The Collin County Observer™

Link: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/city/collin/frisco/stories/111610dnmetexide.2375dc7ae.html

November 16, 2010

By VALERIE WIGGLESWORTH and MATTHEW HAAG /The Dallas Morning News

read this article at DallasNews.com

The City of Frisco issued a press release also released from Exide: Exide will allow all Frisco residents free blood tests for lead.

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The following information is distributed from the City of Frisco's News and Information service.

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***The following information has been released by Exide Technologies, Inc.

Blood Lead Testing Now Available for Residents of Frisco, TX

Frisco, TX – (November 4, 2010) – Exide Technologies has announced that testing for blood lead concentration is now available for all residents of the City of Frisco, at no charge. Exide will be responsible for all expenses incurred for the blood draw and testing. Frisco residents interested in the testing must go to the office of Dr. Vicki B. Davis at 8680 East Main Street, Suite 1E, Frisco, TX, phone number: 972-377-2447. The blood testing can be done by appointment or on a walk-in basis. Please note that walk-ins may have to wait for staff availability. Citizens will be asked to confirm their residency prior to the testing. All blood samples will be sent by Dr. Davis to ACL Laboratories for a lead concentration analysis. Results obtained by ACL will be returned to Dr. Davis. She will contact residents to provide and discuss the results and answer any questions.

“We are offering this testing to all residents of the City of Frisco in order to provide peace of mind regarding blood lead levels,” said Don Barar, plant manager for Exide’s Frisco recycling facility. “I encourage any citizen who has a question about blood lead levels to take advantage of this testing.”

For questions regarding the testing, please contact either Dr. Davis or Susan Jaramillo at Exide, (203) 699-9133.

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Frisco's Exide plant to make upgrades in effort to cut lead emissions

12:35 AM CDT on Thursday, October 14, 2010
By VALERIE WIGGLESWORTH and MATTHEW HAAG / The Dallas Morning News

link to this article at The Dallas Morning News

Possible mountain lion sighting along trail at Frisco Commons Park; park goers advised to use caution walking the trail.
-- From Frisco Communications

(October 8, 2010) There have been three separate sightings this week of what appears to be a mountain lion along the hiking trail area on the north side of Frisco Commons Park, located at 8000 McKinney Rd. The latest sighting was late this morning by a City of Frisco parks employee. The city employee says the animal was not aggressive and ran away.

Frisco Commons Park remains open, and parks management reminds residents and visitors that operating hours for all city parks are from dawn until dusk. Signs will be posted around the park alerting park goers of the recent sightings and you are urged to use caution in the area.

While there have been reports of bobcat sightings in Frisco in recent years, all three people who saw the animal along the Frisco Commons Park trail say it was not a bobcat, but a mountain lion. Texas Parks and Wildlife officials have been notified and will come out to look for physical evidence to determine what type of animal is in the area. Frisco Animal Control officers are also investigating.

“Animal control staff has walked the area, and could not find evidence that a wild animal is living in the hiking trail area of Frisco Commons Park,” said Greg Carr, Animal Control Administrator. “More likely the animal is passing through. Staff will continue to monitor the area to make sure a wild animal is not sticking around.”

The city will not be setting traps because most wildlife experts agree mountain lions are difficult to trap.

According to state wildlife officials, mountain lions are solitary animals, and attacks on humans are rare. Only four reports of mountain lion attacks on humans have been reported in Texas since 1980. Wild animals often use creeks to travel through cities. A female mountain lion has a range of up to 80 to 100 square miles and a male has a range up to 200 square miles.

Here are some things Texas Parks and Wildlife suggests you can do should
you encounter a mountain lion:

• Pick up small children to prevent them from running and triggering a
  rush or attack.
• Stay calm, talk calmly, and slowly back away, keeping eye contact with the mountain lion. Do not run or turn your back.
• Carry a sturdy walking stick with you. Do what you can to appear larger
  by raising your arms or waving the stick.
• If the lion is aggressive, throw rocks or sticks, and speak firmly and loudly.
• Fight back if a lion attacks you. Lions can be driven off by fighting back.

Read more information about mountain lions from Texas Parks and
Wildlife online.

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The following information is distributed from the City of Frisco's News
and Information service.

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Burbs gone wild!, CCO, Dec. 12, 2007

Frisco battery recycling plant to test residents' blood levels for lead

Frisco battery recycling plant to test residents' blood levels for lead

October 7, 2010
By VALERIE WIGGLESWORTH and MATTHEW HAAG / The Dallas Morning News

link at The Dallas Morning News....

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Link: Letter from Frisco city manager

Link: TCEQ map of non-attainment area

Link: EPA recommendation

WATER

Earlier this week, the City of Plano issued a press release informing citizens that the city had, "collected 19 water samples during June, 2010 that contained coliform bacteria." The press release went on to say that some of these positive readings were repeat tests.

The press release went on to say, "This water system is required to submit a minimum of 150 routine water samples each month for bacteriological analysis. Eleven routine samples were coliform-found and eight repeat samples were coliform-found for the month and year indicated above."

Now what is "coliform". According to Wikipedia, "Coliform is the name of a test adopted in 1914 by the Public Health Service for the Enterobacteriaceae family. It is the commonly-used bacterial indicator of sanitary quality of foods and water." I've generally heard the word coliform as part of a two word descriptor, "fecal coliform". Wikipedia also notes that, "Coliforms are abundant in the feces of warm-blooded animals, but can also be found in the aquatic environment, in soil and on vegetation. In most instances, coliforms themselves are the cause of many nosocomial illnesses, they are easy to culture and their presence is used to indicate that other pathogenic organisms of fecal origin may be present."

The city's press release however emphasized that, "No pathogenic organisms (those which cause illness) and no indicators of fecal contamination, such as E.coli or fecal coliform, have been detected."

The state standard is that no more than 5% of sample be positive for coliform. The city's testing failed in over double the allowed standard.

When coliform is found in a sample, the city is required to retest that sample. According to the city, it failed to do so

The City of Plano, along with most of the towns and cities in Collin County, gets all its water from the North Texas Municipal Water District's (NTMWD)treatment plant in Wylie. The most recent water quality report the from NTMWD shows coliform present only in untreated water samples. So far, the NTMWD has not commented publicly on the Plano violations.

The city notes that the problem may not be with the water, but with the testing: "Working with the Plano Health Department and NTMWD, the city completed thorough replications of testing procedures to identify possible sources for the abnormal results. This testing review determined several sites were found to have physical problems that have been corrected. For quality assurance, a private lab and environmental consultant were employed to corroborate results and evaluate our procedures. The private lab results did not verify total coliform bacteria and the consultant recommended procedural changes which have been implemented."

“We are doing everything we can to determine what caused variation in the results. All samples in July and August have been good.”, said Alan Upchurch, Director of Public Works and Engineering.

AIR

Frisco's air quality has been called into question because lead contamination from the local Exide battery recycling factory will cause parts of the city to fail the newest federal EPA standards.

Along with the lead, on some days, Frisco residents are also required to breathe an unhealthy amount of ozone.

According to a health alert issued today by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality:

AIR POLLUTION WARNING - LEVEL ORANGE

OZONE is UNHEALTHY FOR SENSITIVE GROUPS in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Area Thursday, September 16, 2010, 17:15 CDT

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has issued a LEVEL ORANGE warning for the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. Ozone air pollution levels are rated as UNHEALTHY FOR SENSITIVE GROUPS based on measurements at the following monitoring site(s)*:

[Collin] County: Frisco C31/C680

Recommended Actions for Ozone Levels Unhealthy For Sensitive Groups (Level Orange):

- Active children and adults as well as people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should limit prolonged outdoor exertion.

Point your web browser to the following URL to see a map of the current hourly ozone averages for the Dallas-Ft. Worth area:
http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/cgi-bin/compliance/monops/select_curlev.pl?region04_cur.gif

This ozone map is updated about 32 minutes after each hour.

High ozone could form or travel to other locations within the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, depending upon wind direction/speed and other factors. Elevated levels of ozone may persist past sunset. No additional Ozone Warnings will be issued unless measured ozone levels are projected to reach 'Level Red - Unhealthy'."

Other warning were issued by the TCEQ today for Grapevine and Denton Airport.

Bill

A tornado touched down in Dallas this evening about 2 blocks from where I work. (While this has nothing to do with Collin County, other than that a few minutes later the same tornado set off the sirens in southern Collin County, I thought the telling of it might interest some of our readers.)

We were outside loading up our cars about 6 PM at the shop which is 2 blocks from Mockingbird lane and just off the Trinity levee. It had just finished raining - a real tropical downpour with heavy winds that made the rain appear to be falling sideways. As the warning sirens began to blare, we noticed 2 dark low hanging clouds spinning low in the sky. I later learned that one of those funnel clouds touched down in Oak Cliff)

As we looked on, both low hanging clouds quickly disintegrated and became assimilated into the thunderclouds. A minute later, the sun came out. Thinking the danger had passed, we continued our work. A few minutes later, we noticed a weird long, thin, vertical, almost transparent, white cloud silhouetted in front of the sun and reaching all the way to the ground.

We watched as that cloud grew and began moving quickly from south to north. As it arrived in front of us, about 2 blocks away we heard a machine-like noise, like a wood chipper. Then debris rose from the ground as a black cloud at the base of the long, thin tornado. It was only on the ground for half a minute, trashing a quarter mile path along Mockingbird Ln.

After it passed, I drove to the storm's path, about 2 blocks from where we had stood.

It looked like the funnel cloud hit the ground just north of the levee - smashing out all the windows in a parked van, tearing down large tree limbs and breaking glass at a store front.

As the path moved north, the damage became greater, doing the most damage just north of the intersection of Mockingbird and Irving Blvd. There, telephone polls were down and one business was completely destroyed, with a large 18 wheeler smashed into the front of the building as the walls and roof collapsed.

All apparent damage ended just a block further north.

Had the storm stayed on the ground just a few more hundred yards, it would have crossed SH 183 and I-35 - while both roads were crowded with rush hour traffic.

Then the cost in life would have been horrid.

Bill

Frisco's air has too much lead under new federal pollution rules

August 16, 2010
By MATTHEW HAAG and VALERIE WIGGLESWORTH / The Dallas Morning News

An area of Frisco that encompasses downtown, several schools and neighborhoods will soon be in violation of new federal lead pollution standards.

read the rest of this article at The Dallas Morning News.....

From the TCEQ:

"AIR POLLUTION WATCH - LEVEL ORANGE - FOR DALLAS-FORT WORTH"

"The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has issued a Level Orange Air Pollution Watch for the Dallas-Fort Worth area for Monday, August 2, 2010."

"Atmospheric conditions are expected to be favorable for producing high levels of ozone air pollution in the Dallas-Fort Worth area on Monday. Ozone levels could reach the Level Orange "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups" category."

"Elevated concentrations of ozone can act as a lung irritant. Individuals with chronic lung disease, such as asthma and emphysema, as well as the elderly and young children, are particularly sensitive to ozone and should attempt to avoid exposure. To avoid exposure, minimize exertion outdoors during the mid-day to early evening hours or stay indoors in an air-conditioned room during this time."

Bill

I'm on the TCEQ DFW mail list. Every summer, I get several warnings like the one below --

AIR POLLUTION WARNING - LEVEL ORANGE
OZONE is UNHEALTHY FOR SENSITIVE GROUPS in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Area Monday, July 26, 2010, 15:15 CDT

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has issued a LEVEL ORANGE warning for the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. Ozone air pollution levels are rated as UNHEALTHY FOR SENSITIVE GROUPS based on measurements at the following monitoring site(s)...

Several years ago, the Council of Governments formed a Clean Air Committee made up of local officials, business leaders, and environmental activists. The committee was co-chaired by Dallas County Judge Margaret Keliher and Collin County Judge Ron Harris.

In 2006 the committee released its North Texas Clean Air Plan to put the region in compliance with then existing federal law.

The committee's plan relied in large part on the reduction of "Point Sources of NOx emissions", such as the Midlothian cement kilns and TXU coal fired generating plants. It also called for the adoption of California style auto emission standards. Claiming that the plan put too much of a burden on industrial polluters, the State of Texas refused to submit the DFW plan to the EPA.

Eventually, the TCEQ substituted its own plan, which it admitted would not meet EPA guidelines. In Jun, after years of negotiations, the EPA rejected the TCEQ plan, and the fight was on.

Last month, the EPA took over the permitting process for point sources from the TCEQ and denied an operating permit to the Garland Power and Light generating station in Collin County and to two other companies in Texas. Yesterday, the Texas Attorney General challenged the EPA, filing suit in the Federal Appeals Court in New Orleans.

None of these legal maneuverings keep the air in Collin County from remaining polluted for much of the summer.

In an effort to re-start the process of creating a new clean air plan, the North Central Texas Council of Governments is reconstituting the North Texas Clean Air Steering Committee.

Sadly, Dallas County, the largest stakeholder in the region, is embroiled with its own lack of faith in its County Judge and did appoint a member to the Committee.

During the May 10 Collin County Commissioners Court discussion on the appointment of a Collin County representative, Commissioner Jaynes nominated Keith Self to serve on the new committee. Jerry Hoagland seconded, saying that, "Clean Air is a big deal." The commissioners court then appointed Judge Keith Self, who seemed surprised at their decision. Self's obvious discomfort caused Matt Shaheen to dryly comment, "aw, you don't get to Arlington enough anyway".

After the vote appointing him, Self quipped, "You know what that's going to do to the COG - when I appear on the Clean Air Steering Committee?".

He's right. Self has in the past compared the NCTCOG to the Central Committee of the Soviet Union. He sees regionalism as a "slide into socialism".

But the simple fact is that Keith Self needs to be a part of any new plan. Collin County is too large to not be a part of any successful proposal. We're all going to have to find a way to get along or Washington will dictate what measures we will have to learn to live with in order to clean up our polluted air.

The first meeting of the 25 member North Texas Clean Air Steering Committee will be at the NCTCOG headquarters in Arlington at 10:00 AM on Thursday. It's role, according to its web page is:

"The North Texas Clean Air Steering Committee (NTCASC) is the regional air quality advisory body for the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The NTCASC is comprised of 25 members, including local city and county officials, environmental interest representatives, chamber of commerce representatives, and public/citizen education representatives. The committee’s main goal is to work collaboratively in making recommendations to the State on what regional air quality control strategies should be implemented to reach attainment of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. This committee focuses on controlling air pollution from all origins including on-road, non-road, area, and point sources."

