and the lime stone had become raw, and we were being told that that material of course was from us. In the crack in the rock there was weed growing about two and a half feet high. That didn't happen in a day.
>> I think that if we want to quibble over whose lime stone silt it is, then the clean-up won't happen. Am I hearing that you are amenable to the idea of coming up with some specific areas? Had.
>> of course im, Commissioner.
>> that would be great. If we do get into an issue of quibbling over whose lime stone dust it is, if you are asking that it be some proof that it's sweetwater lime stone dust, I think that is an unreasonable request. I think it's highly probable that it's sweetwater lime stone dust and that it will not be washed away in a regular rain event. I think that could be appropriate criteria. What do you think of that?
>> Commissioner, I would not object to it at all. One thing that we have noticed, it appears since sweetwater has arrived, we have been the occasion for teeing off on every problem. For instance, you saw on the screen there's been 11 deaths. Sweetwater hasn't been the cause of the 11 deaths but they are quickly lumped in with a sweetwater situation.
>> let's stick to clean-up issues for a moment. Would that criteria be amenable to you, that it's probable that it's sweetwater lime stone deposit and that it is unlikely to be washed away by a regular rain event? Say a two-year rain event? Would that be appropriate?
>> Commissioner, I would say this there's no way to determine what is probable.
>> it's certainly easier to determine than that the it's your dust. You know what I知 saying.
>> staff ought to be free to call on the engineers at the different entitiesment --entities. With four or five engineers.
>> Commissioner, we don't have benchmarks.
>> I think the presentation today was a benchmark with a series of photographs illustrating what the creek looks like as a baseline versus what it looks like after a rain event downstream from sweetwater. I think that that is the kind of probability analysis that I am suggesting.
>> all in favor of the motion. Shows Commissioners Gomez, Daugherty, eckhardt and yours truly voting in favor.
>> I知 going to stay consistent and going to vote no.
>> know by Commissioner Davis. Three to four weeks, back on the agenda. See if there is follow-up consideration and action we can take. I don't know that there is anything better that we can do today but let's try to as proactive as we can we have a lot of staff, a lot of people working on this. Let's have the best ideas possible. Thank you very much. Thank you all.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, April 2, 2008 8:51 PM