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Houston Public Mediahoustonpublicmedia
2025-09-09

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has voided an air quality permit for a concrete-crushing facility in Rosharon after more than a year of resistance from Fort Bend County residents and their elected officials.

houstonpublicmedia.org/article

Houston Public Mediahoustonpublicmedia
2025-08-29

Parents of Awty International School students protested Thursday outside a Houston office for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which approved a concrete batch plant that is operating near the campus.

houstonpublicmedia.org/article

Houston Public Mediahoustonpublicmedia
2025-08-01

More than 100 people attended a public hearing in east Fort Bend County this week to speak out against a proposed new concrete crushing facility.

houstonpublicmedia.org/article

Preston Maness ☭aspensmonster@tenforward.social
2025-04-13

insideclimatenews.org/news/261

Well that's a fuckin' whirlwind of a story. Between this article, and the previous five in the six-part series ("State of Denial"), an (in my opinion) impenetrable case is made that TCEQ is a sham body, riddled with political and private-sector conflicts of interest that make it fundamentally unsuitable as an enforcement vehicle for federal environmental protection laws. It is a prototypical example of regulatory capture.

And the (federal) EPA's refusal to act in the face of that reality makes them complicit, if not downright duplicitous. As far as I'm concerned, the EPA is treating Texas as a Sacrifice Zone in order to allow out-of-state interests to continue accruing short-term returns, at the expense of the long-term health and well-being of Texans.

#TCEQ #texas #RegulatoryCapture #environmentalism #SacrificeZone #EnvironmentalRacism #ICN

Preston Maness ☭aspensmonster@tenforward.social
2025-04-03

texasobserver.org/brazos-river

>What’s more, Dow-Freeport is operating with a wastewater permit that expired in 2019 but has been “administratively continued” by TCEQ, according to an agency spokesperson. That means Dow is allowed to follow outdated rules while a TCEQ review of the facility’s new draft permit drags on.
>
>“It is concerning that this is coming up on five years, which is, frankly, the length of time a new permit would have been,” said Josh Kratka, a senior staff attorney at the National Environmental Law Center. While Kratka doesn’t know what’s transpiring between Dow and TCEQ specifically, he explained that many companies try to convince regulators that they can’t reasonably comply with pollution limits in order to delay enforcement. “Rather than really crack down, enforcing a solution quickly, the regulators just give them more time,” he said.

This article was written in 2023. So far as I can tell, the permit in question, WQ0000007000, was originally granted in 1978. Its latest "approval date" is from 2016, and its latest "expiration date" is... STILL 2019. And yet the permit is still "active" rather than expired.

You can check at: www6.tceq.texas.gov/wqpaq/inde

Put in "WQ0000007000" for the State Permit No., click Add, then click Search.

(Sidenote: still using ColdFusion? In 2025? Damn).

Ouch.

#TexasObserver @TexasObserver #BrazosRiver #Brazos #Brazoria #Texas #TCEQ #FreePort #CleanWaterAct #CleanWater

Houston Public Mediahoustonpublicmedia
2025-01-16

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on Thursday temporarily denied an air quality permit for a concrete crushing facility that has drawn fierce opposition from Fort Bend County residents.

houstonpublicmedia.org/article

Houston Public Mediahoustonpublicmedia
2024-12-16

Texas regulators are taking public comment about how they should implement an EPA rule to reduce methane leaks from the oil and gas industry.

houstonpublicmedia.org/article

Houston Public Mediahoustonpublicmedia
2024-09-30

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is holding a public hearing for the W.A. Parish power plant in Richmond on Monday night.

houstonpublicmedia.org/article

Houston Public Mediahoustonpublicmedia
2024-08-19

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality will hold a meeting Tuesday evening to hear public comment on a proposed concrete and rock-crushing facility on the eastern edge of Fort Bend County.

houstonpublicmedia.org/article

Houston Public Mediahoustonpublicmedia
2024-07-31

"Houston's Dirty Dozen": new report shows the twelve worst air polluters in the Houston area

houstonpublicmedia.org/article

Houston Public Mediahoustonpublicmedia
2024-04-17

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has asked the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state’s environmental agency, to halt approving permits for concrete production plants in Texas until the 2025 legislative session.

