Where Are Our Representatives?

To the Editor:

I can say I’m not surprised by Rep. Kitzman’s lack of action on the LCRA water pollution increase permit. That is just what it is, a pollution increase permit. The TCEQ and LCRA work together to monitor the pollution in the Colorado River. However, only one tests their own pollution, LCRA. Also, only LCRA lobbies and contributes to election coffers. I’m no ‘soothsayer’, but I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that Rep. Kitzman heard from LCRA’s lobbyist, causing him to withdraw his request for a public hearing on the aforementioned “permitting.” With elections coming up, politicians start harvesting favors and money. Kitzman may have also heard from his caucus on the matter, they all want to suck up to their donors.

LCRA has had 50+ years to find a way to dispose of their waste in some safe manner other than polluting our river. I would bet that LCRA has made no effort whatsoever, there are too many alternatives to polluting the Colorado River. Allowing more waste discharges is not it. Not having public hearings just shows their fear of being called out for their actions and inactions. They don’t want to look people in the eye when they do us dirty.

My opinion is that the LCRA will not be opposed by the TCEQ and be granted their increase. LCRA will then build another tower and increase generation and their volume of discharge dramatically. The EPA is pushing more coal fired electric generation, which is good if they find some way to mitigate the coal ash waste. All it will take is a lingering storm system with extensive rainfall, followed by a slow moving tropical storm to overwhelm their retention walls to become a disaster. Just imagine a disaster like they had in Tennessee, when their power plant flowed ash waste into their river and took 10 years and more now to remediate. Ask the people there how that is going. Ask the survivors about their families, crops, livestock, and wildlife that were destroyed by that discharge.

Rep. Kitzman has sold us out. Plain and simple. What about Sen. Kolkhorst? Where the heck is she? Good question. I know we have been waiting for her for a year or more, to do something for those poor women in the nursing home in Schulenburg being prayed on by sexual predators. So little done by them both. Are they to be reelected?

Perhaps we need some people more concerned about our needs instead of their own. We need a representative that represents us.

I hope we will not be harmed by this looming disaster, but, if we are, at least we know who to begin with the blame and shame.

Jerry Moerbe Nelsonville