Zac Trahan, Author at Texas Campaign for the Environment

A Victory for Activists – Council May Retain Oversight of Austin Energy

Posted on May 17, 2013 at 9:31 pm.

The latest plan reverses the initial proposal sponsored by Leffingwell, Spelman, and Cole, which underwent a fair number of amendments at its first reading. Their plan called for granting sovereign authority to an independent panel, while still ensuring openness and transparency. Proponents of that scenario included all but one member of the Electric Utility Commission – a Council advisory group – and a coalition of large commercial and industrial businesses, which receive discounted electric rates as part of a special deal that expires in 2015. By that time, Council will be under a 10-1 district governance structure, and the big energy users like Seton and Samsung would feel more comfortable negotiating a new deal with an independent electric board rather than a brand new Council.

Riley, the lead sponsor of the new plan, laid out his position this way: “In my view, the current proposal provides for more transparency and more accountability than the original draft, and it offers the potential of providing oversight that’s far more effective than our current system. Even if we can’t reach agreement on all the details of the utility’s governance,” he continued, “I’m hopeful that we can at least agree on forming a standing Council committee to keep working out those details. I’m also hopeful about forming a new board to govern the utility, and I think a Council committee could play an instrumental role in helping us get a new board up and running.”

Morrison says the new proposals take into account public concerns about possible unintended consequences of relinquishing all Council authority with a single vote. The additional time given to what was originally deemed an “emergency,” she said, “allowed us to come up with a much more refined approach to address the issues we wanted to address and avoid the pitfalls and potential negative consequences. Yes, it can be a challenge and frustrating sometimes to go through a months-long dialogue, but it’s a process that’s working. I think it’s an example of good governance.”

Proud of Our Utility

Opponents who had organized against the governance overhaul applauded Council’s willingness to listen and respond to their concerns. “There’s still some things that need to be done to improve [the revised proposal], but it’s certainly come a long, long way,” said Karen Hadden, an energy activist and the only member of the Electric Utility Commission who opposes a governance switch. Opponents’ biggest concern now is that the newly created utility board will be the result of an ordinance, rather than a voter-approved charter amendment. “Once you create a board of this kind through ordinance, you can easily change it through ordinance,” Hadden said. “We don’t want to see a new Council coming in and deciding to delegate huge authority to this unelected board.”

Three months of listening to various stakeholders convinced Riley that Council should slow down. He went from being a likely yes vote on the governance makeover to a lead sponsor of the revised, more palatable proposal. “Over the past several months, in the wake of the settlement of the rate case appeal, we’ve been hearing from more and more Austinites who are proud of our utility and protective of the public’s control of it,” he explained in an email. “I’m proud of it too, and I’ve come to realize that we need to move very cautiously on any measures that could affect the public’s ability to influence the utility’s course.”

Trinity East Energy threatens to sue environmentalists over statements about failed well casing in Irving

Posted on March 13, 2013 at 10:32 pm.

Written by Zac Trahan

Dallas Morning News
Rudolph Bush

The energy company at the center of Dallas’ gas drilling debate has threatened a Texas environmental group with a lawsuit over statements about a well-casing failure in Irving.

An attorney for Trinity East Energy sent the letter in late February to Zac Trahan at the Texas Campaign for the Environment, claiming Trahan made “verifiably false accusations” about the well-casing failure that Randy Lee Loftis documented earlier this month.

“Texas Campaign for the Environment (“TCE”) is behind much of the opposition to drilling in the City of Dallas,” states the letter from attorney Michael D. Anderson. “In that regard, TCE has disseminated many baseless and groundless attacks with the singular purpose of denying Trinity East’s right to drill.”

But the campaign reached a “new low” when Trahan suggested publicly that the well-casing failure “may have contaminated underground water aquifers,” the letter states.

Trahan responded today in a letter defending his statements and letting Trinity East know that TCE will neither cease nor desist.

“It is, by now, well-known that the purpose of casing a well is to protect groundwater,” Trahan wrote. “Thus, when a casing failure occurs, it is not unreasonable to question whether this casing failure has placed groundwater at risk for contamination.”

