For years, I’ve been tracking the progress of a proposed toxic waste dump in Laredo which local activists and environmentalists have been trying to shut down against steep opposition from a politically well-connected landowner and his hippo-hunting lobbyist.
The proposal has been sitting with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), which traditionally has been quite the misnomer.
But it turns out that TCEQ might be beginning to take its job more seriously. Perhaps Gov. Abbott has realized that with polls showing Texas could potentially go blue in 2020, now is not a good time for Texas agencies closely associated with the GOP to be literally authorizing the potential poisoning of populations in places like Laredo who could help deliver Democratic victories in the Lone Star State next year. It also looks like people at the Department of Homeland Security might be cluing up on bad policy that political appointees just might worry could have bad political effects next year.
Here’s the backstory: DHS took a break from caging migrant kids and nabbing their soccer balls to join FEMA in revising its floodplain maps and halting plans for the toxic waste dump.
By updating the official flood map, DHS and FEMA triggered additional environmental regulations that the waste dump’s owner, Rancho Viejo Waste Management (RVWM) which is controlled by Texas bigwig landowner and alleged wife-beater C Y Benavides, will have to comply with before RVWM can begin construction. Tellingly, RVWM has requested that the Texas State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH) delay consideration of the proposal for six months so RVWM can figure out how it’s going to prove that it wouldn’t flood the Rio Grande and other waterways with toxic waste.
The reality is that there’s no way to make this proposed landfill environmentally-safe. It would sit on a floodplain where tributaries to the Rio Grande would carry toxic waste directly into the water supply that countless Americans and Mexicans depend on. RVWM has no experience in running a landfill, which would make it even trickier for them to thread this complicated needle.
This should put the final nail in the coffin of the toxic waste dump proposal, though ultimately, it’s up to TCEQ to return RVWM’s permit application ungranted.
It seems overwhelmingly likely that will happen as the political tides have turned against this proposal, and more attention is being focused on traditionally marginalized communities like those that would have been adversely impacted by this dump. That’s good news for Laredans but also seems like a good sign for Texas progressives.