Meanwhile, if you live in Collin County, limit your outside activities tomorrow. We will likely be under a Level Orange air pollution warning.

Bill

The North Texas Municipal Water District has begun setting stakes and erecting fencing across critical habitat at the Heard Wildlife Sanctuary in McKinney.

The NTMWD has sued the Heard to allow a half mile long, 110 foot wide swath across the sanctuary to construct a sewer line. The line will significantly impact wetlands and prairie habitat. According to the Heard, "There would be short term and long term damage to the sanctuary including displacing animals that may never return, disrupting native prairie foliage, trees and grasses, contaminating the wetlands, causing a permanent odor, and disturbing the environment for regular maintenance visits and possible emergency situations with the pipeline." The trial is tentatively scheduled to begin on May 9, in the County Court at Law #4.

According to a press release by the Heard:

"The NTMWD has staked and silt fenced the pipeline route through the sanctuary. They intend to put a 42” diameter pipeline 3,500 foot long through the prairie and under the wetlands. At this time, there are several examples of how this is already affecting the wildlife on the sanctuary:

"Two of the bird numerous boxes are currently occupied by nesting birds. The one that is in the picture below has a nesting Carolina Chickadee and these birds are protected by the migratory bird species act. There is also a Carolina Wren that is nesting and protected by the act as well. The Heard has the oldest bird banding program in the state of Texas which started in 1978. More than 25,000 birds have been documented at the Heard. There are a variety of birds that have yet to migrate to the Heard in the next few weeks.

"There are cattle egrets that roost on the sanctuary every year. Yesterday a cattle egret was seen on the road near the Heard's Science Resource Center . They have never been seen there before. This morning there were three more seen in the same area. They are being stressed and disturbed from the construction crew and trucks that have been on the sanctuary and don’t know where to go. Some of the places where they are putting up fencing is closed to the public so these are areas where the wildlife feels safe and they are now being disturbed and confused about where to go.

"There is a plant rescue group right now trying to move native plant species out of the area. These species don’t grow in many other places and the Heard doesn’t want to lose them. They include the New Jersey Tea, Yucca, Ground Plum and False Indigo."

Bill

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Notes:

Preserve the Heard Wildlife Sanctuary website

DMN - Heard museum prepares for court fight, CCO, February, 2010

Eco-terrorism: Collin County style, CCO, December, 2009

Heard museum worried about sewer line planned on property, The Dallas Morning News, December 20, 2009

Panel sides with water district on plans to run sewer line under McKinney's Heard museum, The Dallas Morning News, December 16, 2009

Heard museum in McKinney battles water district over sewer line, The Dallas Morning News, October 29, 2009

Sorry, I couldn't resist the headline:

DMN - The Colony, Frisco settle dispute over sliver of land known as The Finger

Thursday, March 25, 2010
By VALERIE WIGGLESWORTH / The Dallas Morning News

After years of wrangling and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, The Colony will hand over to Frisco a sliver of land known as The Finger.

The 22-acre tract – home to two holes of The Golf Club at Frisco Lakes – has been the subject of a long-running dispute that will end with the property in Frisco's city limits. Frisco also received more than $1 million from The Colony as part of a settlement from a 2004 lawsuit.

Frisco officials say the agreement was about more than money.

"It is the rebuilding of good relations and clearing up of several other matters between our cities that make this an important step for both entities," Frisco Assistant City Manager Ron Patterson said.

City Manager Tony Johnston of The Colony said, "The settlement of the lawsuit has been long-awaited, and we look forward to working together with our neighboring city."

The feud between the two started years ago over two tracts of land west of FM423 known as The Finger and The Lightning Bolt. Both cities claimed the tracts were within their extraterritorial jurisdiction. A district court ruled in Frisco's favor in 1984. But The Colony went ahead and annexed The Finger, according to court records. By the time Frisco found out, it was too late to challenge the move in court.

But Frisco officials didn't forget.

In 1998, The Colony and Frisco contracted with the North Texas Municipal Water District to expand capacity at a wastewater treatment plant in Frisco. The district sold bonds and expanded the plant, while the two cities made payments on the debt.

But when The Colony started making plans to connect to the plant, Frisco refused to grant access through its city. It wanted The Finger and The Lightning Bolt, which The Colony was still claiming as its own.

The Colony found itself having paid toward a wastewater treatment plant it couldn't use. And its own 25-year-old treatment plant needed an upgrade. Environmental regulators had already fined the city $16,000. If it couldn't bring its plant into compliance within two years, more penalties were coming.

So The Colony stopped making payments on the new plant and invested $14 million into expanding its own plant. And it sued the water district and Frisco for breach of contract.

According to court records, the contract didn't address how the wastewater would be delivered to the new plant. The contract guaranteed The Colony only a certain amount of capacity once its wastewater arrived, the courts ruled.

The lawsuit advanced from trial court to the Second District Court of Appeals. Last year, The Colony petitioned for a review by the Texas Supreme Court. In recent months, though, all three entities decided to settle the case and move on.

The $1 million settlement reimburses Frisco for the $642,863 it paid to cover The Colony's share of the plant construction plus interest. The amount also covers Frisco's $208,200 in legal fees on the lawsuit. The water district did not receive reimbursement it requested for an estimated $152,500 in legal fees it incurred in the case. The Colony also surrendered The Finger.

Last year, Frisco gave up its claim to 40 acres known as The Lightning Bolt as part of an unrelated settlement with a developer. The Colony had annexed the jagged-shaped property at the request of Wynnwood Peninsula Partners at the same time that Frisco was initiating annexation on the tract. Wynnwood had sued Frisco to keep the land in The Colony. Frisco agreed....

read the rest of this article at The Dallas Morning News....

Heard museum prepares for court fight

February 26, 2010
The Dallas Morning News McKinney Blog
Ed Housewright/Reporter

The Heard and the North Texas Municipal Water District are still battling over the district's plans to install a sewer line under the museum property.

The Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary offered an alternate route across its 289-acre site. But the water district rejected it.

"Efforts to resolve the dispute ... have failed," the museum says in a news release. "The lawsuit will be set for trial."

The museum and wildlife sanctuary, which opened in 1967, draws more than 100,000 visitors a year.

It fears the sewer line will damage native prairie grassland and wetlands.

The water district says the line poses no environmental damage.

link to the post on The Dallas Morning News McKinney Blog....

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The Observer Comments:

Good grief...

"The water district says the line poses no environmental damage"

Wow! So the Water District is telling the Wildlife Sanctuary how to protect its habitat.

I assume that now The Heard's environmentalists will feel free to tell the NTMWD how to maintain water pressure.

For more coverage on this issue, see:

Eco-terrorism: Collin County style, CCO, December, 2009

Heard museum worried about sewer line planned on property, The Dallas Morning News, December 20, 2009

Panel sides with water district on plans to run sewer line under McKinney's Heard museum, The Dallas Morning News, December 16, 2009

Heard museum in McKinney battles water district over sewer line, The Dallas Morning News, October 29, 2009

Bill

The Collin County Commissioners have been informed that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) assessed a $3,675 for violations found at the county's fuel depot. The violations of the Texas Clean Water Act did not allow fuel to escape.

The fuel depot is at the county's Service center on Wilmeth Rd. in McKinney.

In a letter to the county, the TCEQ proposed to cut the fine to $2,940 in return for prompt remediation of the violations. The TCEQ also is allowing the county to pay part of the fine with a type of community service called a "Supplemental Environmental Project" (SEP). By the terms of the proposed SEP, the county would trade cleanup of an illegal dump site on Lake Lavon for all or part of the fine.

According to a memo sent to the court by the county's Public Works Director, Jon Kleinheksel, all violations at the service center's fueling operation have been corrected to the satisfaction of the TCEQ. Mr. Kleinheksel listed the violations as, "Unsuccessful completion of a monthly leak test, spill containment device had a crack in the plastic, and a shear valve was loose at the base of a dispenser." Kleinheksel noted in his letter that, "The four-hour leak test was stopped to accommodate an employee that was in need of fuel, causing the test to end early."

The commissioners' court is expected to approve the SEP and settlement at its meeting on Monday morning.

Bill

Frisco city officials fear battery recycler's expansion plan would worsen lead levels

Tuesday, December 22, 2009
By MATTHEW HAAG and VALERIE WIGGLESWORTH / The Dallas Morning News
Staff writer Randy Lee Loftis contributed to this report.

"Frisco conducted a health risk assessment in 1994 and a follow-up in 1995 that focused on three families who lived a few blocks north of the lead smelter and east of the new City Hall. The studies found elevated levels of lead in three children but couldn't conclusively connect them to the plant's emissions."

"'I believe we may have the distinction of having the only wastewater treatment plant in the country that ever produced hazardous waste,' Purefoy said."

Thousands of people in the heart of Frisco are exposed to toxic lead pollution from a battery recycling plant that wants to expand production.

Exide Technologies Inc. operates the decades-old lead smelter that's flanked by Frisco's downtown, a high school and several neighborhoods and businesses. Its lead emissions make Collin County one of only 18 counties nationwide not expected to meet new, more stringent air-quality standards. It is expected to be the only such designation in the south-central United States.

Recent research shows that lead poses a greater risk to people than scientists once thought. And it's especially detrimental to children, who can suffer from learning problems, diminished IQs and brain damage.

Exide, whose plant is not in violation of current air-quality standards, responded to only a few specific questions. Exide also declined a request to make available Don Barar, its plant manager in Frisco.

The company issued a brief statement that said in part: "The desire and intent of Exide Technologies is to operate responsibly and in compliance with applicable regulatory requirements."

Frisco officials object to the production increase and are challenging Exide's plans through a trial-like contested case hearing with state regulators. Their letter to state officials says the expansion "will have a negative impact on the City and its residents."

Late this summer, Exide officials proposed spending more than $1.3 million to reduce the plant's lead air emissions in hopes of moving its application forward. The projects outlined in documents sent to the state would capture so-called fugitive emissions – the lead released through cracks in a building or by vehicle traffic leaving the plant.

But City Manager George Purefoy said, "I don't understand logically how they can increase production and not increase the amount of emissions going out of the stacks."

City grew up with plant

Frisco is in a unique position: Few, if any, burgeoning suburban cities nationwide have a lead smelter in the middle of town.

Gould-National Battery Inc. originally built the plant in 1964 on 55 acres along South Fifth Street with views of rolling prairies. At the time, the city's population was less than 1,900.

But Frisco grew up. Farmland has been eaten up by subdivisions. And the city's population has exploded to more than 106,000.

Exide Technologies acquired the plant in 2000. It's one of nine battery recycling plants worldwide operated by the company based in Milton, Ga. It employs 130 people.

The Frisco plant crushes used automotive and industrial batteries, uses heat to extract the lead and converts it into lead oxide to make recycled batteries. The process releases some of the lead into the environment.

A year ago, Exide submitted a request to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to allow the Frisco plant to break down more batteries. Finished lead production limits would increase to 500 tons a day, up from the current limit of 400 tons a day.

The commission is still reviewing the request. Officials there said they cannot comment on pending permits.

A key question remains unanswered: What impact would a production increase at Exide's plant have on already elevated lead-pollution levels?

In its application to the state, Exide said its production change wouldn't increase the plant's lead emissions, but it didn't offer any evidence.

Exide's 100-page application to Texas regulators didn't include an air modeling study – common in such applications – that estimates lead levels in the air around the smelter.

In addition, the map Exide sent to state regulators to show what's near the plant is so outdated that the Dallas North Tollway isn't listed. Neither are Pizza Hut Park, Frisco Square, Frisco High School and several newer neighborhoods.

Purefoy said the city didn't know about the expansion proposal until after Exide submitted it in October 2008. Later that month, Purefoy fired off an e-mail to Mayor Maher Maso after a meeting with Barar, the plant manager.

"I told him that the city was committed to reducing the emissions falling on our citizens every minute from the plant," Purefoy wrote. "And if Exide wasn't committed to the same goal, then the relationship between the city and Exide was taking a dramatic change of course."

Stricter standards

In November 2008, the EPA gave notice that the federal air-quality standard for lead emissions would become 10 times more stringent – from 1.5 micrograms of lead per cubic meter of air to 0.15 micrograms per cubic meter.

"After being quiet for 15 years on the lead front, it's now a priority for the EPA," said Guy Donaldson, chief of the planning section for the agency's Region 6, which covers a five-state area that includes Texas. "It's happening now because the scientific evidence says you have health effects at these levels."

The new standard for lead, which wouldn't be enforced in Collin County until 2012, is the level expected to protect public health.

A monitoring station on Exide's property recorded violations of the 1.5 standard in 1985, 1989 and 1990. The plant, then operated by another company, received violation notices in 1989 and 1990. A year later, the EPA designated the facility a nonattainment area, meaning it violated air-quality standards. The area was declared back in compliance in 1999.

The new proposed nonattainment area is at least twice as big as the one designated in 1991.

'Any exposure is bad'

In recent years, the tools for measuring the effects of lead exposure in people have become more precise, allowing scientists to detect lower levels in blood and measure damage in greater detail.

"Lead is toxic even at the lowest levels we can measure," said Philip Landrigan, an international leader in public health and a pediatrician at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. "Any exposure is bad, but more exposure is worse."

Health effects are particularly acute in children, who breathe in more air than adults relative to their size. Lead exposure can cause learning disabilities, decreased growth, hyperactivity and brain damage.

In adults, high lead levels can contribute to high blood pressure and heart disease. Pregnant women exposed to lead also put their unborn babies at risk.

While lead-poisoning symptoms aren't always apparent, Landrigan said, there could be some underlying health effects. The only way to know for sure is to test the amount of lead in a person's blood, he said.

Frisco conducted a health risk assessment in 1994 and a follow-up in 1995 that focused on three families who lived a few blocks north of the lead smelter and east of the new City Hall. The studies found elevated levels of lead in three children but couldn't conclusively connect them to the plant's emissions.

Purefoy, Frisco's city manager, said last month that he hopes to conduct a larger health study to determine any effects from lead.

read the rest of this informative article on The Dallas Morning News' website....

