State taking public input on concrete batch plants
For the first time in a decade, air quality standards for concrete batch plants are up for revisions in Texas, and critics who have wanted stricter environmental regulations for years can have their say.
The plants, which supply wet concrete for development, have garnered public criticism throughout the state because of pollution and proximity to vulnerable communities. For instance, the industry has a disproportionate impact on neighborhoods of color, given the many plants that operate in or near them. These facilities emit hazardous dust while mixing cement, air and materials such as sand and gravel in large drums.
Cliff Kaplan is program director at Hill Country Alliance, a nonprofit organization for the preservation or protection of the region. He spoke Wednesday in Austin during the first of three
public stakeholder meetings for the state’s environmental regulator — the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality — to gather input. The other meetings will be Monday in Houston and Tuesday in Arlington.
“It sounds like the public really wants a lot more protection ... than we are currently getting,” Kaplan said.
“This sounds like there may be an opportunity to make significant improvements,” he said, “but it’s not clear whether the TCEQ will take that opportunity.”
As Texas’ growth drives demand for these plants, they tend to spring up within 30 miles of the projects they support because concrete’s quality can degrade when hauled long distances. And with increasing development in towns and cities, plants are often close to residential areas.
As it stands, even if a new plant goes up less than a mile from another, the TCEQ — which issues its permit — judges the impact of that plant only by the pollution it emits, rather than by the cumulative output of both. And although the regulator takes into account the surrounding air quality, the air monitors could be miles from the plant, which can distort results, said Adrian Shelley, Texas office director for Public Citizen, a nonprofit advocacy organization. Shelley, too, spoke at the Austin meeting, which residents from all over Texas attended to question TCEQ officials on the amendment process and on concrete batch pollution.
In response to the testing’s shortcomings, “all we can say right now is that we’re looking into it,” Beryl Thatcher, assistant deputy director at the TCEQ Air Permits Division, said at the meeting. And “this is something we can consider for sure.”
In addition to the meetings, the public also can submit informal comments to the TCEQ until Nov. 30 by emailing melanie.nelon@tceq.texas.gov with reference number Non-Rule Project No. 2022-033-OTH-NR.
This new amendment process comes after the Environmental Protection Agency launched a civil rights investigation into TCEQ’s recent updates to the air quality standard permit last summer. After the TCEQ slightly amended the permit, the Harris County Attorney’s Office and the nonprofit law firm, Stone Star Legal Aid, filed lawsuits against the agency, prompting the EPA investigation.
Until 2012, the industry had been exempt from limiting crystalline silica emissions. Then during the amendment process that year, the agency said it accidentally removed the exception. Last year, to fix the mistake, the TCEQ reincorporated it into the air permit in a process that critics, including state officials, said was too fast and didn’t give the public enough time to react. Additionally, the process lacked any notification or meeting in any language but English, which attorneys said kept many residents from the public discussion.
When asked whether the new amendment process would involve the civil rights lawsuit at all, TCEQ officials said it remains unclear since the process is still in its early stages.