Courtesy Picture / Better Edwards Aquifer Alliance
Opponents of a allow to dump wastewater into Helotes Creek present their indicators throughout a Wednesday listening to in Austin.
Texas environmental regulators on Wednesday handed a victory to Northwest Bexar County residents preventing a controversial wastewater allow sought by the corporate behind a proposed 1,100-acre housing improvement.
The three-member Texas Fee on Environmental High quality dominated that the State Workplace of Administrative Hearings (SOAH), an impartial state company, ought to resolve the deserves of the allow.
SOAH can have as much as six months to set a listening to, based on officers with the Better Edwards Aquifer Alliance (GEAA), one of many roughly 80 teams and people contesting the allow. An administrative regulation choose will most probably preside over the listening to.
“Attending to a contested-case listening to is a victory unto itself,” Randy Neumann of the Scenic Loop Helotes Creek Alliance, one other of the teams opposing the allow, stated in an emailed assertion. “It is an important day.”
Round 30 residents of Gray Forest and different communities close to the proposed improvement confirmed up for the listening to in Austin. Most carried indicators urging commissioners to to not inexperienced gentle the allow.
The dispute arose after Florida-based builder Lennar Corp. introduced plans to assemble the two,900-home Guajolote Ranch improvement close to Gray Forest and the intersection of Scenic Loop and Babcock roads.
As a part of the challenge, Lennar’s wastewater contractor Municipal Operations LLC requested for a allow from TCEQ to dump a each day common of 1 million gallons of wastewater into Helotes Creek. Opponents of the plan stated it might jeopardize native water provides for the reason that creek recharges the Trinity Glen Rose Aquifer and flows into the recharge zone of the Edwards Aquifer, San Antonio’s major supply of consuming water.
Along with GEAA and Gray Forest, Mayor Ron Nirenberg, San Antonio Metro Well being, the San Antonio Water System and the Metropolis of Helotes filed statements opposing the therapy plant on well being and security grounds.
Whereas the TCEQ denied affected-party standing within the case for San Antonio Water System and the cities of Helotes and Gray Forest, the panel allowed Metro Well being to stay a celebration to the case because it goes to a listening to.
GEAA Govt Director Annalisa Peace stated she welcomed the info, experience and authorized weapons Metro Well being is more likely to convey to the courtroom case.
“It helps enormously,” she stated.
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