Farmersville family left in cold after city orders 'green' system cut off

December 9, 2009
STEVE STOLER / WFAA-TV

FARMERSVILLE - Rex and Sherry Thain have lived in their Collin County home for 19 years. They decided to go "green" 10 years ago and installed a geo-thermal heating and cooling system.

The Thains said it seem like a good idea at the time, and so did the former Farmersville city manager. But, times change and so has the city manager, and that's the problem.

The Thains live in one of the oldest homes in Farmersville near Lake Lavon. They received a letter from the city saying their geo-thermal system is illegally connected to the city's water line. The city said it violates ordinances and the safe drinking water act. The new city manager, who believes the Thain's connection to the city water line is illegal, ordered them to disconnect from it immediately.

"The new city manager said he doesn't know why the original city manager authorized it," said Rex Thain.

With no water coming into their geo-thermal system, the Thains cannot heat their house. So, when the temperature dropped, they moved in with some friends.

"It's just shocking, really," Thain said. "We can't comprehend it."

The family's supporters came to Farmersville City Hall Tuesday night holding signs and wearing T-shirts that read: "Never Give Up."

"To do this in the middle of the winter season to this community is very unfortunate and completely unacceptable," said Gwen Snyder, a family friend.

The Thains could solve the problem by digging 10 wells. But, they said it would cost more than they could afford. They fear if the city doesn't provide some relief, they could wind up losing their house.

"I understand when people steal cable or do things they shouldn't be doing, but everything we did was above board," Thain said.

The city wouldn't comment at Tuesday's meeting because of an insurance claim that has been filed.

read article and watch video report on WFAA....

I couldn't believe this when I found it. The NTMWD sued the McKinney's Heard Wildlife Sanctuary to force the sanctuary to allow the water district to tear up a 110 foot wide swath for more than a half a mile in the preserve to dig a ditch for a new sewer line.

It's going to happen, unless public pressure convinces the directors of the water district to reroute their sewer off the preserve.

The Heard is a jewel. A natural oasis amid the sprawl that is overtaking northern Collin County. For almost 50 years it has been a public treasure and a refuge for a myriad of birds and wildlife. Can no place in this county remain untouched by development?

Please sign the petition and ask your representative on the NTMWD's board to go around the Heard.

Bill

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From the Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary's web site:

The Heard Preservation Campaign

We urge you to take action on preserving the 289-acre wildlife sanctuary for wildlife, you, your family, and future generations at the Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary in McKinney?, Texas.

The North Texas Municipal Water District wants to put a 3,500 foot long, 42 inch diameter sewage line through the sanctuary prairie land and underneath the wetlands. They would also impact land of a total of 110 feet wide along the length of the 3,500 foot sewage line for accommodation of construction vehicles.

There would be short term and long term damage to the sanctuary including displacing animals that may never return, disrupting native prairie foliage, trees and grasses, contaminating the wetlands, causing a permanent odor, and disturbing the environment for regular maintenance visits and possible emergency situations with the pipeline.

The Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary also has the oldest bird banding program in Texas (established in 1978) and is recognized as an important birding area by The National Audubon Society. Many migrating bird species may never return. The Heard is becoming an island in one of the fastest growing areas in the United States.

Sign this petition to urge the North Texas Municipal Water district to go around the sanctuary and to help support the preservation, health, and future of the Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary for wildlife, for you and for nature education.

From a Collin County press release:

Two Arrests Made for Illegal Dumping


(MCKINNEY, Texas) After an investigation begun in September by the Collin County Fire Marshal, two arrests for felony illegal dumping have been made. Acting on some personal items that were found at an illegal dump site near CR 364, investigators were able to trace the trash to a property owner who had hired someone to clean up a rental home and haul the trash to the landfill.

With the assistance of the County Sheriff’s Office and the cooperation of the property owner, the trailers used by the suspects were tracked, resulting in the discovery of two dump sites near the Trails of 1827 subdivision (north of Altoga) on November 15th and 23rd. In the process of tracking the trailer full of trash to the second dump site on the evening of November 23rd, investigators caught the suspects in the act of illegally emptying the trailer.

The two suspects, Eduardo Salazar and Eusebio Salazar, are brothers and undocumented aliens both living in McKinney?. They confessed to illegally disposing of the trash that evening, and Eduardo also admitted responsibility for the illegal dump site found on November 15th.

The suspects are being charged with felony illegal dumping, Eduardo with two counts and Eusebio with one count. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of up to two years in state prison and a fine of up to $10,000. They are currently being held in Collin County Jail on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers. Eduardo has previously been deported three times from the United States, and could face an additional illegal dumping charge from the September incident that initially prompted the investigation.

All three illegal dump sites mentioned were cleaned up by County Public Works staff. The September dump site contained over one ton of trash, the November 15th site 1.2 tons, and the November 23rd site 1.3 tons of trash.

Fire Marshal’s Investigator David Toler has been heading this investigation.

These arrests, the third and fourth of the year, are the first under a Collin County illegal dumping initiative approved by the Commissioners Court and involving the collaboration of several county offices: Public Works, Fire Marshal, Sheriff, Constables, and Public Information. Under this initiative, more resources are being dedicated to addressing and preventing illegal dumping throughout Collin County through law enforcement, clean up, surveillance and public awareness and education.

A new Collin County video public service announcement about illegal dumping is now available for viewing.

Frisco plant exceeds new limit on lead levels

November 15, 2009
by RANDY LEE LOFTIS / The Dallas Morning News

Exide Technologies' decision last month not to seek state permission to expand production at its Frisco lead smelter doesn't mean public health concerns are over.

Even with no expansion, airborne lead levels around the 45-year-old vehicle battery recycler are among the highest measured anywhere in the country. As recently as last year, they came close to the Environmental Protection Agency's legal limit for lead in the air.

That limit is being replaced by a tighter, more scientifically robust federal standard that is needed, a huge body of research shows, to protect children and others from a substance known to be toxic in almost unimaginably tiny doses. Lead levels around the Exide plant are routinely five to eight times higher than the new limit.

Hard evidence of how lead might be affecting people who live near the Frisco smelter, however, is just about nonexistent. Public health officials have never tested local children for IQ loss or other subtle but critical effects of lead.

It's been 15 years since they checked some children's blood for evidence of exposure – so far back that experts say any results from then are meaningless now.

Lack of local information makes it difficult for Frisco to judge the potential risks of living near the city's heaviest industry, which melts lead from old vehicle batteries for reuse in new ones. Exide's expansion plans stirred a brief but effective protest, but now the city must decide how to reconcile nearly a half-century of quiet local relations with an avalanche of new knowledge about lead's toxic impacts.

City officials want a state study. "We want to make sure that public health is protected," Mayor Maher Maso said.

Atlanta-based Exide, with operations in 80 countries and annual sales of $3.3 billion, said it is assessing the new lead standard's impact on its Frisco plant. Exide "fully intends to implement measures to attain" the tighter limit, spokeswoman Kristin Wohlleben said.

A local study might be valuable, nationally known experts on lead told The Dallas Morning News. They stressed, however, that enough is already known about the soft, gray metal's effects on intelligence, attention span and even blood pressure to justify a dramatic reduction in Frisco's lead levels.

Frisco residents can rely on an "alarming accumulation of data in other studies," said Dr. Deborah Cory-Slechta of the University of Rochester.

"We certainly know what the blood levels around smelters have been with these kinds of exposures," said Cory-Slechta, a neuroscience and member of an expert panel that pressed the EPA to cut the federal lead limit more than 90 percent. "So we can probably predict that we're going to have them above levels of concern."

Many experts argue that the new federal limit is still too high, so lead readings nearly 10 times the new limit are "clearly a concern," she said. "It should suggest to parents – especially to those who reside in some proximity to the smelter – that they would want to have blood-lead testing done on their kids."

Close to the limit

From 1988, when public disclosure of companies' toxic releases began, through 2008, the latest report year, Exide or predecessor GNB released 76,513 pounds of lead into Frisco's air. That doesn't count releases during the 24 years Exide operated before emissions reporting started.

What is known is that the lead, which enters the air from three smokestacks and 27 other points around the plant, and from dust kicked up by trucks and other sources, has sometimes violated the EPA's limit or come close.

After excessive lead readings starting in the mid-1980s, in 1991 the EPA designated the property around the smelter a nonattainment area – federal jargon meaning an area has not attained the national standard for clean air.

By 1999, lead levels had stayed below the limit – at the time, 1.5 micrograms suspended in each cubic meter of air – long enough for the EPA to lift the designation. A decade later, however, the part of Frisco nearest the smelter is about to become a nonattainment area once more.

Under federal orders, states have listed areas that will have lead levels higher than the new limit. Collin County is Texas' only proposed area; Exide is the county's only big lead source.

Being a lead nonattainment area means little to the general public; there are no restrictions on people's activities or property. The label forces regulators to reduce emissions from major sources and alerts the public to the problem.

Figures show the problem around Exide. From 2005 to 2007, the highest average reading was 0.77 micrograms per cubic meter – more than five times the new federal limit.

From May through August last year, average readings ranged from 0.97 to 1.26 micrograms. That highest reading, in July 2008, was more than eight times the new limit and just below the old one. Those readings came although Exide was emitting only slightly more than half as much lead as its state permit allows.

This summer, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality did a computer study that intentionally overestimated Exide's possible emissions to see how high the lead levels could go in theory. The forecast reached 1.42 micrograms – almost hitting the old, discarded federal limit of 1.5.

Read the rest of the article in the Dallas Morning News (it's worth reading)....

Just shy of the southern terminus of FM 1378, the road crosses Muddy Creek. The road winds through several sharp curves as it crosses the creek and lines up for its intersection with FM544.

The 13.5 mile creek drains parts of Lucas, St. Paul, Wylie, Sachse, and Garland before emptying into Lake Ray Hubbard.

Muddy Creek isn't much to look at. It's been dammed, channelized and now disappears into a damp woods on either side of the road. What was once a meandering creek now runs in a straight line. But a close look nearby shows the former path of this ancient waterway.

Muddy Creek is ancient. Throughout its history, the creek has periodically flooded the damp wetlands that surrounded it. Most of the flooding ended with the construction of a small reservoir on the creek in the late 1950's.

People have lived in North Texas for over 14,000 years - and for them Muddy Creek was a path through the swamps and underbrush. It was a source of fish, shellfish and water. It was a gathering spot for the animals the natives hunted. It was a place to camp, hunt and gather all sorts of food.

Yet Muddy Creek, as ancient as it is, and as changed as it is, now finds that it stands in the way of development.

Just north of the Creek, the City of Wylie is building a huge Municipal Complex that will house City Hall, the library and a recreation center. Part of the land the new complex sits on is in the flood plain of Muddy Creek.

For years, the county and the city have been trying to widen and straighten the twists and turns of FM 1378 near the creek. In 2003, the citizens of Collin County approved a bond issue that, in part, promised to widen the state road. In the 6 years since the bond passed little has been done to widen the road. Muddy Creek's past stood in the way.

The Texas Department of Transportation owns the Farm to Market roads in Texas, but they could not seem to find the funds to finish planning for FM 1378. Earlier this year, TxDOT finally threw in the towel and ceded the road to the City of Wylie. Now Wylie, with financial assistance from county bonds and from the toll revenue from SH 121 will complete the work needed to straighten and widen FM1378.

Money wasn't the only delay, however. Muddy Creek and its ancient past have for several years virtually stopped any road construction.

Long before the farm road was there, long before Wylie was here, long before any white man had ever thought of a New World, Muddy Creek was there and it was home to a people who used it as a hunting and fishing camp.

In 2006, six feet under the banks of the old creek bed and in the path of the new highway, archeologists working for TxDOT found "a significant" Caddo Indian site. They named it 41COL172. Since no structures have been located, 41COL172 appears to be a camp used by the Caddoans around 1200 to 1300 A.D. and perhaps as early as 1000 A.D. Only 3% of the site has been excavated in 2 digs since 2006. Yet even those small excavations yielded enough artifacts for 41COL172 to be eligible for inclusion in the National register of Historic Places.

Caddo communities spanned the southern forests from the Mississippi river to East Texas. They built huge earthen mounds near their largest villages. Atop these mounds they worshiped their gods. They were primarily farmers. They lived in bee hive shaped huts near their fields of corn, pumpkins and vegetables. Occasionally however, members of the community would leave their farms for hunting trips on the prairie.

Few Caddos lived on that long-gone prairie that is now Collin County. Did the Muddy Creek hunters come from small bands that lived on the Trinity River, or from the larger Caddoan communities in East Texas? A small piece of painted pottery excavated at 41COL172 may hold the key to help archeologists figure out where these hunters lived.

Hundreds of bits of animal bones were found at the Muddy Creek excavation. Bones from buffalo and from white tailed deer testified to the success of the hunting. Also discovered were mussel shells, arrow heads, and pieces of stone tools.

TxDOT's report notes that, "Site 41COL172 has the unique ability to address multiple questions about this time period because of the... excellent preservation... Given that the site will be directly impacted by proposed construction of FM 1378, it is recommended that the loss of the site be mitigated through additional data recovery efforts."

Mitigation. The city and county plan to hire Geo-Marine Services of Plano to conduct excavations to remove and catalog all artifacts that would be lost by construction of the highway. Archeologists will then catalog their finds and create a display that will be used for the education of students and the Wylie public.

The mitigation will cost $248,000. The City of Wylie and Collin County will split the costs. Most of the funds will come from county bonds and from the SH 121 tollway agreement.

The ancient history of our region lies mostly underground. As we develop the county, we will find other prehistoric sites, maybe not as well preserved as 41COL172, but one or two maybe even be grander. Most, like the portion of 41COL172 will be forever destroyed by our modern need for growth and progress.

At some point however, we as a society will feel the need need to look around us for our past. Will we have "mitigated" all of it? Will we turn all of our heritage into neat display cases?

Much of the Muddy Creek hunting camp will be undisturbed by the construction of FM 1378. It should remain that way until some time in the future, when researchers will want to dig again - seeking clues to our understanding of our own past.

