Locals Seek A Greater Explanation From LCRA

Fayette County Judge Joe Weber wants the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to hold a public hearing in La Grange over proposed amendments to a wastewater permit for the Fayette Power Project.

The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), which coowns and operates the coalfired power plant, wants TCEQ to loosen several environmental requirements related to stormwater runoff from the plant’s coal pile. Under the terms proposed by LCRA, the power plant would no longer be required to monitor discharges for selenium, which can be toxic to aquatic life and humans. LCRA also wants to reduce monitoring of other pollutants including organic waste, oil and grease.

Runoff from FPP enters Cedar Creek and its various tributaries before eventually discharging into the Colorado River below La Grange.

“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 in an interview on Wednesday, June 22. “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.”

Weber said he would draft a letter to TCEQ formally requesting a public hearing on the proposed amendments.

La Grange attorney Morris Albers has also submitted a letter to TCEQ formally requesting a hearing. Albers wrote the letter representing a limited liability company that owns some of his family’s land affected by runoff at FPP.

“Our concern has to do with (LCRA’s) desire to remove selenium monitoring and indeed limits on selenium discharge,” the letter stated. “Given already demonstrated harmful impacts of such discharge, … we are at a loss to understand the Authority’s apparent belief that there will be no impact on downstream wildlife or on downstream agricultural or recreational use.”

Albers also raised a concern about LCRA’s approach to public notice concerning the permit application. As reported in the June 7 edition of the Fayette County Record, LCRA placed a copy of its permit application on a table at La Grange City Hall in order to fulfill public inspection requirements. But LCRA never told anyone at City Hall about the documents or what they were for. The first person to ask to see them was a reporter for the Record. At first, City staff did not even know the application was available at City Hall.

“It would seem that a proposal significant enough to require approval from the (TCEQ) and subject to significant legal requirements would be sufficiently significant to be done clearly and in public,” Albers wrote. “While it is doubtless (LCRA) is proceeding correctly and within the limits of what is required, the net effect has been to create more concern and question than to assuage doubts and rectify uncertainty.”

Among the other changes, LCRA wants to modify the way it reports pollution discharges associated with heavy rain events. Under the current permit, runoff associated with a “10-year, 24-hour rainfall event” is not subject to pollution discharge requirements. LCRA wants to change that exemption to multiple-day rainfall events “when cumulative precipitation exceeds a 10-year event.”

That change would allow the plant to discharge pollutants during heavy rains that would otherwise trigger an environmental violation from TCEQ. Such violations occurred twice last year at the power plant. If TCEQ grants the permit amendments, LCRA would not be required to report those discharges in the future.

“Maybe what they want to do is perfectly safe, but we know selenium and petroleum have negative effects,” Albers said in an interview with the Record on Tuesday. “Why would we not continue to monitor them so they’re visible to the public?”

The public comment period for LCRA’s application ends on July 5.