We Commented on the Mopac Monster!! Did you??

Submit Your Comments by May 3 and Spread the Word
The public comment clock on the MoPac South Draft Environmental Assessment is ticking down. If you haven’t submitted your comment, now is the time.

We will be adding more technical and legal comments before the Sunday at midnight deadline, but we need you -- all of our friends and supporters -- to write your comments and hit "send." The voice of the community matters here. Make it personal and urge them to recognize the impacts will be many and significant if they go forward with the proposed project. Ask for a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and less harmful alternatives. Austin City Council, Travis County Commissioners Court, and the Urban Transportation Commission agree.

Save Our Springs Alliance has filed a lawsuit against CTRMA for refusing to release public comments and violating the Texas Public Information Act by withholding as “confidential” public comments filed in the Agency’s official public comment process. You can find the lawsuit here. While that legal process moves forward, your comment matters even more.

Take Action
You can submit more than one comment! The period ends this SUNDAY, MAY 3rd at Midnight. 

• Better MoPac Comment Form Since CTRMA is not making comments easily accessible, we recommend using the Better MoPac Coalition form which emails the board and creates a record. You can also submit directly by email, mail, or voicemail (3 minutes).
• CTRMA Comment Form
• Email: [email protected]
• Mail: Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, ATTN: MoPac South, 3300 N. IH-35, Suite 300, Austin, TX 78705
• Voicemail (3 minutes max): 512-387-5811

Spread the word: It's crazy how many people still don’t know about this expansion. Please sing this from the rooftops. Share that every voice helps build the public record of residents, organizations, businesses, and anyone who loves Austin opposing this terrible plan. 

SUBMIT COMMENTS HERE

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Hays Residents Push Back on Hays Commons’ “Poopy Proposition”

Milestone Community Builders thinks its “poo” doesn’t stink; perhaps, that’s why it tried to sneak through a development agreement, without proper notice, at the Hays County Commissioners Court, for a massive new residential and commercial subdivision that would spray treated effluent over the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone. Luckily, we were watching.

The development agreement—and an associated item on the agenda—included a variance to the Hays County Development Regulations designed to protect the Edwards Aquifer from overdevelopment. Specifically, Milestone asked to reduce the minimum lot size requirements from 0.75 acres to 0.16-0.20 acres (an 80% reduction). Because the recharge zone is extremely vulnerable to contamination from urban development, due to its unique, porous karst geology, surface water and pollutants enter rapidly through sinkholes and cracks with little-to-no natural filtration. That’s why the County regs limit the overall development intensity over the recharge zone through one of the few controls it has under state law, by requiring larger lots. 

The applicant’s variance application argues that smaller, clustered lots will reduce environmental impacts compared to larger lots dispersed across the property. In theory, clustering can lessen environmental disturbance, but that only works if the overall intensity of development remains the same and if the infrastructure serving that development does not introduce new environmental harms. Those assumptions do not hold here.

Rather than reducing impact, the applicant invoked the clustering principle to justify maximizing the site’s development potential. Much of the site cannot be developed, because it is in the floodplain or has other challenges. This creates a fundamental contradiction. By shifting to the flatter lands, they end up building more lots than they otherwise would be able to achieve.
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Also, while the housing units are repositioned to keep more structures off the recharge zone, the proposal simultaneously relies on a Texas Land Application Permit (TLAP) system that would spray treated wastewater effluent from those households directly onto that same recharge zone. In effect, the plan shifts buildings away from the most sensitive area, only to use that area (the recharge zone) as the project’s wastewater disposal field, undermining the very environmental rationale offered to support the variance.

Milestone cannot credibly claim environmental protection by relocating structures, while spraying its poo over the area it claims to protect. It’s a poopy proposition. Nor can Milestone justify the ~128,000 million gallons of groundwater per year that its preliminary engineering report says it will pump from the Lower Trinity Aquifer.
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Dozens of Hays County residents submitted comments and spoke out, including powerful statements by City of Hays Mayor Lydia Bryan-Valdez and State Representative Erin Zweiner. Ultimately, Judge Ruben Becerra removed the applicant’s request for a variance from the agenda (Item K.7), and Comm. Walt Smith conceded that the development agreement was posted without proper notice (Item K.6). The good news is, perhaps, that we’re now aware of Milestone’s backroom dealings.

The items will likely be headed back to the Hays County Commissioners Court in a couple months. Meanwhile, Save Our Springs continues to contest Milestone’s Texas TLAP permit (spraying effluent over the recharge zone) at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and is actively suing to overturn the approval of their Municipal Utility District (MUD) application. We cannot do this without your support.
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We have an immediate need to raise funds to support expert testimony in these actions. Please consider donating to SOS today. Every little bit helps get us closer to being able to fund the scientific studies and reports that will help us defend the water quality of the Edwards Aquifer.

Give Today, Keep Wastewater OUT of the Aquifer

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Data Centers Update: Disappointment and Progress

Amongst protecting the water quality of our creeks and aquifers from roads and developers, SOS is also working hard to encourage cities and counties to act to protect our local water supplies from overuse. Data centers, as you are likely aware, are among the worst water wasters. Depending on the size of the facility and the cooling technology it uses, a single data center’s annual water use can rival that of entire neighborhoods or small towns.
There are two actions that occurred last week that we want to highlight.

Guadalupe County. Last Tuesday, on a split 3-2 vote, the Guadalupe County Commissioners Court voted to approve a tax abatement and a development agreement for the Cloudburst Data Center, near the Hays County border. This is one of the larger data centers planned in our drought-prone region. How much water will Cloudburst use for cooling and its planned gas power plant? They won’t say. 

• SOS and nearby residents have filed multiple public information requests to find out what Cloudburst is telling government agencies. Each time, the company has fought to heavily redact its projected water demands (pages so blacked out they look like they belong in the Epstein files) claiming it’s a matter of national security.
• Despite the lack of transparency and despite hours of testimony of concerned residents encouraging the Commissioners’ Court to reject the massive tax breaks and the development agreement that offered nothing more than a guarantee for a 100-ft. setback from the road, the Commissioners ignored their constituents and voted for both items.
• While we deeply appreciate the two commissioners who voted against this agreement (Jackie Ott and Stephen Germann), the overall decision is a setback for environmental protection, transparency, and public health in Guadalupe County.

San Marcos, Texas. We’re getting there in San Marcos. That same Tuesday, the SMtx City Council considered amendments to its land development code. Several of the amendments pertained to data centers.

• A complete ban on data centers failed on a 3-4 vote (thank you to Amanda Rodriguez, Alyssa Garza, and Shane Scott for voting yes), there were several other amendments approved that are heading in the right direction. This includes a ban on potable water use (i.e, drinking water) for cooling towers (Yay! Every city needs to do this).
• The Council also limited data centers to the highest industrial zoning category, while also making them conditional to ensure that each data center must be approved individually by the City Council. Council Member Rodriguez largely led the charge, but many of the others (even some members who voted against the ban) also suggested provisions to strengthen the code against data centers’ impacts on our water, air, and community. Organizers are hoping that another member will reconsider their vote on 2nd reading and support the ban on data centers.