Bill

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NOTES:

National Register Eligibility Assessment of Archeological Sites 41COL172 and 41COL173, Collin County Texas, Geo-Marine Inc. for the Texas Department of Transportation, November, 2007

Pages from the Wylie City Council packet, October 13, 2009

Pages from the Collin County Commissioners Court packet, November 9, 2009

From the City of Frisco's new "Exide Technologies Information" web page:

Exide Technologies Information

This Web page was created to keep residents informed about issues of concern related to Exide Technologies, which is a battery recycling plant located south of downtown Frisco. This page will be updated as information becomes available.

What's the latest...
On October 20, during its regularly scheduled city council meeting, the Frisco City Council voted unanimously to authorize City Manager George Purefoy to draft a letter to Exide asking for the company to withdraw its permit application with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to expand production at the battery recycling plant.

What action has the City of Frisco taken?

On October 19, 2009 Mayor Maher Maso and City Manager George Purefoy drove to Austin to meet with the Executive Director of TCEQ. Click here to read the e-mail from Frisco’s City Manager to the Mayor and Council, summarizing the meeting with TCEQ. *This e-mail was among four documents shared with the public during the Town Hall meeting, October 19, 2009.

On November 24, 2008, the City of Frisco wrote TCEQ about concerns that Exide’s requested permit amendment will authorize lead emissions in excess of the actual current level at Exide’s Frisco facility. The City also specifically requested a contested case hearing on the matter. Click here to read the correspondence in its entirety. *This letter was among four documents shared with the public during the Town Hall meeting, October 19, 2009.

What can I do?

TCEQ advises anyone concerned about the permit amendment can send in a protest letter, adding residents and property owners within a one mile radius of the emissions point (smokestack) should have standing to require an evidentiary hearing at the State Office of Administrative Hearings.

read more.....

Frisco to consider health risk study of battery plant

Tuesday, October 20, 2009
By MATTHEW HAAG and VALERIE WIGGLESWORTH / The Dallas Morning News

Frisco's city officials and state regulators agreed Monday to look into doing a health risk study related to lead emissions from a battery-recycling plant in the city's center.

The commitment comes as concerns grow about health effects from lead pollution from the Exide Technologies plant, just south of downtown.

A year ago, Exide submitted an application to state regulators to increase production at the plant, which is on Fifth Street and near several neighborhoods. The city is protesting the permit and has filed a request for a contested-case hearing, which is a legal proceeding similar to a civil trial.

Recently, state regulators gave notice that an area around the plant is not expected to meet the new, more stringent federal air quality standards for lead that go into effect in Collin County in 2012. The non-attainment area is expected to be the only one in the south-central U.S.

On Monday, Frisco Mayor Maher Maso and City Manager George Purefoy drove to Austin to discuss the smelter with Mark Vickery, executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The agency oversees the company's operations and is reviewing its application to expand.

Article highlighting application

The meeting, which had been planned for some time, came a day after a Dallas Morning News article highlighting Exide's application and the proposal for non-attainment.

Exide officials declined to comment for the article, saying they couldn't discuss pending applications.

The company has said in documents that a production expansion won't increase lead emissions.

The plant's lead emissions comply with current federal air quality standards, but its emissions make Collin County one of only 18 counties nationwide not expected to meet new, more stringent air quality standards.

No amount of lead exposure is safe, but it's especially detrimental to children, who can suffer from learning problems and brain damage.

Maso said at the start of a town hall meeting Monday night that the discussion with Vickery went well, but he didn't elaborate. Exide was not listed on the agenda, which limited what city officials could say.

Maso said future meetings will be planned to discuss the plant.

"Rest assured we are monitoring it and are on top of it," Maso said.

He noted that the city has been working on the issue for a while.

"I personally don't feel Exide has been responsive to our city," Maso said. "This isn't just a Frisco issue."

He said after that meeting that some residents have demanded that the plant be closed.

"I'm not sure I disagree with that," he said. "If they won't be open and transparent, they have no place in Frisco."

The health risk study, if approved, would be the first in the city since 1995, when a study identified three children living north of the plant with elevated lead levels in their blood. The study could not conclusively connect those levels with the plant's emissions.

The city had handouts available at the town hall meeting that included copies of the city's protest letter and a map with a one-mile and two-mile radius around the plant. The packet also included a format for residents interested in filing their own protest with state regulators.

Maso said people living within a mile of the plant have standing to protest, but he also urged others outside that area with concerns to send one in.

Protest letter

The city's sample protest letter included the following statements:

•"I am adversely affected because the documented degradation of air quality in the vicinity of the Applicant's facility has had a negative impact on me and my family."

•"An increase in the amount of allowable emissions will significantly impact me and my family."

•"My family has been adversely impacted by harmful particulates and odors from the Applicant's facility."

•"Withdrawal of the application will resolve my immediate concerns although I believe Exide's lead emissions are having a negative long term health effect on me and my family."

A summary of the city's meeting with TCEQ also stated that Vickery "agreed to further research the methodology used to determine the designated non-attainment area for the new EPA lead standards and Exide's specific permit amendment."

Exide seeks to boost finished lead production limits to 500 tons a day, up from the current limit of 400 tons a day. TCEQ is reviewing the request.

Built in 1964, the plant crushes old automotive and industrial batteries, uses heat to extract the lead and converts it into lead oxide to make recycled batteries. In the process, some lead is released into the environment.

A few months ago, Exigent proposed spending more than $1.3 million to upgrade the plant's pollution control in hopes of moving its application forward. The upgrades would help trap so-called fugitive emissions – the lead released through a crack in a building or by a truck leaving the plant.

In November 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency gave notice that the federal air quality standard for lead emissions would become 10 times more stringent – from 1.5 micrograms of lead per cubic meter of air to 0.15 micrograms per cubic meter.

The plant's current lead emissions are projected to exceed the 0.15 lead standard, according to state data.

read more at the Dallas Morning News.....

==============
Also see: DMN - Frisco officials fight plans to expand lead smelter

It's been several years since I first heard of Exide and it's Frisco lead smelter.

I did some research on the plant back in 2006. At that time it was (and still is) the largest point source of hazardous pollution in Collin County.

EPA reports detail releases of Antimony, Lead and Arsenic into the air, ground and water around the plant.

Because of Exide Technologies lead emissions, Frisco has been declared Texas' only non-attainment area for lead pollution. (Map of non-attainment area.) In the non-attainment area are homes and schools.

The TCEQ notes on their "Air Pollution from Lead" web page (which includes a lot of data and facts on the Frisco smelter) that:

"Depending on the level of exposure, lead can adversely affect the nervous system, kidney function, immune system, reproductive and developmental systems and the cardiovascular system. Lead exposure also affects the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood.

The lead effects most commonly encountered in current populations are neurological effects in children and cardiovascular effects (e.g., high blood pressure and heart disease) in adults.

Infants and young children are especially sensitive to even low levels of lead, which may contribute to behavioral problems, learning deficits and lowered IQ. There is no known safe level of lead in the body."

On January 1, 2010, the rest of the country will be required to adopt a new, stricter lead emissions standard from 1.5 micrograms per cubic meter to one tenth that amount. Collin County, however is exempted from the new standards until 2012. A June, 2009 TCEQ memo shows that sampling around the Exide plant is expected to be 1.42 micrograms per cubic meter or nine times the new standard.

When the EPA TCEQ came to Frisco in April of 2009, not one city or county official attended, no citizens showed up either. The report noted that:

"Commission staff appeared in Frisco at 2:00 p.m. on April 20, 2009, to conduct a public hearing on the proposals. Since no member of the public appeared to make comments on either proposal, the commission did not open the public hearing. During the comment period, which closed on April 24, 2009, the commission received two comment letters, both from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)."

Now Exide wants to expand its Frisco operations, and the City of Frisco has begun to take notice.

It's about time.

The Dallas Morning News' Matthew Haag and Valerie Wigglesworth have written a well researched and informative article on this important threat to our children's health.

Bill

------------------------------------

Frisco officials fight plans to expand lead smelter

Sunday, October 18, 2009
By MATTHEW HAAG and VALERIE WIGGLESWORTH / The Dallas Morning News

Thousands of people in the heart of Frisco are exposed to toxic lead pollution from a battery recycling plant that wants to expand production.

Exide Technologies Inc. operates the decades-old lead smelter that's flanked by Frisco's downtown, a high school and several neighborhoods and businesses. Its lead emissions make Collin County one of only 18 counties nationwide not expected to meet new, more stringent air-quality standards. It is expected to be the only such designation in the south-central United States.

Recent research shows that lead poses a greater risk to people than scientists once thought. And it's especially detrimental to children, who can suffer from learning problems, diminished IQs and brain damage.

Exide, whose plant is not in violation of current air-quality standards, responded to only a few specific questions. Exide also declined a request to make available Don Barar, its plant manager in Frisco.

The company issued a brief statement that said in part: "The desire and intent of Exide Technologies is to operate responsibly and in compliance with applicable regulatory requirements."

City of Frisco officials object to the production increase and are challenging Exide's plans through a trial-like contested case hearing with state regulators. Their letter to state officials says the expansion "will have a negative impact on the City and its residents."

Late this summer, Exide officials proposed spending more than $1.3 million to reduce the plant's lead air emissions in hopes of moving its application forward. The projects outlined in documents sent to the state would capture so-called fugitive emissions – the lead released through cracks in a building or by vehicle traffic leaving the plant.

But City Manager George Purefoy said, "I don't understand logically how they can increase production and not increase the amount of emissions going out of the stacks."

City grew up with plant

Frisco is in a unique position: Few, if any, burgeoning suburban cities nationwide have a lead smelter in the middle of town.

Gould-National Battery Inc. originally built the plant in 1964 on 55 acres along South Fifth Street with views of rolling prairies. At the time, the city's population was less than 1,900.

But Frisco grew up. Farmland has been eaten up by subdivisions. And the city's population has exploded to more than 106,000.

Exide Technologies acquired the plant in 2000. It's one of nine battery recycling plants worldwide operated by the company based in Milton, Ga. It employs 130 people

The Frisco plant crushes used automotive and industrial batteries, uses heat to extract the lead and converts it into lead oxide to make recycled batteries. The process releases some of the lead into the environment.

A year ago, Exide submitted a request to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to allow the Frisco plant to break down more batteries. Finished lead production limits would increase to 500 tons a day, up from the current limit of 400 tons a day.

TCEQ is still reviewing the request. Officials there said they cannot comment on pending permits.

A key question remains unanswered: What impact would a production increase at Exide's plant have on already elevated lead-pollution levels?

In its application to the state, Exide said its production change wouldn't increase the plant's lead emissions, but it didn't offer any evidence.

Exide's 100-page application to Texas regulators didn't include an air modeling study – common in such applications – that estimates lead levels in the air around the smelter.

In addition, the map Exide sent to state regulators to show what's near the plant is so outdated that the Dallas North Tollway isn't listed. Neither are Pizza Hut Park, Frisco Square, Frisco High School and several newer neighborhoods.

Purefoy said the city didn't know about the expansion proposal until after Exide submitted it in October 2008. Later that month, Purefoy fired off an e-mail to Mayor Maher Maso after a meeting with Barar, the plant manager.

"I told him that the city was committed to reducing the emissions falling on our citizens every minute from the plant," Purefoy wrote. "And if Exide wasn't committed to the same goal then the relationship between the city and Exide was taking a dramatic change of course."

Stricter standards

In November 2008, the EPA gave notice that the federal air-quality standard for lead emissions would become 10 times more stringent – from 1.5 micrograms of lead per cubic meter of air to 0.15 micrograms per cubic meter.

"After being quiet for 15 years on the lead front, it's now a priority for the EPA," said Guy Donaldson, chief of the planning section for the agency's Region 6, which covers a five-state area that includes Texas. "It's happening now because the scientific evidence says you have health effects at these levels."

The new standard for lead, which wouldn't be enforced in Collin County until 2012, is the level expected to protect public health.

A monitoring station on Exide's property recorded violations of the 1.5 standard in 1985, 1989 and 1990. The plant, then operated by another company, received violation notices in 1989 and 1990. A year later, the EPA designated the facility a nonattainment area, meaning it violated air-quality standards. The area was declared back in compliance in 1999.

The new proposed nonattainment area is at least twice as big as the one designated in 1991.

'Any exposure is bad'

In recent years, the tools for measuring the effects of lead exposure in people have become more precise, allowing scientists to detect lower levels in blood and measure damage in greater detail.

"Lead is toxic even at the lowest levels we can measure," said Philip Landrigan, an international leader in public health and a pediatrician at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. "Any exposure is bad, but more exposure is worse."

Health effects are particularly acute in children, who breathe in more air than adults relative to their size. Lead exposure can cause learning disabilities, decreased growth, hyperactivity and brain damage.

In adults, high lead levels can contribute to high blood pressure and heart disease. Pregnant women exposed to lead also put their unborn babies at risk.

While lead-poisoning symptoms aren't always apparent, Landrigan said, there could be some underlying health effects. The only way to know for sure is to test the amount of lead in a person's blood, he said.

Frisco conducted a health risk assessment in 1994 and a follow-up in 1995 that focused on three families who lived a few blocks north of the lead smelter and east of the new City Hall. The studies found elevated levels of lead in three children but couldn't conclusively connect them to the plant's emissions.

Purefoy, Frisco's city manager, said last month that he hopes to conduct a larger health study to determine any effects from lead.

Shift in relations

Exide officials have told Texas environmental regulators that a production increase won't cause a jump in lead emissions. Yet, California air-quality regulators overseeing an Exide plant near Los Angeles say production is directly tied to emissions.

Last year, they ordered the Exide plant there to cut its production almost in half to reduce lead pollution.

"It was a very quick-acting measure to make sure the lead levels were reduced immediately," said Sam Atwood, spokesman for California's South Coast Air Quality Management District.

Federal data from 2007 show the California plant's overall lead emissions were less than those from the Frisco plant. But weather patterns, smokestack heights and other variables can determine how lead emissions affect the surrounding air quality.

Frisco's request for a contested case hearing on Exide's application requires the company to address the city's issues in a formal setting.

The legal standoff represents a shift in relations between the city and the plant.

"Every time we found an issue, a problem, in the past, they have always stepped up and taken care of it," Purefoy said.

In 1992, for example, after it was found that battery pieces had been used as fill decades earlier in building a parking lot, company officials worked with the city to clean up the contaminated material. And later, when contaminated water from the plant's operations made its way to the city's Stewart Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, the company took responsibility for containment and cleanup.