According to Randy’s report from public documents, the casing failed at a depth of 2,800 feet. Groundwater extended down to about 2,150 feet at the site, according to state analysis. Public documents did not indicate whether there was any groundwater contamination.

But as Trahan points out in his letter, there is sparse information from Trinity East or the state Railroad Commission detailing the impact of the company’s casing failure near the University of Dallas.

“If such analysis has been conducted, TCE welcomes the opportunity to review the results and report on them,” Trahan writes.

Anderson’s letter states flatly that there could not have been aquifer contamination at the site of the casing failure because the “surface casing was set and cemented at required depths…to protect all fresh water aquifers.”

Gas wells use several casings in the drilling and extraction process, and it’s not entirely clear which casing failed in this instance. I reached Anderson this morning and he said he would contact his clients before commenting.

In Trahan’s letter, issued today, he said the campaign won’t be “deterred by the bullying tactics of Trinity East or others.” But he did offer Trinity East this concession.

“Nevertheless, in order to avoid any confusion, TCE is willing to issue the following supplemental information,” he wrote.

“This gas company has already drilled a well along the Trinity River that had a casing failure beneath our underground aquifers. The company reported that no groundwater contamination occurred as a result in this instance. No independent testing was required to verify whether our aquifers are fully protected.”

Dallas City Hall moving forward with long-range plan to reduce trash

Posted on February 26, 2013 at 4:23 pm.

Written by Zac Trahan

Dallas Morning News
Rudolph Bush

Dallas has long had a goal of becoming a “zero-waste” city, in which recycling and composting replace the burial of trash. After a rocky start, City Hall appears to have devised a plan to start on that path.

A City Council committee on Monday unanimously recommended a long-term master plan for waste that could require making recycling available not only for single-family homes but also for businesses and apartment complexes. It will go before the full council Wednesday.

The plan stopped short, however, of calling for a ban on products, including plastic bags and bottles, that add to waste streams. Kelly High, the city’s sanitation director, said the plan represents a compromise between environmental and business interests.

“Did everybody get exactly what they wanted? No, but there was full agreement there was substantial progress in meeting zero-waste goals,” High said.

Council member Sandy Greyson expressed concern that the city didn’t push harder on controlling plastic bags, plastic bottles and foam cups. The plan recommends that the city approach product bans through a separate ordinance. Assistant City Manager Jill Jordan said she has asked the city’s environmental office to study the proliferation of plastic bags in the city. The plan also calls for Dallas to perhaps support state action on bags and bottles.

“That’s not very proactive,” Greyson said.

The plan does make one major improvement over a prior plan — it actually included public input. A plan submitted last year made a show of reaching out to stakeholders through an “advisory committee.” But interviews with people appointed to the committee revealed that it was a shell that met just twice, with few committee members showing up either time.

Outreach has been wider and sustained since. And key stakeholders from business and environmental groups have agreed to meet quarterly.

The new plan also sets clearer timelines for major goals, the most important of which is getting apartments and businesses recycling regularly. This remains a source of controversy. Apartments and businesses have their trash collected by private companies, not by the city. Many offer no recycling at all. Doing so would be expensive and difficult, many apartment owners say.

The plan calls for the city to gradually move toward a “universal recycling ordinance,” one that would make recycling available for homes, businesses, apartments and condominiums. At this point, the city is recommending that businesses and apartments voluntarily recycle until 2019. Only then, if voluntary recycling isn’t at an acceptable level, would recycling become mandatory.

Zac Trahan of the Texas Campaign for the Environment said the voluntary period should run only through 2015. Still, he said, the current plan is better than the prior version.

Kathy Carlton of the Apartment Association of Greater Dallas said apartment owners have formed a task force to study the issue. They will collect data on recycling and form plans for voluntary recycling programs.

Dallas Trash Plan Earns Praise and Concerns

Posted on February 26, 2013 at 4:18 pm.

Written by Zac Trahan

NBC News D/FW
Ken Kalthoff

Environmentalists are praising a new Dallas trash plan to be considered by the City Council Wednesday but some people who’ve worked on it still have concerns. A City Council committee endorsed the plan Monday.

