News
2024
Graph depicting a decline of TCEQ's Mobile Monitoring Team since 2003.
Photo Credit: Inside Climate News
Former employees say the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality gutted the unit soon after the fracking boom swept the state oil industry. The operation never returned to what it was before.
Texas Tribune
October 7, 2024
Photo credit: Screenshot of CBS Austin video showing large crowd gathered to learn about the proposed rock crusher.
Frustration over a proposed rock-crushing quarry led nearly 800 people living in Burnet and Burnet County to gather for a town hall over the weekend.
CBS Austin
September 16, 2024
Screenshot of Fermin Ortiz, TRAM co-founder, during interview with KXAN Nabil Remadna
The residents' fears range from water contamination to even caves collapsing.
KXAN
September 13, 2024
A map from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality shows the location of a proposed concrete batch plant between New Braunfels and San Marcos.
They allege Five Star Concrete didn't follow state rules on publicizing its application for an air quality permit for the site near near New Braunfels.
San Antonio Express News
September 4, 2024
Photo credit: Fermin Ortiz, TRAM co-founder
Residents gathered at the Burnet Community Center on Sunday, Sept. 1, to protest a proposed permanent rock-crushing facility to be built just outside of the city limits.
Daily Trib
September 3, 2024
Photo credit: Screenshot of bus dashcam video, released by Hays ISD to the Statesman following public information request.
A narrative reconstruction of a March 22 school bus crash on Hwy 21 in Bastrop County based on more than two dozen interviews with survivors, parents, first responders and trucking industry experts along with reviews of multiple criminal court documents, lawsuits and regulatory records in the case.
Austin American-Statesman
July 17, 2024
Photo credit: William Luther, SAEN
The quarry would be on the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone, which feeds the aquifer that provides water for 2 million people.
San Antonio Express News
July 15, 2024
Current and future APO development in Williamson County.
Photo credit: Dr. Christina Schwerdtfeger
A Williamson County survey recently found nearly all of its respondents had some type of negative experience with nearby rock quarries.
FOX 7 Austin
June 13, 2024
Photo credit: Maria Crane, The Texas Tribune
Citing community concerns about a planned cement plant in Grayson County, Patrick’s letter asks TCEQ to reject the permit and halt permit approvals statewide.
Texas Tribune
April 16, 2024
Photo credit: Screenshot of bus dashcam video, released by Hays ISD to the Statesman following public information request.
The National Transportation Safety Board on Monday opened an incident investigation into the Hays school district crash on March 22 that killed two, including a prekindergarten student.
Austin American-Statesman
April 3, 2024
Photo credit: Staff photo, HoweEnterprise.com
Denison’s Hilton Garden Inn was packed full of concerned Grayson County residents who were adamantly opposed to a quarry and cement plant proposed on 600 acres in Dorchester by BM Dorchester, LLC.
View full publication here: https://howeenterprise.com/61-47-howe-enterprise-april-1-2024/
Howe Enterprise
April 1, 2024
Photo credit: Jane Turchi,
Community Impact
Bastrop County residents have voiced health and environmental concerns regarding the installation of a rock and cement crusher within Travis Materials’ mining facility. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality will hold an informational hearing from 7-9pm March 7. The FM 969 and Wilbarger Bend Road area has seen three new sand and gravel mines in the past two years.
Community Impact
March 4, 2024
Photo credit: Chloe Young,
Community Impact
Williamson County is home to the most APOs in Texas with 37 registered operations as of March 1. As the county’s APO industry expands, more quarries are located near existing and future residential developments, negatively affecting property and quality of life. Almost 250 people gathered at a forum designed for residents to voice their concerns on February 29th.
Community Impact
March 1, 2024
Rock quarries took center stage at a community panel in Georgetown. Residents and state leaders talked about the Williamson County quarries and their significant impact to its residents.
Fox 7 Austin
March 1, 2024
Photo credit: Josie Norris, SAEN
The city and the quarry's owners have coexisted for years, but plans to mine 871 acres on a new site have led to open conflict.
San Antonio Express News
February 28, 2024
Photo credit: Erwin Seba,
REUTERS
Some environmental experts are skeptical that Texas can meet the new rules on particulate matter, which can cause serious respiratory problems. The new rules are the first change in the limits since 2012.
Texas Tribune
February 7, 2024
Photo credit: Texas Aggregates & Concrete Association
Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker and District 10 council member Alan Blaylock sent a letter to the TCEQ opposing the proposed air quality standard permit for a concrete batch plant at 13001 Old Denton Road from the Forest-Hill based TOR Texas LLC.