"I believe we may have the distinction of having the only wastewater treatment plant in the country that ever produced hazardous waste," Purefoy said.

The wastewater treatment plant was closed in the late 1990s. But some areas at the plant recently have tested positive for lead and cadmium. The city wants Exide to pay the $400,000 to $500,000 in cleanup costs.

read more.....

Today, I received an email from the North Central Texas Council of Governments asking my opinion on how they were doing communicating the decision making process on transportation and air quality.

Survey: NCTCOG Transportation Department Communication & Outreach Strategies

Let us know how we're doing and share your ideas.

The NCTCOG Transportation Department would like to effectively educate North Texans, seek input and involve residents in the transportation and related air quality decision-making process.

Go to www.nctcog.org/outreach to complete a brief survey about our communication and outreach strategies. It will take less than 5 minutes. Results will be used to evaluate and revise communication and outreach plans. Please complete the survey by Friday, Sept. 4.

They got my opinion. For what its worth, I replied:

"Every public meeting I've attended seemed designed to justify COG activities - not to listen to public input.

The public should be heard by the decision makers - not staff. At least one board member or Senior COG official should be in attendance at every public meeting.

The RTC and other committees should take record votes on all items dealing with money. The votes should then be published in the minutes.

....and how about some real transparency? Your budgets, audits and checkbooks should be online. Grant awards should be listed online.

You need to remember that you are funded with tax dollars. Your actions must always be open and transparent."

COG's email ended with:

"Please forward this e-mail to anyone who would be interested in learning more about transportation news."

"If you did not receive this e-mail directly, sign up at www.nctcog.org/transcomm to receive future public meeting notices and other transportation news."

I hope our readers will consider this as a forwarded request to tell the NCTCOG what you think of the agency's communications and openness.

You can access the survey directly at www.nctcog.org/outreach

Bill

Collin County's Connemara Meadow Preserve being restored to its former glory

Wednesday, August 26, 2009
By SAM HODGES / The Dallas Morning News

Rich Jaynes knows he's unusual in his love of grasses, particularly species native to Texas. So he was teasing, but just a little, when he showed off some sideoats grama to the dozen people he was leading on a nature walk at Connemara Meadow Preserve."See this guy right here?" he said, caressing a straw-colored stalk. "This is the state grass of Texas! Who doesn't have a tear in their eye? This is a beautiful grass. Don't call it 'grandma.' Then you'd be offending it. Fighting words."

Not a few people love Connemara, a haven of green and quiet off busy Alma Drive on the border of Plano and Allen. And those who know it best say the meadow is making a comeback, in biodiversity and overall health, after a period of heavy use.

But public access to the privately owned conservation area remains limited to weekend tours led by volunteers like Jaynes. Those in charge of the meadow would like to see it open again on a daily basis – on the meadow's terms.

That means gentle use, no pets, and a staff member on-site to make sure nature, not recreation, is the priority.

"I would love to have the funding to hire a sanctuary manager," said Gailon Brehm, who heads the meadow committee of Connemara Conservancy. "We could provide almost full-time access, with the volunteer team we have."

Family's gift

Through the 1970s, Frances Montgomery Williams worried that open space was disappearing because of development. In 1981, the Connemara Conservancy Foundation began with her gift of the meadowland, part of her family's property. The foundation's mission would expand to land protection across North Texas, through arranging conservation easements.

Meanwhile, the public began to find its way to Connemara Meadow Preserve, which offers an upper and lower meadow, stands of hardwoods, and a wetlands border in the form of Rowlett Creek.

For about two decades, the preserve drew crowds for an annual outdoor sculpture exhibit. Others came just to get away, enchanted by a place that offers a near-total retreat from development, though subdivisions and highways are just beyond the trees.

"I used to come out here for picnics," said Dick Grote, who joined the recent nature tour. "It was the greatest cheap date in Texas."

But over the years, as population swelled nearby, Connemara became a de facto dog park.

Kirk Evans knew the place from his boyhood in Allen, and was alarmed by what he saw when he and his wife moved back in 2001.

"There was dog mess everywhere," the Allen ISD science teacher said. "We were kind of bummed."

Conservancy leaders tried to require that dogs be kept on leashes and picked up after. But there was no enforcement, so little changed.

"We decided to close it and take a breath," Brehm said.

Sprucing it up

That was about three years ago. Since then, areas that had been worn to bare soil have become lush again. Evans and students at Norton Elementary have installed bluebird boxes and planted sideoats grama.

Jaynes discovered a patch of blackland prairie, and has recruited volunteers to help him transplant big bluestem – a native grass – from land that's being turned into a highway near Celina.

"If you look at a patch of Johnson grass, you won't find anything but Johnson grass in there," Jaynes said of that non-native species. "In blackland prairie, you'll find dozens of species of plants growing in harmony with native tall grasses."

Evans and fellow educators have had hundreds of students at Connemara in recent years, and adults have experienced the place through Saturday plant and bird-watching tours.

But the "Temporarily Closed" sign nearly always remains in place.

Hoping to correct that, conservancy leaders have hired an executive director with a fundraising background. Luanne Samuel will raise money for the meadow preserve and the organization's broader conservation work.

To have an on-site manager – counting salary, benefits and expenses – will cost about $90,000 annually. Samuel plans to target corporations, foundations and individuals.

read more....

In 2000 I spent some time up near the Great Lakes and I saw first hand the destruction caused by these small mollusks.

They had only appeared in the lakes about 10 years before, but in that time they had spread to cover every single rope, buoy, dock and water intake in Lake Erie. According to Wikipedia, the cost to US water and power plants alone is over $500 million.

Last year a few Zebra mussels were found in Lake Texoma - now they have been detected in Sister Grove Creek which is used by the NTMWD to transfer water from Texoma to Lake Lavon. It would seem that the most important water source in the region is now threatened by this invasive mussel that is native to south east Russia.

According to the Dallas Morning News article below, Zebra mussels, "may now be permanent Texas residents."

Bill

=============================

Zebra mussels seen as threat to Dallas-area lakes

Thursday, August 20, 2009
By ED HOUSEWRIGHT / The Dallas Morning News

For a tiny critter, the zebra mussel can cause huge problems.

The fingernail-size bivalves, new to these parts, have taken up residence in Lake Texoma and likely moved south into Lavon Lake, according to state officials.

Zebra mussels clog water pipes, endanger fish by gobbling up their food supply, attach to boats like magnets and line beaches with their razor-sharp edges.

Worse, they multiply at a dizzying rate, and no one knows how to eradicate them.

"I've learned more about them than I ever cared to learn," said Heath McLane, Lavon Lake manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the North Texas Municipal Water District share his concern.

State biologists have placed testing devices in Lavon Lake to check for zebra mussels, named for their striped, yellow-brown shells. On Monday, officials plan to take water samples to check for microscopic larvae, which mature into the pesky mussels.

"While we have no proof, we feel certain zebra mussels are in Lake Lavon," said Bruce Hysmith, inland fisheries biologist for Texas Parks and Wildlife.

He works at Lake Texoma, where zebra mussels were first spotted in the water on April 3. Earlier this month, mussels were detected about 25 miles south in Sister Grove Creek, which feeds into Lavon Lake.

The Texas Municipal Water District has stopped pumping water from Lake Texoma into Lavon Lake, the largest drinking water source in North Texas. It supplies water to 1.5 million people in 60 towns, including Plano, McKinney, Frisco, Richardson, Garland and Mesquite.

The water district will study ways to remove zebra mussels if they attach to pipes leading into its treatment plant, said spokeswoman Denise Hickey. Any larvae sucked into the plants would be killed by the treatment process and won't contaminate the water supply, she said.

"We will be taking to our board of directors a recommendation for an engineering consulting contract," Hickey said. "They will work with us if any [zebra mussels] are found and what strategies we need to do."

On the lookout

After water leaves Lavon Lake, it drains into the Trinity River Basin, which extends to the Gulf of Mexico.

Zebra mussels, first seen in the Great Lakes in the late 1980s, may now be permanent Texas residents. They can grow to more than an inch long and survive outside of water for several days.

read more....

It was only last February that the Dallas Morning News was predicting drought in North Texas. In an article titled, New drought blooming: Dry spell expected to persist, intensify in North Texas, the News noted that Collin County ",farmer Butch Aycock says stock tanks are drying up and winter wheat is lagging, limiting livestock grazing and forcing herds to hay. 'It's not a big issue in the area yet,' he said of the blooming drought."

But that was in February. Three months later it's a different story. The Dallas Observer's blog "Unfair Park" took notice that farmer Aycock was featured in an article published yesterday in the Southwest Farm Press bemoaning disastrous 2009 wheat and corn crops due in part to "too much rain".

The Southwest Farm Press quotes Aycock, “I’ve never had a year with this high percentage of acreage lost. About 300 of the 3,000 acres of wheat will make a decent yield. Another 2,000 acres will suffer more than a 60 percent loss and some of that is 100 percent gone. And about 400 acres will be at a 40 percent to 50 percent loss.”

“We’ve had 14 inches of rain since Easter Sunday,” Aycock said. “They don’t report that on the evening news, but that’s what we pour out of our rain gauges. We had a lot of sidedress applications we needed that we just couldn’t get done. We had too much rain to get into the fields. It’s a big wreck.”

Bill

After all the rain this spring, Lake Lavon is full.

This weekend we saw a sight we haven't seen in quite a while - 8 of the 12 flood gates at the Lavon Dam were open and releasing about 3,000 cfs.

Local fishermen and the City of Dallas love it when the Lavon gates are open. (I confess I too love the noise and sights.) The water from Lavon travels downstream on the East Fork of the Trinity river for a few miles before entering Dallas' Lake Ray Hubbard.

I took my grandson to see the action behind the dam. Here are a couple of cell phone pics taken during Saturday's rain storms:

"Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away the hunger." Saint Basil

The recent torrential rains may have wrecked your weekend cookout, but they were great for the region's water supply.

For the first time since June of last year, both lakes that are the primary sources of water for the North Texas Municipal Water District are at planned capacity (full, but not in flood conditions).

Early this morning, Lake Lavon rose past 492' above sea level, which is its normal conservation pool capacity.

Lake Chapman, in east Texas is also at its normal capacity and is releasing water from its dam.

The NTMWD also can draw water from Lake Tawakoni and Lake Texoma. Tawakoni is still 3' low, but Lake Texoma is over 7' above conservation pool - the Eisenhower Dam open and releasing 10,000 cfm (cubic feet per minute of water).

Bill

On the first Saturday of every month, Collin County allows its citizens to take a load of household trash to the NTMWD landfill in Melissa.

It's spring cleaning time, and we easily had a pick-up load of old 'treasured possessions' that needed to be gotten rid of. I have never tried the first Saturday service, and I thought I was prepared for anything.

I first checked out the county's website where I found a map and the warning that all loads must be covered and secure. (Be warned, I'm told that uncovered loads will result in the driver getting a ticket.)

I brought a good pair of rubber boots, expecting to have to wade into mud and dump ooze, and I had mentally prepared myself to endure the stink of a large garbage dump.

When I arrived at the landfill, I was surprised to find the area clean and the process friendly and well organized. County employees checked my residency and then directed me, not to a muddy dump, but to a clean, paved area built on a hill. At the top of the hill was a wall, and beneath the wall were large trash trucks. I was directed to back into a space along the wall and several county jail trustees hurried over to empty my truck - dumping everything into the trailers below.

The service was so good, I thought about tipping those guys. County Public Works Director, Jon Kleinheksel should be commended for setting up a first rate service for the citizens of Collin County.

Bill

Editorial: Tollway unnecessary in Denton County

Issue date: 3/24/09
The North Texas Daily, The official student newspaper of the University of North Texas

Denton and Collin counties are in a squabble concerning the route of a proposed extension of the Dallas North Tollway. Collin County wants a 7-mile stretch to be located exclusively in its confines, while Denton County wants the tollway to be built on the border of the two counties.

The North Texas Tollway Authority, which has the last word on if and where the road will be built, should reconsider the consequences of having yet another highway built in the Dallas-Forth Worth area.

Generally when highways or tollways are constructed, development and economic growth follow in the surrounding area. However appealing this may sound, construction also leads to suburban sprawl, which causes many problems of its own.

Suburban sprawl usually lacks effective planning because the fast economic growth that follows the building of major roads is difficult to control. As developers stake out their claim of land, many factors are ignored, such as energy, traffic flow and the environment.

Because of the low-density population levels in suburban cities, energy is not maximized and is often wasted. Resources are used to supply residents with their needs over vast distances, requiring energy to bring them to the consumer. Residents also use energy in the form of driving automobiles over large distances to get to work and shopping centers. Because grocery stores and other places are not planned to effectively accommodate the consumer, more gas is guzzled.

Traffic becomes a problem as more roads are built, even though they are meant to alleviate the problem. Suburban sprawl limits the effectiveness of public transportation as locations become spread out. It encourages people to move further out from a city's focal point, which often causes commutes to be longer as more people hit the road for work.

The environment is also altered in a manner not beneficial to residents in the area. Sprawl increases the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in an area as residents use vehicles to get around. Areas that once were grasslands or forests are replaced with impervious surfaces like concrete, which causes a decrease in our water quality as pollutants from cars are washed into the cities' water supply.

Building more roads treats the symptom of a larger problem. Gas will not be cheap forever, and plans must be made accordingly. As America shifts its focus to energy efficiency in the 21st century, North Texas would be wise to adopt methods of planning to reduce the amount of traffic in the area without more road building.

link to editorial...

It put a tear in my eye reading that the McKinney city council has named a park along Wilson Creek after my friend Bonnie Wenk.

Bonnie was both passionate and gentle, a southern lady who loved the water and the trees and her fellow man. She worked for many years to protect and preserve the creeks, dams and lakes that make up much McKinney's green space.

I know she would be honored to see the Bonnie Wenk Park along Wilson Creek.

Bill

---------------

McKinney City Council picks a name for the Wilson Creek greenway site.

Thursday, March 5, 2009
By Katie Knickerbocker, McKinney Courier-Gazette

Choosing names is often a difficult process but McKinney City Council members were all in agreement at the council meeting Tuesday March 3. They voted unanimously to name the Wilson Creek greenway site after late McKinney resident Bonnie Wenk.

