Let’s Demand a Hearing

To the Editor:

For years, the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) has told Fayette County that the groundwater beneath the Fayette Power Project (FPP) is safe. They have told the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) that the toxic spikes in our water are just “naturally occurring.”

We now have the hard evidence to prove otherwise, and we need our state representatives to step in before the damage becomes irreversible.

Currently, LCRA is quietly trying to push through a massive amendment to their state water permit (TPDES Permit No. WQ0002105000). If approved, this amendment will allow them to legally remove their discharge limits for toxic selenium, dilute how they measure rainfall runoff, and reduce their mandatory safety testing.

Why are they doing this now? Because the City of Austin, which co-owns the plant, is refusing to pay for capital improvements as they plan to abandon the facility by 2029. Without Austin’s money to line the leaking coal ash ponds, LCRA’s only option to avoid massive state fines is to get the TCEQ to rewrite the rules so that the pollution becomes legal.

But independent testing has caught them in the act.

First-quarter 2026 splitsample testing of the aquifer reveals a staggering 40% variance between what LCRA tells the state and what is actually in the water. By omitting heavily contaminated “outlier” wells from their executive summaries, LCRA has masked the fact that unlined ponds at FPP are leaching Cobalt at over 100 times the safe human limit.

This contamination is not staying on their property. Recent veterinary pathology from adjacent land confirms severe selenium bioaccumulation and the presence of inorganic silica-like particles in livestock tissue—the undeniable chemical fingerprint of coal ash. Look no further than the Cook family’s historic pecan orchards, which have dwindled from 1,000 trees to roughly 200 due to atmospheric sulfur dioxide and groundwater sulfate poisoning.

Make no mistake: manipulating environmental data is LCRA’s standard operating procedure. They are currently facing a federal Clean Air Act lawsuit for allegedly turning off smokestack pollution controls and falsifying their emissions data to evade over $561,000 in state air pollution fees.

In 2020, when Fayette County citizens demanded a public hearing to address this crisis, the TCEQ used a legal loophole to dismiss us, claiming we lacked “standing.” They silenced our local voices.

But there is one voice they cannot silence. Under state law (30 TAC § 55.154), Senator Lois Kolkhorst has the absolute, sole authority to demand the TCEQ hold a formal public meeting in Fayette County and place this permit in abeyance. We have officially submitted this new 40% variance data to her office. We have handed her the evidence that LCRA’s numbers are flawed. Now, she must decide whether she will use her unique statutory power to protect Fayette County’s water, or step aside and let Austin and LCRA balance their budgets by sacrificing our agricultural economy.

This is a call to action. I am asking every resident, farmer, and business owner in Fayette County to contact Senator Kolkhorst’s Austin office immediately: Call: (512) 463-0118 Email: Lois.Kolkhorst@senate.texas.gov or

District18.Kolkhorst@ senate.texas.gov

Tell her staff that you know about the new well data. Tell them that Fayette County demands she file the official request to pause Permit WQ0002105000 and hold a public meeting right here at home.

The blind man can see the results of this pollution. It is time for our Senator to force the TCEQ to open its eyes.