Big Gravel & Good Stewards

To the Editor:

The sand and gravel business is big business in Texas and getting bigger. In 2021, the San Antonio Express-News called it a $10 billion Texas industry. (SAE-N 10-6-21) Fayette County landowners are being approached by gravel companies to “lease” land (sell gravel and sand). The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) says there are 1,011 active “aggregate production operations” (APOs) in the State. Aggregates are sands, gravel and crushed stone or concrete.

According to TCEQ, Fayette County has 13 gravel pits and ranks 18th in the number of gravel pits among the 254 counties in Texas. Colorado County has 20 gravel pits (ranks 8th). Bastrop County has 10. TCEQ says Lavaca and Lee counties have 0 gravel pits. Washington County has 1. Williamson County ranks first, with 40APO sites.

An APO is any site where aggregates are extracted from the earth, including the area of extraction, stripped areas and land where processing equipment and rock crushers are located. APOs are required to register with TCEQ and undergo periodic inspections. There are currently TCEQ enforcement actions against two (2) of the Fayette County gravel pits, both involving water. TCEQ issues violation notices if it finds contamination of water or air. ( www2.tceq.texas.gov/oce/ penenfac/ ) TCEQ establishes water quality standards, regulates pollutants that affect groundwater quality and monitors quality of surface streams. TCEQ requires APOs to obtain air emissions and storm water discharge permits. The State doesn’t establish rules for set-back distance from property lines, noise and lighting, height limits for sand and gravel piles, depth of pits, hours of operation for machinery at the sites and trucks going to and from sites, usage of underground water or reclamation of the land.

The Texas Aggregates & Concrete Association (TACA) ( https://www.tx-taca.org/highlyregulated- industry ) claims that APOs are highly regulated. According to TACA’s 2020 tax return posted on ProPublica ( www. propublica.org), TACA spent $183,000 on lobbying expenses in 2020 alone. TACA also has a political action committee (PAC): Texas Aggregates & Concrete Political Action Committee (TACPAC) for political campaign funding. Its website ( www.tx-taca.org/tacpac) states: “TACPAC is critical to the strategy that TACA membership uses to advocate and help shape government and regulatory policy for our industry.”

The Texas Ethics Commission (TEC) shows TACPAC currently has lobbyists working for it. https://www.ethics.state. tx.us/search/lobby/ TEC records show that TACPAC donated $2,500 to State Senator Lois Kolkhorst in 2024 and $1,000 in 2022. ( www.ethics.state.tx.us/ search/cf/SimpleSearch.php ) On August 1, 2025, the Texas Senate passed Senate Bill 13 which prohibits Texas counties and cities and their statewide associations (Texas Municipal League, Texas Association of Counties) from using public money to hire registered lobbyists to lobby legislators. Sen. Kolkhorst co-authored SB 13 and voted for it. ( https://capitol. texas.gov/). The Texas Senate passed SB 13. The second special session ended on September 3rd before the House voted on it. SB 13 will likely come back to life in the next Legislature. Senator Menendez from Balcones Heights (Bexar County) has said that rural county judges told him that SB 13 would hurt rural counties.

In 2023, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 2127 which prohibits counties and cities from adopting additional or more restrictive rules and regulations than State regulatory agencies (like TCEQ). Sen. Kolkhorst voted for HB 2127. State Rep. Stan Kitzman coauthored HB 2127 and voted for it. Both Fayette County and Colorado County are in Rep. Kitzman’s district. Neither rural counties nor TCEQ were “exempted” from HB 2127.

In the 2025 regular legislative session, two bills were filed to regulate gravel pits. HB 873 would have regulated water usage and outdoor lighting and required monitoring of noise levels and APOs to develop reclamation plans for sites. HB 1018 would have created a certification process for companies that use “best practices” so that state and local governmental units could buy materials from “certified” operators. Both bills were filed by State Rep. Terry Wilson of Williamson County (Georgetown).Neitherbillmade it out of the House Environmental Regulation Committee.

As they say, “Money talks.” It’s hard for rural counties and land owners to compete with big business, industry trade associations, big money PACs and professional lobbyists in getting heard.

TCEQ does have a General Best Management Practices (BMPs) for gravel companies on its website. https://www. tceq.texas.gov/assistance/industry/ aggregate-production/ best-management-practices.

Included on that web page is the order (entitled “Kerr County Voluntary Guidance Document for Aggregate Production Operations”) that the County Commissioners in Kerr County adopted in March of 2023. In 2021, the Kerr County Commissioners Court established the Kerr County APO Community Advisory Council. It includes APO operators, businesses, residents and local governing agencies. ( www.hccommunityjournal. com ) In August, 2024, the Fayette County Commissioners, in opposition to the proposed wind turbine energy project, adopted a resolution stating the Commissioners Court “desires to ensure that any commercial projects implemented in Fayette County benefit and cause no harm to the community, economy, and environment of Fayette County” and asked the Texas Legislature to “enact common sense legislation that grants counties in Texas the ability to protect their communities and environments from implementation of harmful development.” (FCR 08/12/2024) The County Commissioners in Comal County had adopted a similar resolution for a rock crusher operation in 2018. Maybe it’s time for the Fayette County Commissioners Court to do something again. People who think that need to tell them so.

Wind generators and solar panel farms are big eyesores but they don’t completely destroy the land. Gravel pits destroy the land (productive farm land and wildlife habitat).

If you are thinking about leasing your land for a gravel pit, please reconsider. If the gravel company still exists at the end of the lease, it will not “reclaim” or make the land look anything near what it was for hundreds of years before. That is not possible. It will just be a bunch of big ugly, useless holes in the ground. No one wants to live or have property next to a big gravel operation. If you do, you will probably have 50+ gravel trucks going up and down your road every day, see four-story high gravel piles and hear equipment noise for 12 hours a day for many years.

Local farmers and ranchers will lease your land. Lease it to them, not a big, industrial-scale gravel company that just exports the sand and gravel to Houston and Austin. We do need sand and gravel locally. Let local, family-owned businesses that will do it responsibly provide that. We cannot depend on state government and big business to do the right thing to protect the land.

Think about your neighbors. Think about your grandchildren. Think about the generations who came before us who struggled to buy the land, tilled the soil, raised cotton, corn, milo and hay, grazed cows and had dairies. They were good stewards and took care of the land. We should too.

Leviticus 25:23 – “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me, you are but aliens and tenants.” Pope John Paul II said, “We cannot say we love the land and then take steps to destroy it for use by future generations.” Let’s try to keep Fayette County beautiful.

Russell Friemel Fort Worth & Ellinger