County kills sewage plant for Bolivar

Galveston County commissioners say feds changed fund requirements

GALVESTON — Galveston County commissioners on Tuesday voted to kill a $13.8 million project to build a sewage treatment plant on the Bolivar Peninsula, blaming changing requirements by federal regulators.

The decision disappointed many Bolivar Peninsula residents, who say reliance on septic tanks is creating environmental hazards and polluting the Gulf of Mexico and Galveston Bay.

Commissioner Ryan Dennard, who had championed the project, said officials at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development constantly changed requirements for qualifying for the $13.8 million in federal money available to build the plant.

“It is probably the single most-important thing that needs to happen to Bolivar for both health and environmental reasons,” Dennard said of the project.

Dennard nevertheless voted with other commissioners to kill the project because, he said, the hurdles were insurmountable.

“I don’t believe in show votes,” he said.

Dennard said the obstacle to securing federal funding was a requirement that 51 percent of the users be low-income earners. He said only about 15 percent to 20 percent of Bolivar residents were in the low-income category.

Bolivar resident Jeanie Turk said the decision was “a terrible disappointment.” Turk said Bolivar community leaders had made the sewage plant a centerpiece of efforts to rebuild after Hurricane Ike ravaged the peninsula in September 2008.

“To me it’s a great loss of the opportunity to have an impact, to start to clean up the environment and the bacteria that septic tanks constantly put into the ditches, and into the Gulf and into the bay,” Turk said.

Dennard, who is not running for re-election in November, said he hoped that commissioners would find another way to fund the project.

Turk was doubtful that commissioners would try to save the project.

“I think it’s over,” she said.

The project got off to a rocky start in 2012, with County Judge Mark Henry and the Texas General Land Office opposed to it.

Dennard worked hard to revive it and until recently believed that he had overcome all the objections and come up with a plan that would ensure that the project would be economically self-sustaining.

“To me it’s a great loss of the opportunity to have an impact, to start to clean up the environment and the bacteria that septic tanks constantly put into the ditches, and into the Gulf and into the bay.” Jeanie Turk, Bolivar resident