LCRA Looking for ‘Flexibilities’ From Certain Requirements Related To Its Coal Pile Runoff

The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) wants to amend its wastewater permit at the Fayette Power Project (FPP) to remove selenium limits on storm runoff from the coal pile.

LCRA published a public notice last week in the Record about its request to amend FPP’s wastewater permit from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). LCRA asked the state agency for several other amendments, including permission to use water in the plant’s coal pile runoff pond for irrigation purposes. LCRA also asked TCEQ for permission ease reporting requirements for heavy rainfall events and to switch from weekly to monthly monitoring frequency..

“LCRA has filed an application for an amendment to the existing Industrial Wastewater Discharge Permit for the Fayette Power Project to make needed clarifications and obtain additional operational flexibilities,” LCRA spokesperson Clara Tuma told the Record last week.

When it rains at FPP, the water runoff follows several routes that eventually wind up in the Colorado River via Lake Fayette, Cedar Creek and its tributaries. Heavy storms can cause the plant’s combustion byproducts landfill pond and the coal pile runoff pond to overflow, LCRA’s wastewater permit requires the plant to monitor runoff for many pollutants including selenium.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, high levels of selenium are harmful to aquatic life (from the agency’s Water Quality Criteria webpage):

“Selenium is a nutritionally essential element for animals in small amounts, but toxic at higher concentrations. Selenium bioaccumulates in the aquatic food chain and chronic exposure in fish and aquatic invertebrates can cause reproductive impairments (e.g., larval deformity or mortality). Selenium can also adversely affect juvenile growth and mortality. Selenium is also toxic to water fowl and other birds that consume aquatic organisms containing excessive levels of selenium.”

In its permit application, LCRA cites a TCEQ Fact Sheet and Executive Director’s Preliminary Decision, which says that FPP should have never been required to monitor for selenium:

“The decision to apply a selenium limit to the coal pile runoff discharges … were made without specific knowledge of whether the coal would be a significant source of selenium or not. Many years of monitoring data have demonstrated that the coal pile wastestream is not a significant source of selenium and the decision to apply the limit was a technical mistake, not borne out by data.”

LCRA also wants TCEQ to ease pollution limits during heavy rainfall events. Under the current permit, the plant is not gravel pit in the Plum area.

“There’s going to be a total of three gravel pits in Plum,” McBroom said. “The trucks aren’t going away.”

McBroom said gravel trucks travel on Huelsebusch Rd. and Muzny Ln. in addition to Prairie Valley Rd. All three county roads cross the tracks, but none of them are equipped with crossarms.

“I know the crossings are very expensive to put it,” McBroom said. “The County can get involved, but ultimately it’s the railroad company’s call, because they maintain them.

“It’s a shame what happened,” McBroom said. “We’ll see what we can do in the future to prevent it from happening again.”