Click here to watch the story!

It includes a goal of “zero waste” in Dallas by expanding recycling goals to businesses and rental homes that are not included in current city recycling programs. Dallas only provides curbside recycling collection to single family homes and a few businesses now.

“Dallas is only the second city in all of Texas to pass a zero waste plan for the long term and that’s great, that’s huge. That shows real environmental leadership on city leaders,” said Zac Trahan with Texas Campaign for the Environment.

“The bad news is it isn’t nearly as strong as it should be,” Trahan said.

Recycling would be voluntary for rental homes and businesses until 2019 instead of 2021 as in previous versions of the plan. But even after 2019, expanded recycling could remain voluntary. Kathy Carlton with the Apartment Association of Greater Dallas said there are many complications for recycling at apartment complexes and it should always be voluntary. She said some complexes have no room to store recycled materials or place containers for residents.

“We are hoping to work with the city in a way that we can develop a program that will accommodate the needs of individual properties,” she said. Carlton said around 50 percent of Dallas residents live in rental homes that could be subject to the new rules.

“We try to avoid anything that’s a one size fits all type of mandatory program,” she said.

Eddie Lott with a Dallas company called Recycling Revolution said his firm provides services to all sorts of apartment complexes. His programs include large containers or blue bag recycling where residents sort materials and leave the bags for pick up.

“We have plenty of options,” Lott said. “We’re talking a couple of dollars a month per tenant to be able to offer recycling to the entire complex. It’s very affordable and it’s very doable.”

Excluded from the current Solid Waste Plan is a proposed Dallas ban on plastic grocery bags like some other cities around the country have adopted. Plastic grocery bag litter is common in Dallas and a ban was included in earlier versions of the Solid Waste Plan, but Dallas officials now intend to consider that issue separately as a possible environmental protection law.

“It’s better to have it separate from the solid waste management plan,” Trahan said.

Also excluded is a so called Flow Control plan that was to require all garbage generated in Dallas to be taken to the city’s McCommas Bluff Landfill where a high-tech waste to energy plant was proposed. Private haulers are allowed to take commercial garbage to landfills outside Dallas now and a judge granted the haulers an injunction to block Flow Control. The city is appealing the Flow Control injunction in court.

Utility Agrees to Reduce Coal Plant Emissions

Posted on February 22, 2013 at 8:07 pm.

Written by Zac Trahan

Cameron Langford
Courthouse News Service

A Texas public utility reached a settlement with environmentalists that requires it to reduce emissions from its coal-fired power plant.

The Lower Colorado River Authority is a nonprofit public utility created by the Texas Legislature in 1934.

“LCRA plays a variety of roles in Central Texas: delivering electricity, managing the water supply and environment of the lower Colorado River basin, providing public recreation areas, and supporting community and economic development,” according to its website.

The authority owns six dams and five power plants, including the Fayette Power Project, a coal-burning power plant in Fayette County near La Grange, Texas. In a March 2011 federal complaint, the Environmental Integrity Project, Texas Campaign for the Environment and Environment Texas claimed that the authority had violated the Clean Air Act at its Fayette County power plant.

The Texas Campaign for the Environment, or TCE, filed its first amended complaint against the authority a month later seeking injunctive relief, and assessment of civil penalties, against the power plant it accused of violating federal emission limits. By June, the city of Austin had intervened for the authority.

Eventually, U.S. District Judge Gray Miller dismissed three out of four claims that TCE had filed against the authority, but he ordered discovery on TCE’s claim that the authority was violating particulate matter emission limits at the plant. The parties reached a settlement Wednesday in the face of a June 2012 notice of intent by TCE to sue the authority over its plant’s emissions.

Among the provisions of the deal, the authority must reduce emissions of mercury at its plant and use only clean fuels, either distillate oil or natural gas, to start up the plant’s burners after a shutdown. It must also install a continuous emissions monitoring system for the plant, and conduct “particulate matter stack tests” on each of the plant’s three units, while providing the environmentalists with copies of the results.

