TCEQ DFW Clean Air Public Meeting

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) will be hosting a public meeting to discuss the New DFW Clean Air Plan next Thursday, June 24th, at Arlington City Hall (same location as the March ozone hearing) from 7-9pm.  This meeting is being organized because DFW violated the federal smog/ozone standard last summer, and the TCEQ is responsible to create a plan to bring our area back into attainment.  This meeting will allow North Texans to ask questions and offer suggestions on HOW and WHAT to include in this New DFW Clean Air Plan.  Our message is simple: Citizens Demand the Same Pollution Controls for Industry as for Our Autos!

What Should the New Plan Accomplish?

• Adopt all the recommendations from the 2006 local clean air committee that were dumped by the state four years ago.  (YES, most of this same clean air planning work has been done before and was rejected by Austin/TCEQ!)
• Crackdown on industry as much as my car. Demand 90% controls on coal, kilns and gas. (The industrial technology exists and is in USE across the country/world, just not in TX.)
• Do more than the minimum. No more paper exercises. Go further than required. (We’re looking for more than a “goal seek” solution.)
• Aim the plan where smog pollution is worst: Tarrant, Denton, Wise, and Parker Counties. (Asthma rates for children under 14 are THREE TIMES HIGHER (22%) in western DFW area than across the state of TX!)

Here’s the flyer for this public meeting which can be printed and widely distributed.

There’s a pre-meeting meetup at Fuzzy’s Taco Shop (510 E. Abram St, 3 blks from City Hall) at 6pm for anyone interested. Get your tacos and beer buzz on to get you in the mood!

For more information or to carpool, please contact the North Central Texas Clean Air Task Force: dfwsip[at]gmail.com or 972.230.3185.

Texas Commission on Environmental Quality

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is under review by the Sunset Advisory Commission, who will recommend improvements to the agency and, ultimately, pass “sunset” legislation that will shape the way TCEQ operates for the next ten-plus years. This is a once-in-a-decade opportunity to improve the way our state environmental agency carries out its mission to protect our health and natural resources.

We can change TCEQ for the better, and HELP MAKE POLLUTION IN TEXAS HISTORY. Texans expect our environmental agency to protect our health. Right now, TCEQ often falls short of these expectations due to lax enforcement of existing clean air and water laws. The sunset review process offers all concerned Texans a chance to advocate for much needed reforms at TCEQ.

As the coalition of Texas environmental and public interest groups dedicated to improving TCEQ, the Alliance for a Clean Texas has big plans for the sunset review…and we need your help. Your voice and your story are crucial. Together, we’ll show that Texans across our state are ready to make pollution a thing of the past.

• AIR – The U.S. EPA has declared TCEQ’s air pollution permit system violates the federal Clean Air Act and fails to allow significant public participation.
• WATER – TCEQ recently proposed rules that would increase the amount of E. coli bacteria allowed in Texas waterways before they are considered polluted.
• WASTE – Rather than require new landfills to meet decades-old federal standards, TCEQ currently allows trash facilities to expand atop old landfills—frequently over sites without protective liners—often creating literal mountains of garbage.
• JUSTICE – TCEQ’s enforcement of pollution violations is so weak that, in many cases, paying the penalty costs less than actually cleaning up the problem. In other words, in Texas it often pays to pollute.

TCEQ is the most important environmental actor in the state of Texas. And 2010 is the year that we’ll ask it to stand up for Texas.