Archive for February 2013
Time to Push Back and Make Some History
Dallas Plan Commission Public Hearings on Trinity East Gas Permits, including the "Rawlings Refinery"
Thursday, 1:00 pm
6th Floor Dallas City Hall, City Council Chambers
When the Dallas Plan Commission held its January 10th vote to "reconsider" the denial of gas permits to Trinity East, it didn't allow any public testimony at all about the dangers posed by these proposed drilling and production sites.
Tomorrow it will. And we need you to come and add your body and your voice to this fight.
When the Mayor and City Manager first cooked up this scheme to ram through the last three gas permits in Dallas, they didn't expect to have any roadblocks. They scheduled a meeting five days before Christmas and thought they had it locked up.
They were wrong. You showed up anyway and the Plan Commission voted to deny the permits based on your impassioned pleas for public health and safety.
When City Hall didn't like the results of that vote, and pulled the "reconsideration" stunt in January, 100 of you showed up on a work day to shame the CPC publicly in a meeting that received a huge amount of media coverage.
Now they're holding the second public hearing on these gas permits. We need a larger show of strength to demonstrate we're gaining momentum
We need you to personally come and tell the Plan Commission why it's a bad idea to allow drilling in floodplains and parks and build a refinery next to the city's largest soccer complex where thousands of kids will be playing every weekend.
We know it's getting tiresome, but when you show up at these meetings and hearings, you're helping us win this fight.
Slowly, but surely, your concerns and questions about these Trinity East permits are weighing them down and making it harder for them to get rammed through.
For example, because of your work, we're about to see a bi-partisan call for the Mayor to reject the refinery permit near the Elm Fork Soccer complex. That news will be announced at tomorrow's press conference starting at 1:00 pm.
There's also more in the works challenging the process the City is using to keep these "zombie" permits alive.
The tide is turning. But you have to keep showing up.
Nothing can take the place of a room full of angry citizens. Tomorrow, don't just watch history on TV or read about it the next day. Make history. Thanks.
EPA Challenges State Clean-Up of Frisco Smelter Waste
Despite denying that it was submitting comments on the state's plan for cleaning up the recently closed Exide lead smelter, the Environmental Protection Agency turned in a sometimes scathing assessment of Austin's proposal to allow the company to treat prohibited hazardous waste that still lies buried in its landfills in Frisco.
"The landfill is not permitted or constructed as a hazardous waste unit. Please clarify the regulatory/statutory provisions TCEQ is following that would allow for treatment of hazardous waste in the landfill," wrote EPA Associate Director Susan Spalding in a five-page letter sent to the Texas Com mission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) on January 25th.
News of the Agency's comments comes on the eve of a public meeting scheduled by Exide for Wednesday night at the historic Frisco Depot to explain its clean-up operation.
Besides criticizing the on-site treatment of the hazardous waste, EPA also had a harsh review of the way Exide and TCEQ had identified areas of the current landfill with concentrated lead wastes that needed treatment, suggesting four times as much sampling as the company had proposed, and TCEQ had approved.
EPA also noted that a closed landfill in Frisco was already leaking hazardous levels of lead and selenium and suggested that the treatment method Exide is using in its current landfill was not going to be effective.
But in what may be a crushing blow to the company's plans to keep the wastes it generated for almost five decades buried in Frisco permanently, EPA stated that if the current landfill had been used for disposal after 2011 sampling to determine clean-up, which it almost certainly has,"This may require removal of all material" in the landfill.
Many of the problems cited by the Agency are the same ones citizens have been complaining about since Exide announced its unusual scheme to try to treat its illegal hazardous waste in place in its Frisco landfill, instead of digging it up and re-burying it in an official, licensed hazardous waste disposal site.
Exide does not have a permit to handle or dispose of hazardous waste. It's landfill is classified as a "non-hazardous waste" disposal site. The hazardous waste inside of it was discovered by inspectors several years ago.
Citizen groups have said Exide must apply for a full Resource Conservation and Recovery Act permit in order to deal with its prohibited wastes. EPA's letter seems to suggest that the Agency agrees.
Besides commenting on the landfill plans, EPA's letter also seeks changes in the dust controls guiding the smelter clean-up, and the public release of information about the clean-up.
Copies of the EPA letter can be downloaded from the Frisco Unleaded website here.
"We're very appreciative that EPA changed its mind and decided to comment on the ridiculous plans by Exide and TCEQ to use the same treatment method on this hazardous waste that failed to work the first time," said Colette McCadden, Chair of Frisco Unleaded, the citizens group who successfully campaigned to close the old smelter last year.
"We hope the EPA continues to provide needed oversight to what Exide and the state are doing – or not doing."
Other groups were more cautious.