The authority does not have to comply with the emissions limiting measures until Dec. 31, 2013. An application for the plant’s federal operating permit must incorporate all the settlement’s stipulations on, or before, Sept. 13.

For their part, the environmental groups agreed to release the authority from all claims in their lawsuit, and not to sue them again over the allegations. The settlement does however reserve the Environmental Integrity Project’s right to oppose parts of the plant’s operating permit not resolved in the settlement. Any party can move to terminate the agreement once the authority incorporates its provisions into the operating permit. Otherwise the deal will automatically terminate on Dec. 31, 2018.

The authority’s general manager Rebecca Motal recently gave an interview to the Fayette County Record about its operations. Citing an Austin American-Statesman story that said the Fayette County Power Plant produces as much carbon as all the cars in Austin combined, the Record’s editor Jeff Wick asked Motal if Fayette County residents should be concerned about air quality.

Motal responded: “No, and here’s why. That is one of the cleanest coal plants in the state. A few years ago, we, and the city of Austin spent over $400 million to put scrubbers on the units. That plant is already complaint with rules yet to be enacted. We are committed to do the best for the environment.”

Processing plant becomes focus in Dallas’ gas well debate

Posted on February 5, 2013 at 10:35 pm.

Written by Zac Trahan

Floodplain
Trinity East wants to drill in the 100-year floodplain.
Supporters say: Other cities allow it with no harm.
Opponents say: It violates Dallas rules and is poor policy.

Parks
Two of three proposed drilling sites are on city park land.
Supporters say: Care and restoration will prevent damage.
Opponents say: It breaks repeated city promises.

Gas plant
A processing plant would go on a third private site.
Supporters say: It’s routine and needed for production.
Opponents say: It’s a huge, dangerous industrial polluter.

Other disputes

CITY RULES: They allow no gas refining except dehydration (removing water from gas). The proposed gas plant would also have amine-based removal of waste gases.

Supporters say: Both are allowed as normal production.
Opponents say: The city must obey its own ordinance.

EMISSIONS: Toxic and smog-causing pollution comes from wells and gas plants.

Supporters say: State and U.S. rules will prevent problems.
Opponents say: They haven’t and won’t; the air is dirty now.

What’s next: Plan commission, council to weigh in

-The City Plan Commission is expected to open public hearings on Trinity East’s plans on Feb. 7 but is not expected to vote until later. Members will first go see a compressor station or drilling/hydraulic fracturing and will hear expert briefings.

-The commission’s recommendation will go to the City Council. If the commission recommends approval, a majority on the council (eight of 15 votes) would be needed to concur. If the recommendation is to deny, a supermajority of council members (12 of 15 votes) would be needed to override the recommendation and approve the plans.

SOURCE: Dallas Morning News research

Dallas Looks at How to Produce Less Trash

Posted on September 21, 2012 at 10:48 pm.

Written by Zac Trahan

If J. R. Ewing can quit smoking and promote solar energy, anything is possible in Dallas, environmental advocates say, even an ambitious plan to have the city recycling nearly all of its garbage by 2040.

“If Dallas can have a zero-waste plan, any city can,” said Zac Trahan, the Dallas program manager at Texas Campaign for the Environment, a group challenging the city’s reputation for big oil, big cars and big sprawl. “It can really be a huge opportunity to move toward a more sustainable Texas.”

Before the last of the plastic bags, crumpled papers and other urban tumbleweeds head to the recycling plant, the city will have to determine when to put into place the various steps of its plan, which the Dallas City Council formally adopted on Aug. 22. It will also have to address the lingering concerns of advocacy groups and business interests, like unintended environmental consequences and unfinanced mandates.

Dallas is only the second Texas city to pass such a plan; the goal of Austin’s plan, approved in 2008, is to have the city recycling 90 percent of its solid waste by 2040. Dallas plans to redirect 84 percent of the trash that currently heads to landfills. The plan notes that “Zero Waste” refers to an effort to recycle or reuse material whenever possible. According to the plan, the remaining 16 percent of solid waste is material that cannot currently be recycled or reused.

