Environmentalists Trash TNRCC Policies on Landfills
Texas Agency Criticized for Promoting "Trash Mountains"
(Austin)—The Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club released a report today sharply critical of the Texas environmental regulatory agency for promoting new "mountain ranges of trash" around the state. The Sierra Club contends that the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC) is protecting the interests of large landfill operators rather than the interests of landowners and the public by continuing to authorize dramatic "vertical expansions" of existing landfills around the state.
The Sierra Club report was prepared in conjunction with a San Antonio area citizens group, the Martinez Environmental Group, which is fighting a major expansion of an existing Browning Ferris Industries (BFI) landfill in their neighborhood. The report was released at a rally today on the steps of the State Capitol at which schoolchildren, parents, teachers, public officials, and other citizens from San Antonio spoke in opposition to the BFI landfill expansion.
"Our report documents the recent practices of TNRCC that allow landfill operators across the state to get around environmental and public health standards by building upwards over old landfills that don’t meet modern health and safety requirements," said Ken Kramer, director of the Lone Star (Texas) Chapter of the Sierra Club. "Through their actions TNRCC is promoting the building of mountain ranges of trash throughout Texas, with trash peaks ranging from 65 feet high to 240 feet high! I suppose our state’s envy of other states with more mountains is causing us to go on a mountain-building spree – unfortunately mountains of trash posing public health and environmental problems will not have the same appeal as the Rockies. The only thing that this effort will enhance is our reputation as the most polluted state in the country."
"We have had ongoing air pollution problems in Texas as a result of the grandfathering of dirty old industrial plants under outmoded air pollution control requirements," continued Kramer. "Now TNRCC is allowing the grandfathering of old landfills by authorizing the heaping of new garbage on top of those landfills rather than requiring the waste to be disposed of in landfills with the most advanced pollution controls or aggressively promoting recycling and source reduction to reduce waste generation. Once again we are letting our state’s pollution control policy be dictated by the profits of the polluters rather than the protection of the public."
The proposed expansion of the BFI landfill in the San Antonio area is an example of the type of trash mountain being authorized by TNRCC in many parts of the state. The permit being sought by BFI would result in a towering 100-foot plus trash mountain next to Martinez and China Grove neighborhoods in the San Antonio metropolitan area. This expansion poses threats to the property values of neighbors and increases the probability of runoff from the landfill site, blowing wastes, odors, rats, flies, and other nuisance conditions. TNRCC is beginning the public hearing process today in Austin on the permit application for the proposed BFI landfill expansion.
"Unfortunately," said Kramer, "the threat posed in the San Antonio area by the proposed BFI landfill expansion is not an isolated situation. Based on data from TNRCC files there are 38 trash mountains in Texas that are over 60 feet high. These trash mountains include five in the West Texas mountain range, 13 in the Dallas-Fort Worth range, five in the Northeast Texas range, eight in the Houston-Beaumont range, and seven in the San Antonio-Austin range. At the rate things are going all of us may have a trash mountain headed to our neighborhood soon."
"It’s time for TNRCC to put a halt to the elevated status the agency has given to old landfills without the latest technology," concluded Kramer. "We call upon our state officials today to set aside the outmoded policies that fail to protect the public from the impacts of mountains of trash, which may include not only municipal garbage but even more dangerous industrial wastes as well. It’s time to flatten the policies that have led to growing risks from the wastes being disposed of throughout Texas."