"It's a pleasant surprise to see EPA comment so bluntly about the more absurd parts of the proposed Exide clean-up," said Jim Schermbeck of Downwinders at Risk. "My hope is that this is only the beginning of a new level of review for Exide by the Agency in light of the USA Today's "Ghost Factory" series chronicling what happens when it's not paying such attention. Only time will tell."
They’re Not Asking Your Permission
Exide and the State are planning Frisco's future without it's residents.
This Wednesday night may be one of the few times they can object in person.
Plans are proceeding for Exide to leave landfills full of its lead smelter waste in Frisco….forever
Landfills of lead on the edge of downtown that will pose a constant public health threat and economic dead zone
Landfills of lead along the banks of Stewart Creek as it flows downstream into the City's new "Grand Park"
Join us in saying no to their lead-filled future of Frisco.
Exide's Public Meeting on their lead smelter "Clean-up"
THIS WEDNESDAY NIGHT
7:00 pm
Frisco Depot
6499 Paige Street
(in the Historic District by Babe's)
Whether Frisco residents like it or not, Exide and the State of Texas are deciding to let millions of pounds of lead waste stay buried in Frisco forever – and the current City Council isn't trying to stop them.
While the city bought the less-contaminated outer ring of the Exide lead smelter, the most toxic part of the facility is still owned by Exide.
The City of Frisco has said that it won't interfere in the way the company and state decide to handle the tons of lead waste buried in this area, which stretches from Stewart Creek to the edge of downtown.
Exide, the state, and this city council are all deciding that it's easier just to leave lead contamination permanently buried in place in the middle of Frisco instead of moving it away from people and flowing water.
If citizens don't show up and fight back against these plans, Frisco residents will be dealing with lead contamination issues for decades – just like other communities that didn't have their lead smelter waste cleaned-up completely either.
A former Exide smelter site still sits abandoned in Dallas, some two decades after it closed, surrounded by monitoring wells and a chain link fence. We can't let that happen here.
Many residents sent e-mails to Exide last week saying they wanted a complete clean-up of its lead waste in Frisco. Now they need to come in person with the same message.
Frisco residents have to stand up for their home and community. Nobody at Exide or in government is.
Zombie Gas Permits on the March Again
Public (re)-Hearing on the Last Three Dallas Gas Sites.……including the newly-discovered "Rawlings Gas Refinery"
This Thursday
1:00 pm
Dallas City Hall
6th Floor
City Council Chambers
Press Conference followed by City Plan Commission Mtg
This is the "do-over" hearing demanded by the Mayor in order to win approval of these permits – after the first one in December resulted in denial.
Come and defend this victory or they'll steal it away from us.
Dallas Residents at Risk, the alliance of groups that we work with on this issue, will be holding a press conference at 1:00 pm – just like we did before the much-publicized January 10th reconsideration vote – and then heading into the CPC meeting at 1:30. Show up early because we'll be talking about a surprising new development in this fight and bringing you up to date with the latest information.
It's important to demonstrate that opposition to these permits is growing, so if you haven't made it down to City Hall before, Thursday is the day to come.
If you're a regular, then you know how much warm bodies in the audience mean to the moment.
They would have been no news coverage on the 10th without all of us standing up and publicly "shaming" the CPC over its "reconsideration vote" in person. You can't do that by e-mail or petition. We need you there. We need you clapping for the good guys. We need you hissing the bad guys. We need you. There is no substitute.
Looking for material for your testimony? Here are some things we know now about these sites that we didn't when the CPC turned them down in December…..
* Neither the Park Board nor City Council ever voted to allow surface drilling in parks. In fact, city staff assured the City Council in 2008 that would be NO surface drilling in parks. So where did Trinity East get the idea it could have two of its drill sites on city park land (The newly-named Luna Vista Golf Course and near-by gun range)? That's a really good question that nobody at Dallas City Hall has attempted to answer.
* One of the Trinity East sites now contains a large gas refinery and compressor station in addition to a pad site for 20 wells. This facility will become the 10th largest air polluter in Dallas the moment it comes on line, releasing 75-100 tons of air pollution every year only 600 feet away from the City's new Elm Fork Soccer Complex on Walnut Hill.
* Last September, the City of Dallas denied a new permit to a rock crushing facility near the Elm Fork Soccer Complex because its 17 tons of annual air pollution was deemed too threatening for children's health. However, five months later, the city is advocating allowing the operation of a gas refinery and compressor station that is estimated to release some 75-100 tons of air pollution a year. Why is 17 tons of air pollution a health threat but 100 tons is OK? Another great question nobody at Dallas City Hall has answered.
* Trinity East knew when it signed its leases with the City that drilling in parkland and the floodplains was prohibited. So why is the City of Dallas still saying its afraid of a lawsuit by Trinity for backing out of the deal if the permits are denied?
We can win if we keep showing up and asking questions.
Please show up this Thursday.