District 1 Representative Gilda Garza said it was her honor and privilege to make the motion approving the Parks Board recommendation to name the site Bonnie Wenk Park.

Wenk was an environmental activist, teacher and writer, Garza said, as well as a member of the East Side Coalition, LULAC and the NAACP. She also worked on the 2003 Strategic Plan.

Marta Gore referred to Wenk as “an awesome unsung hero” during citizen comments at the start of the meeting. Wenk’s family was in attendance and gave comments after the motion passed.

“I cannot tell you how thankful I am to the park board and to the city council,” daughter Julia Shahid said. “Our family is extremely proud tonight.”

Shahid, a professor at Austin College, said she was in Malaysia on a trip with students when she was informed of the proposal to honor her mother. She said she was elated, honored and just blown away that someone thought that much of her mother.

“Her number one interest was environmental issues whether it had to do with the trees, whether it had to do with water, and the fact is, my mother, my daughter and myself, we were all involved in monitoring the water in Wilson Creek so this is really so perfect,” Shahid said.

Wenk's son Jack Wenk told the council he thinks the new name is something his mother would be very proud of.

Garza said the plans for Bonnie Wenk Park include a dog park, climbing boulders and open spaces for soccer/lacrosse among other amenities.

read article....

McKinney City Council decides FM543 connector route will skirt trees

Thursday, February 5, 2009
By ELIZABETH LANGTON / The Dallas Morning News

The City Council has sided with the trees in a long-running dispute over the path of a future east-west route through north McKinney.

The FM543 connector will link North Central Expressway and Lake Forest Drive. The council on Tuesday directed staff to align the road so that it avoids as many trees as possible near the Geren Trail neighborhood, prompting applause from dozens of arbor advocates.

Baylor Health Care Systems, which subsequently stands to lose more of its 45 adjacent acres, argued that the city should instead seize equal amounts of land from neighboring properties.

read more....

The Center for American Progress has issued a report listing the nation's 101 most dangerous chemical facilities.

The report titled, Chemical Security 101,What You Don’t Have Can’t Leak, or Be Blown Up by Terrorists, placed The North Texas Municipal Water District's Wylie plant on the list because it uses and stores large amounts of chlorine gas.

According to the CAP report, the Wylie plant puts over 2 million people at risk in case of a major accident, sabotage or terrorist attack.

Chlorine is a greenish-yellow gas with a strong, irritating odor. It is heavier than air, meaning a release plume would travel across the ground, putting a large area at risk.

The federal Center for Disease Control (CDC) notes that when "liquid chlorine is released, it quickly turns into a gas that stays close to the ground and spreads rapidly."

Chlorine is used in making other chemicals, as a disinfectant, in bleaching, and for purifying water and sewage. Acute exposure can severely burn the eyes and skin, causing permanent damage, and may cause throat irritation, tearing, coughing, nose bleeds, chest pain, fluid buildup in the lungs (pulmonary edema), and death. Chronic exposure can damage the teeth and irritate the lungs, causing bronchitis, coughing, and shortness of breath. A single high exposure can permanently damage the lungs.

The NTMWD uses large amounts of chlorine to purify drinking water. The chlorine generally is delivered to Wylie by rail tanker cars on lines that run through residential communities.

Chlorine: A terrorist's weapon?

• Chlorine gas is so deadly it was used by as a poison gas chemical weapon by German forces in WWI.
• Iraqi insurgents have blown up tanker trucks of chlorine to attack American and coalition forces.
• Wikipedia lists 13 cases of chlorine gas bombings by insurgents in Iraq.
• Last year a 300# tank of chlorine was stolen from a water purification plant in Montgomery County.

The CAP notes that, "Homeland Security and numerous security experts have repeatedly warned that terrorists could use industrial chemicals as improvised weapons of mass destruction. Current chemical security efforts, however, are inadequate to protect workplaces and communities.

"Indeed, temporary standards enacted two years ago (and set to expire in 2009) focus almost entirely on physical security measures, such as adding gates and guards. These measures, however worthy, cannot assure protection against a concerted attack, insider sabotage, or catastrophic release. Nor do they protect communities along chemical delivery routes. More than 90 percent of the 101 most dangerous facilities ship or receive their highest-hazard chemical by railcar or truck."

In 2005, 9 men were killed and over 500 injured by a poisonous cloud of chlorine gas was released after a train wreck in South Carolina.

According to the CAP report, the NTMWD could lower the danger level by replacing chlorine gas with liquid bleach or by generating bleach on-site, with ozone or ultraviolet light as appropriate.

According to information on its website (dated, 2005), the NTMWD is engaged in, "A preliminary engineering study for the utilization of ozonation as a primary disinfectant at the NTMWD Water Treatment Plants has been authorized by the NTMWD Board of Directors to meet the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Stage 2 Disinfection Byproducts rules effective 2012."

I understand that since that website was posted, the NTMWD has committed to using ozone to replace much of it's chlorine.

Bill

Notes:

Chemical Security 101, What You Don’t Have Can’t Leak, or Be Blown Up by Terrorists, The Center for American Progress, November, 2008

Map showing locations for the 101 most dangerous chemical facilities

The Center for American Progress website

North Texas Municipal Water District website

Lawsuit ruling edges Tarrant, Dallas districts closer to Oklahoma water supply

Monday, October 27, 2008
By RUDOLPH BUSH / The Dallas Morning News

North Texas' quest to tap Oklahoma water as a major source of future supply took an important step forward Monday, thanks to a ruling from a federal appellate court.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled that a lawsuit filed by the Tarrant Regional Water District may proceed in federal court in Oklahoma.

If the suit is successful, the Tarrant water district will have the same ability to apply for water rights as any local entity in Oklahoma.

Such rights are viewed as critical to North Texas water planners who have long viewed Oklahoma water as the best possible solution to this region's rapidly growing water needs.

Water from Oklahoma not only would be relatively cheap to bring south, but it is so plentiful that North Texas communities wouldn't have to worry about finding or building more sources of water for decades and possibly longer.

Yet, Oklahoma has closely guarded what officials there view as a treasured local resource needed for that state's future growth.

Efforts to purchase or seek transfer of water south have been blocked by a series of laws and rulings, including a statewide moratorium against moving water out of Oklahoma.

In the case of the Tarrant Regional Water District, the Oklahoma Water Resource Board pushed to have the suit dismissed on several grounds.

But last year, U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton ruled that Tarrant Regional's claim could proceed on several grounds, including the argument that the Oklahoma moratorium is an unconstitutional violation of interstate commerce.

Monday's ruling upheld his decision, which was widely viewed as looking favorably on Tarrant Regional's claims.

The appellate court's decision was greeted at Tarrant Regional on Monday as not only a legal victory but as a welcome bit of leverage to encourage Oklahoma authorities to negotiate the sale of water.

If Oklahoma loses in court, Tarrant Regional could secure water at little or no cost. But if a sale were negotiated prior to trial, the water district has indicated it would be less likely to push its claims in court.

"The time for negotiating is running out," said Wayne Owen, planning director for Tarrant Regional.

Charlie Price, spokesman for the Oklahoma attorney general's office, said simply that attorneys there were aware of the ruling and were advising the state's water agencies on the matter.

Monday's ruling came on the heels of an announcement Friday that Tarrant Regional has entered into a groundbreaking agreement with Dallas Water Utilities and the North Texas Municipal Water District.

Under the agreement, the water suppliers would share in some 460,000 acre-feet of Oklahoma water each year. They would also share in the cost of building some $2 billion to $3 billion in infrastructure to bring water south.

read more....

While our elected representative give lip service to creating a regional mass transit system as they call for the elimination of the HOV lanes, we breathe polluted air.

Today, the Collin County area is under a federal condition Red ozone alert. As the day heats up it is predicted that the ozone levels will exceed limits that are safe, even for healthy individuals.

The heat and humidity combined with auto exhaust and industrial pollution create air pollution so severe it is considered unhealthy for everyone.

High concentrations of ozone near ground level can be harmful to people, animals, and plant life. Ozone can irritate your respiratory system, aggravate asthma, and contribute to chronic lung diseases like emphysema and bronchitis. Harmful ozone levels can also reduce the immune system's ability to fight off bacterial infections in the respiratory system, and may cause permanent lung damage.

The National Institute of Health suggests that on Red Alert days everyone limit outdoor activity.

Meanwhile we only talk about mass transit.

Bill

A map showing local ozone testing stations and their current readings can be found here.

Full DFW Air Monitoring Data is here.

A NIH brochure on ozone alerts is here.

Also see: Dallas Morning News, Dallas-Fort Worth placed under level-red air pollution watch

Ron Harris, who lost the 2006 primary re-election bid to County Judge Keith Self, is quoted in the McKinney Courier-Gazette, as saying he is interested in running for Florence Shapiro's Texas Senate seat.

Since his defeat, Harris has been working as a consultant to billionaire Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens and Mesa Water. Last year, Pickens' engineered the formation of a panhandle "Fresh Water Supply District" consisting of two voters in Roberts County. The two voters: Pickens' ranch manager, Alton Boone, and his wife, Lu.

The Roberts County Fresh Water Supply District is now poised to purchase or condemn thousands of acres of private land from the panhandle to DFW, and to pay for the easement with $101 million in tax free bonds already authorized by the Water Supply District.

It seems insane, but it is legal.
Those two 'bought and paid for' voters now have the power, and Pickens has the will, to drill wells into the Ogallala Aquifer and construct a massive pipeline across 12 North Texas counties from Roberts County to the Metroplex.

The Ogallala Aquifer is a huge underground reservoir that is already threatened or depleted over much of the American prairie. Even so, Pickens asserts that he can pump billions of gallons from the high plains with no effect on the local environment or future water supply.

“I think there is a lot of work to be done. Now, that I’ve been working with Boone Pickens I’m aware that we’ve got big water supply and electricity needs in North Texas. His water and electricity is going to be little more expensive, but what would it look like if the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal had headlines that said, ‘North Texas is out of water’”
Ron Harris

Who wins?
Well to hear Harris and Pickens, consumers in DFW will. So will the Roberts County ranchers who will sell their underground water to Pickens' Mesa Water. And so will the property owners who will be paid fair market value for their land - whether they like it or not.

Ron Harris has spent the last year working to convince local governments and ranchers that the pipeline and the expensive water it carries will be good for them.

Critics, however, point out that the big winner is, you guessed it - T. Boone Pickens. Pickens already owns much of the water rights, and his company will win big as his water travels from Mesa Water to Dallas.

Pickens also owns Mesa Power, which is constructing what may be the nation's largest electric wind farm. Electricity generated by thousands of Mesa windmills in Roberts County will be delivered to the DFW region on power lines built on Mesa Water's easement.

How could two voters take control over so much power and land?
Back in 2006, I listened to a presentation given to the Collin County Commissioners by the powerful bond lawyer, Ray Hutchison (the spouse of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison). Hutchison warned the commissioners that the way Texas law was written, Fresh Water Supply Districts, had huge powers that could not be preempted by local authorities.

It would seem that Ron Harris was a good listener.

Now Harris wants to represent Plano's Senate District 8. His goal? Convince the state that it needs Pickens' water and electricity.

Ain't democracy wonderful?

Bill

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

MCG-Former county judge Ron Harris to seek State Sen. District 8 seat

By Brandi Hart, McKinney Courier-Gazette
Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Former Collin County Judge Ron Harris announced on Monday that he is running for the Texas Senate District 8 seat, currently held by Sen. Florence Shapiro (Rep.) in 2010, if Shapiro opts to run for the United States Senate seat currently held by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (Rep.).

Shapiro is looking to form an exploratory committee to run for Hutchison’s seat if Hutchison were to resign from the senate to run for governor in the March 2010 Republican primary election, according to officials at Shapiro’s Dallas office. Attempts to reach Shapiro about the exploratory committee by deadline on Tuesday were unsuccessful.

If Hutchison were to run for the gubernatorial election in the March 2010 Republican primary, the governor would appoints someone to fill Hutchison’s vacancy and would also call a special election that would be held in May or November to fill Hutchison’s seat as her term expires in 2012.

Matt Mackowiak, press secretary for Hutchison said that Hutchison has not made any statements about running for any gubernatorial races. Hutchison previously told a Texas magazine editor that she would not run for another term in the senate after she was re-elected in 2006, and that she may not choose to serve all of her current term, Mackowiak said.

Harris said that he will not run against Shapiro if she chooses not to run for Hutchison’s U.S. senate seat and to instead seek re-election for her state senate seat.

“I think Florence wants to run for the US Senate. I don’t have any criticisms of Florence Shapiro. She is one of the strongest local government advocates in the state senate,” Harris said.

His goals for office would be to find more water sources and to conserve electricity for North Texas, and use renewable sources of energy and improve the growing transportation needs throughout the areas of Collin County and Dallas County that are in Texas Senate District 8.

Harris is currently working as a consultant for the Mesa Power Pampa, LLC, that is owned by Boone Pickens, who wants to sell and transport water from a West Texas reservoir to North Texas cities, and is building wind turbines in Northwest Texas and using them as wind power. He served as the county judge over the Collin County Commissioner’s Court from 1991 to 2006 and was on the Plano City Council from 1985 to 1990. He has also served on many North Central Texas Council of Governments’ committees, including the NCTCOG’s Regional Transportation Council.

“I think there is a lot of work to be done. Now, that I’ve been working with Boone Pickens I’m aware that we’ve got big water supply and electricity needs in North Texas. His water and electricity is going to be little more expensive, but what would it look like if the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal had headlines that said, ‘North Texas is out of water’,” Harris said.

read more....

----------------------------------------------

Previous Collin County Observer coverage:

Two voters approve water district, CCO Nov. 7, 2007

Pickens Water Plan Poised to Gain Bond, Condemnation Authority, Bloomberg Nov. 6, 2007

Pickens-backed Panhandle district likely to pass unanimously, CCO Nov. 1, 2007

Billionaire seeks tax-exempt district for private water project, Austin American Statesman Sept. 13, 2007

Mesa gets Election on Freshwater Supply Scheme, Dallas Morning News Sept. 5, 2007

Ron Harris fronts for Mesa scheme, CCO Sept. 2, 2007

Pickens seeks Kaufman's help to harness Panhandle's water, power, Dallas Morning News Sept. 1, 2007

Just like the rest of us, Collin County is having to deal with rising gasoline, diesel and electricity costs.

