Concrete plant proposal not sitting well with Magnolia residents
MAGNOLIA — I drove past the site three times before I saw the signs.
They sat side by side, supported by spindly strips of wood, one bearing a message in English and the other in Spanish. Foliage obscured some of the text.
The signs were so small and so low that they were virtually invisible to passing motorists. I might never have seen them if I hadn’t been looking for them.
“Proposed air quality permit,” the signs state. “Application No. 143902. For further information contact: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.” An address and phone number followed.
This wooded area off Old Hockley Road in western Montgomery County is where Paul Vasquez wants to build a concrete batch plant — one of hundreds of such facilities producing the ready-mix concrete that feeds the Houston area’s massive construction industry. As the Houston Chronicle’s Kim McGuire reported in February, these plants produce noise, vibrations and dust that can represent a nuisance and a health hazard to surrounding neighborhoods.
Residents near the Montgomery County site, and public officials who represent them, protested vigorously when they learned about the application last April.
“I am not against industry, and I’m certainly not against business, but I am against the wrong business in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Montgomery County Commissioner Charlie Riley said during an April 27 public hearing. “And that is what this is, the wrong place and time.”
Riley and other opponents, however, were unable to arrange a contested hearing, a legal proceeding that carries more weight in the state review process than the informal hearing where Riley spoke. By the time they learned about the application, the deadline for seeking a contested hearing had passed, according to a report by Catherine Dominguez in the Conroe
Courier.
Which brings us back to the signs.
Riley told Dominguez that he learned about the project from a resident who called him after seeing the signs, which had been posted months earlier. A former Magnolia councilwoman, Anne Sundquist, echoed Riley’s complaint that public notice was inadequate.
“People didn’t notice (the signs,)” Sundquist said.
Tiny but legal
Remarkably, the signs appear to comply with state regulations. If you want to build something that requires an air quality permit in Texas, you must post a sign at least 18 inches by 28 inches in size, with dark, block, capital letters at least 1.5 inches tall on a white background. The text doesn’t have to specify the type of facility — only that an air quality permit is being sought.
“It’s just appalling,” said Matthew Feinberg, who lives on Old Hockley Road near the site and has struggled to find out more about the project since he learned about it. “I drove by that sign probably half a dozen times at least” after returning from a holiday trip.
Texas leaders apparently consider homes for poor people more troublesome than facilities that might foul the air.
Signs at proposed public housing sites must be at least 4 feet by 4 feet, with the words “Site of Proposed Housing Project” in 8-inch letters.
The tiny signs and limited public notification are among many concerns about state regulation of concrete batch plants. Many operate 24 hours a day, and the Chronicle’s analysis of Harris County’s 188 plants — the most in the state — found that they tend to be clustered in working-class, minority neighborhoods.
During the just-ended state legislative session, Rep. Armando Walle, DHouston, introduced two bills to tighten regulation of these facilities. Both measures were opposed by industry, he said.
One of Walle’s bills didn’t get a committee hearing, and the other got a hearing but not a committee vote. Gov. Greg Abbott’s call for a special session does not include this topic.
“This was a priority issue for us,” said Walle, who represents a north Houston district, “but we spent a lot of time on unnecessary social issues,” such as the so-called bathroom bill. (That one did rate inclusion in the special session.)
TCEQ spokesman Brian McGovern said the agency followed all the required procedures for the Old Hockley Road application, including publication of two legal notices in a newspaper. He said “legislators, city and county officials” were notified of the application on Nov. 21, although Riley and Magnolia officials told the Courier that they did not learn about the project until April.
Drafting a response
The state agency is drafting its response to comments it received on the project, McGovern said, and a final decision will be made by its executive director.
This is just one project among many, of course. Residents of communities where future concrete batch plants might be built would benefit from some changes in the review process — starting with bigger, more prominent signs.