Houston has not passed a zero-waste plan, but city officials are also re-evaluating how to deal with its trash. Laura Spanjian, the director of Houston’s Office of Sustainability, said the city has already taken steps similar to those outlined in the Dallas plan, including expanding recycling services and introducing mandatory yard waste composting and pilot programs for business and multifamily unit recycling. It is also exploring other environmentally friendly ideas.

Dallas produces 2.2 million tons of solid waste a year, including 1.7 million tons from places that often do not recycle, like apartment buildings and businesses, according to a memo from Forest Turner, an assistant city manager. With Dallas’s population expected to grow by 40 percent in the next decade, the city’s landfill options are narrowing.

The plan originally included specific timelines for introduction of various steps, which include mandatory recycling service at apartments and businesses, composting programs and possibly bans on plastic bags and polystyrene, the material used in foam coffee cups, among other things. Councilwoman Linda Koop made a motion to remove timelines from the plan after controversy arose over some of its specifics and the amount of public comment that went into drafting them. Now that the timelines have been excluded, the next steps involve redrafting steps with more opportunities for people to weigh in.

“We’re going to come back to the council with a two-year plan of action,” Mr. Turner said. “We’re going to make a robust effort to get public input.”

That includes from the apartment industry, which Kathy Carlton, director of government affairs for the Apartment Association of Greater Dallas, said has “concerns with government mandates that would cost our industry money.”

Ms. Carlton said apartment complexes must contract out for garbage collection and that recycling was sometimes more expensive.

“Recycling in apartments is very difficult for us, because you have to educate residents or you end up paying for contaminated recycling containers,” she said.

Environmental advocates like Mr. Trahan also have some concerns, including how long it might take to put the plan into place and whether the plan would allow for the incineration of trash, something not usually considered part of a zero-waste initiative.

Mr. Trahan said his organization would push for shorter-term timelines, a plan that does not include incineration and more public comment.

“It all depends on what happens next,” he said. “This could be really huge for Dallas and Texas.”

Dallas council approves controversial trash plan, calls for more public input

Posted on August 22, 2012 at 3:27 pm.

Written by Zac Trahan

Dallas Morning News
Rudolph Bush

A master plan for garbage that some critics wanted to see tossed in the trash got unanimous approval from the Dallas City Council on Wednesday, but not before it was changed to satisfy concerns about a lack of public input. The plan had been criticized by industry and environmental interests for a variety of perceived problems.

But council member Linda Koop drained much of the controversy from the vote when she amended the plan to drop proposed timelines for all of its initiatives. Instead, she proposed that the city immediately begin work on a two-year timeline that would include initiatives that could be accomplished by 2015. And she insisted that, before the council adopts any of the initiatives, there be plenty of opportunity for input from stakeholders. Koop acknowledged the city failed to have enough public discussion around the plan.

“I don’t think we did really an adequate job about communicating the plan,” she said.

The complex 217-page plan was first briefed to a council committee last week and was placed on the council’s consent agenda for a vote. Items on the consent agenda are usually passed without discussion. But concern over the plan quickly spread.

Environmental groups appreciated its broad goal to have Dallas become a “zero waste” city by 2040. But the devil was in the details, critics said. The plan set timelines for increased recycling and other initiatives so far in the future as to make them meaningless, they argued.

Several groups also thought the plan’s call for “waste-to-energy” conversion was nothing more than a euphemism for burning trash — something that is widely opposed because of concerns about air pollution.

Representatives of the plastic bag industry, meanwhile, expressed concern about the plan’s call for banning that product in the future. The plan also targets polystyrene foam for elimination.

Some local apartment owners worried about a proposed requirement that recycling bins be available at every apartment and business in the city.

Criticism around the plan swelled in part because so little was known about it. Several people whom City Hall listed as serving on an advisory council that supposedly had input on the plan reported that either they never served on the committee or that the committee was nothing of substance. A number of council members said the city must get better involvement as it moves forward on implementing parts of the plan.

“We are chastised. We have learned our lesson. There was not enough public input on this before it came to council,” council member Sandy Greyson said.