With 570 on-the-road and off-the-road vehicles, the county goes through over 7,500 gallons of fuel a week.

Last month, Public Works Director Jon Kleinheksel asked for (and got) court approval to add $200,000 to the fuel accounts. Kleinheksel told the court that the the accounts were completely out of money, and that the cause was 100% energy cost.

I spoke to Kleinheksel effect of high gas prices on the county's operations. He told me that with the addition of 2 Toyota Prius's, the county now owns 8 hybrid or alternative fuel vehicles.

Last month, the Dallas Morning News reported that Dallas County owned only one hybrid automobile.

Kleinheksel also told me that the county was actively looking at the possibility of using TERP grants to upgrade the older diesel engines to more efficient models. He also said the county was looking hard at alternative fuels, especially using liquefied natural gas instead of diesel.

I was surprised to learn that one of the hybrids in the county's fleet is used as a working patrol vehicle in one of the Constable's offices. I asked the officer who drove the car how he liked it, as compared to the usual Crown Victoria. I was told the car was comfortable and "did the job", while getting almost 40 miles to the gallon.

When I asked about its ability as a traffic patrol vehicle, the deputy told me that while he mostly served court papers, he did do some traffic enforcement - and one time, he pulled over a speeder who he clocked at 88 miles an hour. (With the Prius's top speed of 90 mph, that was a close one!)

Electricity prices are also having a negative effect on the county budget. This Tuesday, the commissioners court will ponder a budget amendment moving $92,400 from various maintenance accounts to pay the rising electricity costs for the new Bloomdale Rd. courthouse.

Bill


Note:
At the last meeting, Jerry Hoagland cast the sole "No" vote for the increase to the gas and fuel budget. Since the fuels fund was completely depleted, it is unclear how Hoagland would propose the Sheriff's deputies patrol the county (maybe bicycles?). On Tuesday we'll see if Mr. Hoagland wants the county's courts to hold criminal trials in the dark.

Editorial: Clean-air plan falls short

Thursday, July 3, 2008 / Dallas Morning News Editorial Board

From the start, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has appeared more concerned with getting approval for its air quality plan than with actually improving the quality of North Texas air.

This week, the TCEQ got its wish when the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would sign off on the state's smog-reduction proposal for Dallas-Fort Worth. The preliminary approval marked a surprising – and disappointing – about-face by EPA officials, who had gone to great lengths to criticize earlier versions of the less-than-aggressive plan.

After submitting a first draft in late 2006, the TCEQ had stripped out the few teeth included in the proposal, backing off traffic control measures and required emissions cuts from industrial polluters. At the time, the plan was almost universally panned, but state officials spent a year convincing the EPA that it would suffice.

Never mind that the state's own models predict that two of North Texas' nine monitors will continue to exceed ozone limits. EPA Regional Administrator Richard Greene now says he's satisfied with recent modifications to the plan. And he noted that the region can't afford to wait to reduce lung-scarring ozone.

On the latter point, Mr. Greene is correct.

read more....

In a press conference today, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it has given conditional approval to the much maligned DFW Air Plan proposed by the Texas Commission on Environmental Policy (TCEQ). Conditional approval means there will be a 30 day public comment period before the regional air plan receives final EPA approval.

"The Dallas-Fort Worth area currently does not meet the federal air quality standard for ozone, which is a harmful air pollutant."
EPA Press Release

While the EPA touted DFW's plan as the "first clean air plan" in the nation set for approval, their press release also noted that, currently does not meet the federal air quality standard for ozone, which is a harmful air pollutant."

The EPA cited progress in TERP and AirCheckTexas programs for reducing pollution emissions by 88 tons a day. TERP is a program using grant money to help owners replace old inefficient diesel engines; AirCheckTexas provides funds to offer up to $3,000 to low income families so they may replace older polluting cars.

The Dallas Morning News noted that, " EPA Regional Administrator Richard Greene approved the state’s plan after a year of talks with the state’s environmental agency, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. When the state commission adopted the plan in May 2007, Mr. Greene said he would not approve it without changes."

The move by the EPA shocked local environmental organizations. Some said that they were blind-sided by today's announcement, claiming the TCEQ had hijacked the approval process.

Environmental activists also said that the plan does little to address point source emissions from industry, cement kilns and power plants. These activists note that the TXI cement plant in Ellis County alone emits VOC and NOX pollutants equal to 400,000 automobiles. (VOC and NOX contribute to the rise of ozone levels, and smog.)

Critics also complain that while the plan "appears" to meet the standard for 2010, any new source of emissions will immediately put the plan far out of compliance. They note that TXU has already gained TCEQ approval for their Oak Grove plant, and that the state seems ready to approve a natural gas plant in Corsicana. According to these environmental activists, either one of these projects will push DFW's pollution level over the permitted level.

While local leaders are celebrating finally writing a plan that received EPA approval, the celebrations may be premature. The DFW area is frequently under ozone alerts, and the region needs more sources of electrical power. Public transportation is still largely based on single passenger automobiles, and we need to expand our industrial base. This plan, the region's third attempt at grasping a solution to our growing air pollution, seems doomed from the outset.

Bill

The EPA's announcement is here

The Dallas Morning News' coverage is here

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram's coverage is here

Downwinders at Risk website is here

North Texas Clean Air Coalition website is here

Air pollution expected to hit unhealthy levels in DFW

By SCOTT STREATER / Fort Worth Star-Telegram staff writer
Saturday, May 17, 2008

Ozone pollution is projected to reach unhealthy levels across the Dallas-Fort Worth region for the first time this year today and throughout the weekend.

The highest ozone for today is forecast to occur on the northeast side of the Metroplex, primarily in Collin County. But by Sunday, state regulators say, it could reach unhealthy levels at areas like Eagle Mountain Lake in northwest Tarrant County, and in Denton.

The prime reason: A continental air mass will move air pollution from the West Coast and Midwest into the Dallas-Fort Worth area by late Friday, where it will mix with pollution generated by cars, trucks, construction equipment and industry in the region, said Bryan Lambeth, senior meteorologist at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

"If the winds are light and temperatures are hot and the background conditions are high enough, we could see some very high ozone this weekend," Lambeth said. "We'll be watching that carefully."

So will Ernie O'Donnell, 77, a retired Fort Worth pastor.

For O'Donnell, who has asthma and emphysema, the advisories mean taking a daily walk through his southwest Fort Worth neighborhood extra early in the morning.

"I can tell when it's bad," he said. "When the pollution is there, I'm not getting enough oxygen to really function effectively."

read more....

WFAA-TV is reports a large bobcat in Plano that has attacked at least 2 small dogs in the last few days.

Happy Earth Day!

Bill

WFAA Video is here

----------------------------------------

WFAA-Bobcat mauls dogs in Plano

Tuesday, April 22, 2008
By SHELLY SLATER / WFAA-TV

Concern among Plano residents has spread after two dogs were mauled by a bobcat in a one week period.

WFAA-TV VIDEO LINK

As Animal Services works to catch the cat, fliers are circulating from house to house warning of the danger.

Tricia Toole said she witnessed the problem first-hand after a bobcat attacked her dog right in front of her.

"The cat came running from over there, scooped him up and was heading back over this way," she said.

"Romeo," who is now quarantined by law, has had $3,400 worth of surgery since the mauling. The attack is evident in the stitches and scars that cover his body.

Animal Services said they believe that bobcat could be the same animal that a neighbor took a picture of as it came close to their front door and then their back fence.

read more....

Editorial: Perry should bypass pro-pollution lawsuit

Dallas Morning News Editorial
Friday, April 11, 2008

Texas has dirty air.

City dwellers who dare to venture outdoors during ozone season choke on lung-scarring pollutants. And an unhealthy haze hangs over the state's urban areas.

Apparently, Rick Perry likes it that way.

When the Environmental Protection Agency announced new clean-air standards last month, Texas' governor groused that the pollution limits were bad for business. Never mind that the state's smoggy air is bad for breathing.

Mr. Perry is so committed to maintaining current pollution levels that he's considering joining a lawsuit to stop the stricter standards from being implemented. The National Association of Attorneys General recently sent an e-mail to gauge states' interest in suing the EPA.

In Texas, no final decision has been made, but officials in Mr. Perry's office say they're keeping their options open.

The notion that the Bush administration is too aggressively protecting the environment is a new one.

read more....

Pegasus News reported today:

"New EPA standards target 22 Texas counties; Perry none too pleased
The Environmental Protection Agency released new smog requirements Wednesday that would mean failing scores for 22 counties in Texas (including Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, and Denton). The current standard for smog is 85 parts per billion, which the above named counties already fail. The new standard will be 75 parts per billion. Under the new standards, 345 counties nationwide would need to clean up their air and are required to submit proposals for how they intend to do so by 2013. read more....

The new federal rules have significantly watered down more draconian measures that scientists and environmentalists wanted. Nevertheless, these new standards will demand significant pollution cuts in the Collin County area.

Collin County and the North Texas region have not been able to produce an air pollution reduction plan that could pass federal and state muster.

A few years ago, it seemed we were beginning to make some progress towards developing a regional air quality plan. But the work bogged down in political posturing. The EPA rejected the last 2 TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) plans, and the local coalitions slowly ground themselves down into irrelevancy and inaction.

The Collin County Observer noted back in September that Texas' TCEQ plan failed to address the DFW region's air quality problems. When Dallas County Judge Jim Foster called the TCEQ's plan "toothless", we noted that Collin County's officials had been noticeably silent.

The Dallas Morning News noted this tension and its consequences for North Texas in an editorial published today. The DMN wrote:

"Federal law requires that science supersede economics in this process, and recent research made clear that a stricter standard was necessary to protect public health. But White House interference and political pressure clouded the EPA's scientific judgment.

The EPA's effort to find middle ground will mean that more people will die prematurely. More will suffer heart attacks. And more people will have respiratory problems, research shows.

While the federal government opted for a less-than-aggressive approach, the new limit will present substantial challenges for the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which has failed to comply with existing pollution rules. With Wednesday's announcement, North Texas fell even further behind.

Amazingly, our state's environmental officials have responded so far with fussing and fighting, arguing against cleaner air at every turn. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has sided with industry while casting aside scientific evidence." read more....

New rules were going to be imposed...now they're here.

The Dallas Morning News reported Thursday that:

"The head of the Environmental Protection Agency tightened the nationwide limit on ozone, or smog, Wednesday, but the decision pleased neither medical experts who wanted stronger action nor industry officials who wanted no change.

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson's long-awaited decision will almost certainly force further pollution reductions in the three dozen metro areas that already violate the current ozone limit, including Dallas-Fort Worth. It also will require pollution cuts for the first time in some areas where the air had been considered clean, though new violation areas will not be listed until 2010." read more....

It would be easy, and wrong, to blame big, bad government for the dilemma our local authorities are now facing in trying to meet the new standards.

We've had years to work together to develop a plan to reduce the pollutants that are poisoning our air, our water and our children. We instead allowed our leaders to fiddle, argue and posture. (and build new coal-fired electric plants)

It is now time for the North Texas region to pony up and address our growing pollution problems before a solution is imposed upon us.

We owe it to our children and grandchildren.

Bill

NTMWD plans water capacity projects

By Brandi Hart, McKinney Courier-Gazette
Monday, February 25, 2008 10:51 PM

Two projects that will help increase the North Texas Municipal Water District’s water capacity by bringing in water from Lake Tawakoni and from the East Fork of the Trinity River should be operational by the end of March.

One of those projects, Lake Tawakoni, will give the district additional 50,000 acre feet of water from the Sabine River Authority, which owns the water rights to Lake Tawakoni. The water will be transferred from Lake Tawakoni by a pipeline in Hunt County that will connect to Lake Lavon, the main lake that supplies water to the NTMWD.

That project, which costs $109 million, should be completed and operational by the end of March, said Denise Hickey, public relations coordinator for the district.

The district is also working on the East Fork Raw Water Supply project, which is also being called the Wetlands Project that will supply water from the East Fork of the Trinity River to Lake Lavon, Hickey said. The raw water from the Trinity River will first be polished in the wetlands train of the pipeline, which is an area where plants in the wetlands along the East Fork of the Trinity River near Crandall and Seagoville, Hickey said. Furthermore, the plants in the wetlands will remove any nutrients or particles from the raw river water before it gets to Lake Lavon. The first train of the project should be completed by late March.

In addition, Hickey said construction is still ongoing for first train and pipelines of the Wetlands Project along U.S. Highway 175, between Seagoville and Crandall.

The water from the river that flows into Lake Lavon will be sent to the NTMWD’s water treatment plant in Wylie, where it will be cleansed and treated to be used as potable water, or drinking water, Hickey said. The Wetlands Project costs $246 million, Hickey said. Both projects will water district’s permitted raw water supply.

read more....

I got a kick out of this City of Plano press release.

It looks like Plano is declaring an "urban wildlife epidemic". The press release states:

"As the natural habitat of local wildlife becomes less and less due to urban sprawl, it becomes even more important that residents understand how that change impacts day-to-day life in their
neighborhood. The Plano Animal Services will present a free, public Urban Wildlife Forum on Tuesday, Jan. 29 at 6 p.m. The forum will be hosted by the Plano Independent School District (PISD) at Hendrick Middle School, 7400 Red River Dr.

A panel of experts will provide an overview of the urban wildlife epidemic and will address questions from guests at the close of the forum."

Click on image to download pdf

From what I've seen, there is very little danger of a "wild" anything epidemic in a city that rolls up its sidewalks at 10 PM. However, in my opinion, Plano may indeed be suffering from an "urban epidemic" as its streets become more crowded.

From the perspective of the typical Plano raccoon or coyote, there could very well be an urban homo sapiens epidemic that appears to be totally out of control.

Bill

McMansions and mountain lions?

The last couple of weeks have seen news stories of mountain lion sightings in Lucas and Allen. Residents describe seeing a large cat being chased and treed by a German Shepard. Other neighbors report seeing "a large paw" reach through their cat door to swipe at their pets.