houstonpublicmedia.org/article

Houston Public Mediahoustonpublicmedia
2024-04-17

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has asked the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state’s environmental agency, to halt approving permits for concrete production plants in Texas until the 2025 legislative session.

houstonpublicmedia.org/article

Houston Public Mediahoustonpublicmedia
2024-02-23

Harris County and some Houston community groups are suing the TCEQ over its new pollution standards for concrete batch plants, because they won't take effect for up to 10 years in some cases.

houstonpublicmedia.org/article

Houston Public Mediahoustonpublicmedia
2024-02-07

Harris County is now violating newly-revised federal air quality standards

houstonpublicmedia.org/article

Houston Public Mediahoustonpublicmedia
2024-01-25

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, after pushback and outcry from stakeholders in the Houston area, has updated its air quality standards permit for concrete batch plants. Do the new requirements go far enough?

houstonpublicmedia.org/article

Houston Public Mediahoustonpublicmedia
2024-01-10

Texcon Ready Mix in north Houston has repeatedly violated federal and state laws aimed at limiting pollution, according to Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, whose office has sued the company.

houstonpublicmedia.org/article

Houston Public Mediahoustonpublicmedia
2023-12-15

People living in a small, unincorporated community east of Houston are routinely breathing dangerous levels of benzene, a chemical linked to leukemia and other blood cancers.

houstonpublicmedia.org/article

maydaymad_mayday@spore.social
2023-06-20

"The Boring Company has applied to discharge 143,000 gallons of treated wastewater daily into the Colorado River near my home. I'm concerned they will not follow the terms of this permit.

They have already received multiple environmental violations and public records show that they are not working with regulators in good faith. "
~ Chap Ambrose

#Texas #TCEQ #wastewater #Pollution #TheBoringCompany #Bastrop #DamnedBillionairesAgain #Organizing #SafetyViolations

keepbastropboring.com/

maydaymad_mayday@spore.social
2023-06-20

"Dow’s water rights have long been a point of contention up and down the Brazos. But during Texas’ miserable 2011-2015 drought, these tensions exploded into an all-out legal battle that engulfed the whole state."

#TCEQ #Dow #Texas #WaterRights #Pollution #GulfCoast #IndustrialPollution #Corruption

texasobserver.org/dow-brazos-r

As the historic drought began, Dow asserted its senior water rights for the first time. At Dow’s behest, TCEQ cut off water to users with more recent rights, except for cities and power plants, which the agency exempted so people in the region wouldn’t run out of drinking water or electricity. “Really for the first time, farmers were being told that they could not exercise their water rights,” recalled Jay Bragg, an associate director in the Texas Farm Bureau’s commodity and regulatory activities division. Although the river was flowing past parched farms, its water was already claimed by Dow, which AENE RN eThe Texas Farm Bureau stepped in. But the advocacy group targeted TCEQ rather than Dow, suing the agency for allowing cities and utilities to skip the priority line. Bragg said that strictly enforcing water rights would allow everyone in line to plan accordingly and conserve water if needed. The case crawled through the court system, first in Travis County, then the 13th Court of Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court. In the end, the courts sided with the Farm Bureau, ruling that TCEQ lacks authority to prioritize junior rights holders. In other words, the law backed Dow’s domination of the river. The decision meant that any big company with older water rights can keep the public from getting water even during severe drought.
maydaymad_mayday@spore.social
2023-06-20

"... the Brazos is now a captive and contaminated river. As a “navigable” waterway, the river ostensibly belongs to the public. But in reality, a significant portion of the water that Graves canoed down in 1957 had long been destined for the intake pumps of Dow. And once the company’s plants are done with the water, they don’t always return it in the same condition."

#TCEQ #Dow #Texas #WaterRights #Pollution #GulfCoast #IndustrialPollution #Corruption

texasobserver.org/dow-brazos-r

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