Council member Scott Griggs said the plan should have been briefed to the full council before it was called to a vote. But the council was satisfied with Koop’s decision to eliminate all timelines from the plan and bring back stakeholders to discuss what can be accomplished in the next two years.

And some of those concerned appeared satisfied too.

Kathy Carlton of the Apartment Association of Greater Dallas and Tracy Evers of the Greater Dallas Restaurant Association both approved of the idea to bring stakeholders into meetings before specific elements of the plan are implemented. Carlton was one of those listed as serving on the advisory committee but said she did not.

Robin Schneider, executive director of the Texas Campaign for the Environment, was also pleased with the vote. It offers the opportunity now for input on how Dallas will move toward a future with greater recycling and less waste produced, she said.

“This plan can’t succeed unless Dallasites in every community get involved. This is an environmental issue where everyone has a role to play,” she said.

Recycling plan needs vigorous reworking

Posted on August 22, 2012 at 3:18 pm.

Written by Zac Trahan

Dallas Morning News Op-Ed
Zac Trahan, Texas Campaign for the Environment

The Dallas City Council is scheduled to vote Wednesday for the first time on a comprehensive waste and recycling plan to guide us for the next generation. The proposed Local Solid Waste Management Plan outlines an ambitious goal to reduce our waste by 80 to 90 percent by 2040, which would make Dallas a national leader on waste reduction.

While it’s exciting to see Dallas offer such a bold plan, a look at the fine print shows that it needs important changes before being adopted. As currently written, this plan would make Dallas a recycling laggard — not a leader.

On the surface, the plan looks good. It calls for Dallas to become a “zero waste” city by 2040. Obviously it is almost impossible to get waste to absolutely zero, but through reduction, reuse, recycling and composting, it is possible to reduce our discards by 90 percent or more. Reducing waste means more jobs for Texas, saving taxpayer dollars, protecting our land and water, and keeping our city beautiful.

However, a peek under the hood reveals potential problems.

One immediate concern is that the plan could open the door to trash-burning facilities. Most zero-waste plans have a no-burn, no-bury policy and dictate that any conversion of waste to energy include only disposal, not recycling; Dallas’ plan does neither. Nor does Dallas’ plan rule out incineration as a possible form of “advanced waste diversion.” Burning trash is, of course, atrocious for the environment and, over the long haul, one of the most powerful disincentives to reduction, reuse and recycling. This plan is not worth adoption until it spells out that Dallas will not support incineration in any form.

Another concern is that while the plan has big goals for 30 years from now, it requires almost no real action within the next decade. For years, we will hear politicians tell us how we cannot expect apartments to offer recycling, we cannot deal with single-use bags, we should hold off offering municipal composting or anything else beyond what we are already doing. They will point to this plan to bolster their claims, noting that it does not call for concrete action on any of these items until the ’20s. Granted, none of these steps can be taken overnight, but putting them off for another decade is the opposite of leadership. This is overly cautious at best and outright cowardice at worst.

Perhaps the low sights set by this plan have something to do with the undemocratic, unaccountable process the city used to write it. An advisory committee was put together to give its input, but it only met twice and its deliberation was minimal. There was just one public hearing, last summer. The city paid pricey consultants to write the plan and used impressive lists of stakeholders to give the appearance of public input. Ultimately, however, it was sprung on residents at the last minute with the least possible public involvement.

There is a name for this: greenwashing. It is the process of calling environmental destruction environmental protection, and praising business as usual as a great achievement for the planet. City leaders are patting themselves on the back, but this could commit us to years of stagnation. We hope Mayor Mike Rawlings and the City Council will delay adopting this plan until it can be improved.

The good news is that we could transform this plan into one of the best in the country if we take the time to listen to the public and have the courage to expect real changes. In the meantime, it is merely a testament to what might have been. Dallas deserves better.

Plans to expand Camelot Landfill near Trinity River face opposition

Posted on July 14, 2012 at 10:48 pm.

Written by Zac Trahan

As he gave a tour of Camelot — the size of more than 300 football fields — Davis said the landfill liner hasn’t been breached and he doesn’t think contaminants found are due to what’s known as “leachate.” That’s landfill jargon for water that oozes down through the trash.