"I know exactly what I saw and this was a large cat."
Allen resident

The Sachse papers are reporting yet another cougar - this one was supposedly photographed pregnant and is now raising 2 cubs. According to a local homeowner, the lady cougar has been living in a Sachse field since before April.

Plano, not to outdone by younger upscale towns seems to be the home of a resident family of coyotes who have taken up residence on a local jogging trail and who seem unafraid of running yuppies.

The City of Plano's website describes sightings of the elusive coyote to be not uncommon. “We receive calls every now and then about persons who have spotted a coyote traveling through their neighborhood or crossing the road, often at well-traveled intersections,” said Animal Services Field Manager Keith Clark.

This year's spate of wild things moving into the suburbs began back in March with the trapping of a 4 foot long river otter in west McKinney. This guy was a long way from home. Otters are more native to East and South Texas rivers, not McKinney creeks.

Wearing a fur cost worth a small fortune, I'm sure our otter felt right at home in the new subdivisions near Stonebriar. He may still be there. Plano's Outdoor Learning Center released him back into the 'wild' after a few days of captivity.

A true upper class rodent, it seems natural that otters would migrate to our luxury subdivisions, where a sleek and flashy quality of life is the norm.

I've lived here in North Texas for 40 years, and I've seen plenty of coyotes, bobcats, foxes, beavers, snakes and raccoons, but never cougars or otters.

These carnivorous predators are working their way north, and seem willing to live off whatever food and shelter the upscale suburbs can provide. Long ago, Collin County settlers extirpated the native deer and turkey. Grazing animals, except for rabbits and livestock, are still mostly gone from the county, but still the predators return.

Unlikely as it seems, I suppose it is possible for a cougar to live in the yards of the McMansions and yearn for the comforts of suburban life. After all, cougars and otters deserve a good life too.

We here in Lexus Land are mere amateurs in the art of predatory living.

Make room for the real meat eaters.

Bill

The Dallas Morning News reports -

Two voters approve water district

MIAMI, Texas — Both of the people eligible to cast ballots for the creation of a Fresh Water Supply District in Roberts County endorsed the plan on Tuesday.

Establishing the district would help billionaire T. Boone Pickens deliver Panhandle water to growing north Texas communities.

The two voters: Pickens' ranch manager, Alton Boone, and his wife, Lu.

They also approved $101 million in revenue bonds to acquire rights-of-way through as many as 12 counties for delivering water and wind-generated electricity and chose a five-member board of supervisors by a 2-0 margin in unofficial returns.

The bonds would be repaid from money collected from water and electric customers who benefit from Pickens' water and wind energy projects.

The election is the next step in what has been a five-year effort by Pickens' Mesa Water to market and ship water from the Ogallala Aquifer to thirsty cities.

This district will allow Pickens to condemn land in Collin County for a pipeline and power easement, and to sell tax free bonds that benefit Pickens' Mesa Water and power companies.

Bill

Bloomberg.com reports on T. Boone Pickens "shenanigans" -

Pickens Water Plan Poised to Gain Bond, Condemnation Authority
By Lorraine Woellert / Bloomberg.com

Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Boone Pickens, the high-rolling oilman, may have engineered one of his shrewdest takeovers yet in the form of eight acres of Texas scrubland.

The land in Roberts County, a stretch of ranchland outside Amarillo, holds no oil. Instead, it is central to Pickens's plan to create an agency to condemn property and sell tax-exempt bonds in the search for one of his other favorite commodities: water.

Approval of the district is all but certain when Texans vote today in state and local elections. By law, only the two people who actually live on the eight acres will be allowed to vote --the manager of Pickens's nearby Mesa Vista ranch and his wife. The other three owners, who will sit on the district's board, all work for Pickens.

Pickens ``has pulled a shenanigan,'' said Phillip Smith, a rancher who serves on a local water-conservation board. ``He's obtained the right of eminent domain like he was a big city. It's supposed to be for the public good, not a private company.''

Pickens and his allies say no shenanigans are involved. Once the district is created, the board will be able to issue tax-exempt bonds to finance construction of Pickens's planned 328-mile, $2.2 billion pipeline to transport water from the panhandle across the prairie to the suburbs of Dallas and San Antonio.

Buying the Bonds

If Pickens can't find a buyer for the bonds or for his water -- and he hasn't yet -- he might buy the bonds himself to jump-start the project, said his Dallas-based lawyer, Monty Humble of Vinson & Elkins. The board will spend about $110 million to buy the right of way for the pipeline, using the power of eminent domain to acquire property if necessary, Humble said.

Pickens, 79, chairman of Dallas-based BP Capital LLC, says selling water is a business whose time, amid fears of global warming, may be at hand. His Mesa Water Inc. has bought 200,000 acres of Texas water rights and talks of doubling his holdings.

Water has been a cheap and relatively plentiful resource in the U.S., and massive infrastructure projects like the ones Pickens envisions looked like pipe dreams a few years ago.

Now, states such as Georgia are experiencing shortages, joining the ranks of Nevada, Arizona and other perennially water-poor states in the Southwest. Desalination plants are being built near California beaches, and water pipelines are snaking across the arid West.

Brink of Crisis

Population growth, a prolonged drought some scientists link to climate change, and the expansion of water-intensive industries such as biofuels have put many regions on the brink of crisis.

Last month, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson injected water into his presidential campaign when he said that northern states are ``awash in water'' and ought to export it to the Southwest.

Richardson, 59, drew a rebuke from Representative Bart Stupak of Michigan, a fellow Democrat and chairman of the newly formed Congressional Water Caucus. Stupak brushed off the suggestion, noting that the Great Lakes are at record lows.

``The market is being forced to find more creative solutions for water scarcity,'' said Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analyst Deane Dray.

Pickens says he was motivated to take the plunge on water in 1997, when the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority, the local utility, declined to buy the water under his Roberts County ranch. The utility said there wasn't enough demand.

Almost Double

With the population of Texas on track to almost double to 40 million by 2020, the water authority now wants more water, but Pickens has beat them to the punch by buying up big chunks of water rights.

The Texas panhandle may look arid on the surface, but underground it's a different story. The panhandle rests on part of the 174,000-square-mile Ogallala Aquifer, North America's biggest underground water reservoir and among the most pure. Mesa Water's Web site touts Ogallala's water as ``high-quality, terrorist-resistant, and drought-proof.''

Still, Pickens faces obstacles. To help pay for construction, he plans to piggyback wind power on the water infrastructure. He plans wind farms on the ranch land and wants to run electricity cables along the right-of-way of Mesa's water pipeline.

All told, the wind and water project is projected to cost more than $10 billion. The pipeline alone will run $2.2 billion. Pickens said he has about $100 million invested so far. ``This is a $10 billion project,'' he said in an interview. ``It better be profitable.''

Needed: Buyers

Most of all, he needs a group of confirmed buyers for his water. That's in part because of political resistance to his plan for gobbling up water rights. Several Dallas-area water districts have refused to sign up.

``We have real concerns about private control of water,'' said Ken Kramer, director of the Texas Sierra Club. ``Water is a resource, yet in some respects it is a commodity. It's essential to human life as air. That puts water in a different class.''

John R. Spearman, Jr., a Roberts County rancher and chairman of the Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District, is one of many local critics who contend that Pickens' water play could upset conservation efforts and seeks to profit from shortages of a vital resource.

``He has the legal authority to do it,'' Spearman says. ``We can't stop him.''

The Terrell Tribune reports that 2 voters will approve the creation of the T. Boone Pickens Freshwater Supply District that will then sell up to $101 million in tax free bonds to condemn North Texas property in order to build a pipeline from Roberts County to Collin County region.

There is SO much wrong with this plan, I don't know where to start. The 2 voters are T. Boone's ranch manager, and wife. The water is coming from the Ogallala aquifer, important to agriculture and not an endless supply. The purpose of the fresh water supply district is NOT to supply water, but to supply profit to Mesa. The FWSD will use eminent domain to condemn hundreds of acres of Texas farm land for its huge right of way. The list of injustice here goes on and on.

And our own deposed County Judge, Ron Harris is part of the Mesa team who dreamed up this attack on the landowners and taxpayers of Texas.

Revenge is sweet, eh Ron?

Pickens-backed Panhandle district likely to pass unanimously

Staff/Wire Report / The Terrell Tribune

Roberts County voters - well, two of them - will decide Tuesday whether to go ahead with plans for a fresh water supply district much like the one Kaufman County commissioners tabled in early September.

It won't take long to count the votes on a plan that would help billionaire T. Boone Pickens deliver Panhandle water to growing North Texas communities. There's even less doubt about the outcome.

Just two people - Pickens' ranch manager and the ranch manager's wife - will cast ballots Tuesday to confirm the creation of the district.

Alton Boone, who manages Pickens' vast Canadian River Valley ranch, and his wife, Lu, live within the 8-acre water district and are its only eligible voters.

The couple also will vote to seat a five-member board of supervisors - which would include themselves and three Pickens employees - and to approve $101 million in revenue bonds to acquire rights-of-way through as many as 12 counties for delivering water and wind-generated electricity.

read more....

Bill

State absolves Atmos in Wylie gas blast that killed elderly couple

State official says report's shift away from coupling as factor is based on evidence, not influence
Sunday, October 21, 2007
By ERIC TORBENSON / The Dallas Morning News

Editor's note: WFAA-TV reporter Brett Shipp and producer Mark Smith are examining possible hazards posed by outdated natural gas couplings serving 100,000 North Texas homes. Sunday night, Channel 8 explores why regulators dropped a proposal to require replacement of the couplings. This article is based largely on WFAA's research.

A pile of rubble was all that remained of Benny and Martha Cryer's house at 310 S. 3rd street in Wylie after a natural gas explosion on Oct. 16, 2006. The elderly couple died in the explosion

Many Texans may not realize that the state's Railroad Commission is charged with regulating the safety of natural gas and oil pipelines.

Critics say the commission often acts as though it doesn't realize it, either.

Consumer advocates have questioned the commission's effectiveness and its ties to the industry it oversees in the wake of natural gas explosions that have killed at least nine North Texas residents and injured more in the last decade.

Now, documents produced as part of a lawsuit in an explosion last October that killed an elderly Wylie couple show that a top commission staffer changed an investigator's report, which had the effect of steering blame away from an underground pipe coupling that critics say should never have been used in Texas' notoriously shifting soil.

read more....

Also Online

Video: Faulty pipe connection may have caused Wylie house explosion (WFAA-TV)

Atmos Energy statement on compression couplings and safety

Texas Railroad Commission e-mails pertaining to the Wylie explosion

Texas Railroad Commission letter notifying Atmos of safety inquiry

Texas Railroad Commission letter advising Atmos of safety inquiry findings

Texas Railroad Commission draft investigative report on Wylie explosion

Texas Railroad Commission final investigative report on Wylie explosion

Sewer-test bill has opposition in county

By Brandi Hart, McKinney Courier-Gazette
Thursday, October 18, 2007

People who live in unincorporated areas of Collin County could see less government control over testing of their on-site sewer facilities. That’s causing some residents to worry about the impact to the environment.

State House Bill No. 2482, which became effective Sept. 1, gives local governments the authority to reduce how they regulate residents who have a septic system or aerobic sewer systems. The residents will still be required by state law to test their systems annually and report their findings to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The only change is deletion of requirement to notify the county of the testing and the results, according to Misty Brown, manager of the Collin County Development Services Division.

The number of complaints will increase significantly and residents would not have to tell the county about malfunctioning septic tanks under HB 2482, Brown said.

Four people currently test their septic sewer system facilities on their property in Collin County, but the county requires its residents to be trained in maintenance of on-site sewer facilities, Brown said. The county has filed 378 cases against homeowners since January 2005 after the homeowners received a 30-day warning for not testing their on-site sewer facilities or reporting the test results to the county, Brown said.

The Collin County Commissioners Court discussed the issue in a special meeting Monday, but took no action.

Commissioner Joe Jaynes also asked Brown how the county knows if people in unincorporated areas are fulfilling their contractual requirements. The county track peoples who have on-site sewer facilities via computer and requires them to notify the county each year about when they test their systems and report the results to the county annually, Brown said. County Judge Keith Self and Jaynes asked Brown who wrote and sponsored the bill. Brown said Rep. Robby Cook, D-Eagle Pass, is the author of the bill, and Sen. Craig Estes, R-Wichita Falls, whose district includes parts of McKinney? north of U.S. 380, all of Melissa, Anna, Weston, Prosper, Farmersville, Princeton, Blue Ridge, Lowry Crossing, New Hope, and Celina, sponsored the bill.

Several people addressed their opposition to the bill during the public comment period of the meeting.

David Watkins, a licensed professional engineer who lives in Plano, said he is opposed to HB 2482 due to its impact on the environment.

“My concern is if you allow homeowners to do the maintenance themselves and HB 2482 would not allow homeowners to turn in reports to the county. I’m a Republican and like less government control, but if they allow the county to oversee it, they would lessen the impact to the environment,” Watkins said.

read more....

Last week, Dallas County Judge Jim Foster spoke out against the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's (TCEQ) clean air plan for the DFW area. Judge Foster joins a growing chorus of local officials, including Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley, who are condemning the TCEQ's "toothless" plan as totally inadequate.

Noticeably silent on the issue is our own County Judge Keith Self, and our commissioners court.

Up until last January, a local regional committee led by ex-county judges Keliher of Dallas and Harris of Collin County, had pushed for stronger measures, including halting the permitting of the TXU coal-fired plants. Other recomendations included more stringent controls on the cement kilns in Midlothian.

The last TCEQ plan, similar to the current one, was rejected by the EPA. The DFW area, including Collin County is already paying the price for our pollution - in higher medical costs, and lost economic opportunities. (Both Boeing and Toyota cited our air quality as one reason not to move to the Dallas area)

As the Dallas Morning News reported, "Judge Foster asked Gov. Perry to:

•Appoint a North Texan to the vacant seat on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

•Convene a summit to strengthen the clean-air plan for this region.

•Tell the TCEQ to include recommendations from the North Texas Clean Air Steering Committee in the new proposal."

Judge Self and the commissioners need to join in with other North Texas counties in petitioning the Governor, the EPA and the TCEQ to work with our local citizens to seek a real, community driven plan to clean our air.

Ineffective mandates from Austin are not the answer.

Bill