Community Impact
February 7, 2024
Photo credit: Desiree Rios,
The Texas Tribune
The agency has found that the air pollution and particulate matter from concrete batch plants can increase the risk of asthma and cardiac arrest. Now it has launched a pilot project – the first in Texas – that will survey air, water and soil to determine how the combined pollution from this cluster of industrial sites impacts public health in two predominantly minority neighborhoods: West Dallas and Joppa in South Dallas.
Texas Tribune
February 2, 2024
2023
Photo credit: William Luther, SAEN
Vulcan Materials Company is planning a quarry on a 1,500-acre property between New Braunfels and Bulverde.
San Antonio Express News
Dec. 26, 2023
Photo credit: Alma E. Hernandez, Herald-Zeitung
New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung
Nov. 25, 2023
Photo credit: Dave Fehling,
Houston Public Media
Scientists are increasingly alarmed by the airborne particles routinely released by power plants, petrochemical companies, concrete plants and other sources. The Biden administration is wielding a rarely used authority to tighten regulations for these microscopic particles, which hundreds of scientific articles have linked to heart disease, breast and lung cancer and other ailments. Industry groups and their supporters are digging in to fight the change.
Public Health Watch
Oct. 23, 2023
Photo credit: Luke Sharrett,
Bloomberg
The TECQ has quietly proposed maintaining a target cancer risk level for air pollution permits that scientists and public health officials consider inadequate, especially for those that are exposed simultaneously to multiple sources of industrial emissions.
San Antonio Express News
Oct. 18, 2023
Photo credit: Ronald Cortes
The court ruling brings the Vulcan Quarry one step closer to becoming reality. Critics have been fighting it for six years.
San Antonio Express News
Oct. 14, 2023
Photo credit: ABC 13
A loaded concrete weighing around 20 tons crashed with concrete in it and some leaked into the water below. Hazmat teams were on hand in case the water or sewer lines next to the bridge were damaged.
ABC 13
Sept. 14, 2023
Photo credit: Dylan Baddour,
Inside Climate News
Texas Tribune
Aug. 16, 2023
During the 88th legislative session more than 50 proposed bills addressing the aggregate industry were introduced to committees, but few advanced. While TRAM solidified its presence in important discussions with senior legislators and industry leaders, the stark reality remains that state leadership has done little to balance the needs of Texans with the excesses of the aggregate industry.
Focus Daily News
Aug. 4, 2023
Photo credit: Green Source DFW
A minority-owned neighborhood in southern Dallas is fighting another APO plant. Per capita the neighborhood of Joppa suffers a higher pollution burden than other Dallas area neighborhoods.
Green Source DFW
Aug. 3, 2023
The ‘1-mile rule’: Texas’ unwritten, arbitrary policy protects big polluters from citizen complaints
TCEQ has denied citizens the ability to challenge air pollution permits because they live more than a mile away. This distance test is not codified in Texas law or TCEQ rules, but it appears consistently in TCEQ opinions going back at least 13 years as a means to restrict public challenges to air pollution permits.
Inside Climate News
July 30, 2023
Photo credit: Joe Timmerman,
The Texas Tribune
When the owner applied for a state permit that could pave the way for a subdivision, neighbors and environmentalists rallied against it in the name of protecting the area’s rivers and the Edwards Aquifer.
Texas Tribune
July 13, 2023
Photo credit: Jon Shapley,
Houston Chronicle
Houston Chronicle
July 12, 2023
Photo credit: Dakota Morrissiey,
DailyTrib.com
TRAM Member, Save Lake LBJ is encouraging Highland Lake residents to contact their elected officials and take a stand against two sand and gravel processing plants and two dredging operations to feed them that are proposed for a stretch of shoreline on Lake LBJ in Kingwood.
DailyTrib.com
June 19, 2023
Photo credit: Shelby Tauber,
The Texas Tribune
The TCEQ has proposed changes to concrete batch plant permits including lowering production limits, reducing dust coming from plants and setting minimum distance requirements from nearby communities.
Texas Tribune
June 12, 2023
Photo credit: Yfat Yossifor, KERA
A 2-month investigation by KERA NEWS found that the state’s regulatory practices allow asphalt plants like the one in Joppa to operate for years without providing detailed information on the pollution they produce.
Texas Public Radio
June 8, 2023
Photo credit: Lina Fisher
The TCEQ granted Ranger Excavating a permit last month for a permanent rock crushing plant despite 86 comments from those that live near it about the dust’s possible health risks and requests for a public meeting that never happened. The area is already home to Capitol Aggregates, Texas Concrete Materials, Aaron Concrete Contractors, Texas Materials-Hergotz Pit, and Marcelo’s Sand & Loam all located within a mile of each other.
The Austin Chronicle
May 26, 2023