Davis thinks the contaminants resulted from the migration of landfill gas, a byproduct of decomposition comprising mainly methane and carbon dioxide.

As the landfill gas moved, it picked up naturally occurring arsenic from the soil and volatile organic compounds from the refuse. After the contaminants were detected, more monitoring wells were installed and a methane extraction system was built at the site to collect the landfill gas and use it for energy.

The volatile organic compounds found are arsenic, cis-1,2 dichloroethylene (DCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE) in some groundwater monitoring wells in the older section of Camelot. Both arsenic and TCE have been recognized as carcinogens, according to Lewisville’s letter.

December readings of one monitoring well showed double the level of DCE considered safe under federal maximum contaminant levels. Two other wells are above maximum levels for DCE. One well that was nearly double the maximum contaminant level for TCE in June has come down, but still exceeds the standard sent by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Lewisville gets its drinking water supply from the Elm Fork, about one-half mile downstream from where the contamination has been identified, and certain contaminants were found as far back as 2003 in monitoring wells, said Lewisville’s outside attorney James Blackburn, an environmental law specialist.

The Elm Fork of the Trinity River is not on the state’s “impaired rivers” list, after a 2010 analysis, said Terry Clawson, a spokesman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Nevertheless, Trahan, the environmentalist, is asking the same question as landfill-expansion opponents on the city councils of Lewisville and Carrollton.

“It seems strange that they want to expand the landfill when they are still in violation of the law,” Trahan said.

River runs through it

Some river paddlers weren’t aware of the proposed expansion. Charles Allen, who runs canoe tours, rattles off the river’s virtues with ease. He says the Elm Fork is the best for families because of navigation ease and the diversity of nature.

Most important, there are two water purification plants at the Elm Fork.

“That is a great source of concern,” Allen said.

Each September, Dale Harris of the Dallas Downriver Club helps organize a canoe and kayak race, known as the Trinity River Challenge, on about 12 of the 34 miles of Elm Fork.

Harris would like to see access points for launching rivercraft every five miles from Lewisville Lake down to southern Dallas. He, too, talks about the serenity of the river — the turtles, the bird songs and even the water moccasins.

“The only thing I’ve noticed is we get a few more of those trash bags than in other parts of the river, and those things fly like kites,” Harris said.

Indeed, along the Elm Fork from a canoe, plastic bags sag from branches like white moss. In one section, a large tree branch dams up trash. Red-and-white floaters and lures bob in the water. Yellow plastic foam meat trays, a blue can of upholstery cleaner, a muddy brown roof shingle and red-stitched baseballs also sit among the limbs.

South of Lewisville Lake to southern Dallas and into the 6,000 acres of the Great Trinity Forest, there are at least a half-dozen active landfills on the Trinity or one of its forks used by different cities. The biggest is Dallas’ McCommas Bluff Landfill, which takes in slightly more tonnage flow than the DFW Recycling and Disposal Facility.

Without expansion, Camelot has 16 years of life left, according to a Farmers Branch spokesman. It’s expected to bring in $1.9 million in revenue this fiscal year, excluding energy generation and carbon credit revenue, said Farmers Branch finance chief Charles Cox. But Cox also noted it will cost $21.5 million to close the landfill under federal and state regulations. The city has already saved about $6.5 million in a closure fund.

As a moneymaker, Camelot now offsets the cost of the solid waste program in Farmers Branch, a city of 28,616 that provides free curbside waste pickup for its residents but doesn’t have a curbside recycling program.

Carrollton City Council member Jeff Andonian, a former petroleum geologist, views the expansion with skepticism. He said he remains worried about the contamination in monitoring wells and the shale formation underneath the landfill.

He regularly attends quarterly waste meetings among landfill managers and residents, who include Carrollton homeowners living just south of Camelot.

“Farmers Branch calls this a regional issue and I agree: 60 communities use the resources of the Trinity River,” Andonian said. “How many people realize how important the Trinity is for our people and for the future generations?”