People Need to Speak Up to Stop Pollution Changes at FPP
To the Editor:
The LCRA Fayette Power Plant has once again given public notice of its application to relax pollution monitoring requirements. This proposed change would reduce how often samples are collected and decrease the number of sampling locations.
They tried this before — in 2022 — but backed away after public pushback. At the time, The Fayette County Record reported: “Upon learning about the application in June, Fayette County Judge Joe Weber called for LCRA and TCEQ to hold a public hearing in La Grange about the proposed changes.
“If it’s safe and everything is legal, that’s fine, but someone needs to come down here and explain it to us,” Weber told the Record. “We have this big power plant and all this coal ash. It’s like they’re saying, ‘Just trust us, everything is OK.’ I think they need to come down and talk about that — let us know they are serious about what goes into that river.’” (Judge Dan Mueller — you’re up.)
What exactly is LCRA requesting now?
Remove selenium discharge limits at Outfalls 003 and 004, and eliminate Outfall 301 as a separate monitoring location.
Change the regulatory rainfall standard from a 10-year, 24-hour event to a longer 10-year, 10-day standard — which affects drainage design.
Reduce sampling frequency at Outfall 001 (which discharges to Lake Fayette and Cedar Creek) from weekly to monthly for:
• Total Suspended Solids (TSS)
• Oil and grease
• pH levels Add authorization to discharge coal pile runoff through Outfall 301, combining it with other process water discharges.
Why now? Infrastructure like ash ponds and drainage ditches are built around rainfall definitions — such as the 10-year/24-hour storm defined by NOAA’s Atlas 14. But NOAA is updating those rainfall models, and Atlas 15 (preliminary results out Sept 2024) will likely show higher rainfall intensities and flooding risk for Central Texas.
Instead of upgrading infrastructure, LCRA is proposing less oversight and more leniency — even as the risk increases.
Why it matters: Per the Texas Tribune, coal ash from Fayette contains arsenic, cobalt, manganese, nickel, selenium, lithium, boron, cadmium, chromium, lead, and mercury – all harmful if released into local waterways.
If a flood or failure occurs, the cost of cleanup is passed to the public through electric bills. We’ve seen this before – most notably after Winter Storm Uri.
This decision should not happen quietly. There should be a public meeting, and I encourage everyone to submit a comment while there’s still time via the TCEQ eComment System:
https://www14.tceq.texas. gov/epic/eComment/
Ian Julian La Grange