“You just let Freeport-McMoRan in your back door,” lamented a disheartened
speaker to the Austin City Council last Thursday, shortly after five
councilmembers trampled colleagues Brigid Shea and Max Nofziger and struck a
$4.1 million deal with the New Orleans-based, multi-national corporation to
provide water to their Lantana tract within the city limits. The 5-2 vote
approved construction of the city water line right up to the southern doorstep
of Freeport’s proposed 4,590-acre Planned Unit Development (PUD).
Conservationists fear the vote could open up to development thousands of
pristine acres atop the ecologically sensitive Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone in
Southwest Austin, especially if the water system is extended to serve the
southern, commercial portion of the proposed PUD.
“Jim Bob Moffet said in the recent federal trial that without the
commercial development [of the PUD], the residential portion can’t be
developed,” says Robert Singleton, a member of Earth First! “The council may
have given Jim Bob what he needed. If so, then it’s pretty much bye-bye Barton
Creek and Barton Springs.”
Already, Freeport is forging ahead with plans for PUD development. With the
blessing of the latest state Legislature, the company applied for a special
development permit at the Texas Natural Resources Conversation Commission
(TNRCC) last month, skirting Austin’s water-quality guidelines to develop the
PUD under looser TNRCC regulations. A TNRCC decision is not expected for
several months.
Politically, Thursday’s vote could be just as monumental, as the decision
compounds the schism between a core group of Austin’s environmental community
and Councilmembers Gus Garcia and Jackie Goodman.
“I think their vote has the potential” to distance them from much of the
environmental community, says Bill Bunch, head of the 1,000-member Save Our
Springs Legal Defense Fund. “Whereas the community was pleased with Jackie and
Gus for standing up against pressure to throw in the towel during the PUD vote
back in February, Thursday’s vote raises a concern that they’ll try to back off
from environmental responsibility.”
Singleton agrees. “I’m real dissapointed in both of them, probably Jackie
more than Gus. Jackie’s been doing [environmental work] long enough that she
should know better.”
Goodman sternly replies that the groups represented at the council meeting
“are not the environmental community.” Goodman’s vote, however, even crosses
her own environmental roots. The 6,000-member Save Barton Creek Association, of
which she is a board member, voted against the Lantana deal in July.
Garcia says he voted for the agreement because Lantana “is inside the city
[limits]. We have to provide them water, and I think that if we’re going to
annex communities, then we need to serve them.” Like Goodman, Garcia felt that
no legitimate environmental opinion was represented at the council meeting.
“This is one of those deals where the hardcore environmentalists are going to
fight every one of those things. The only credible person that opposed it was
Mary Arnold [an ex-water and wastewater commissioner]. Bill Bunch was there,
and he never says anything right. I didn’t see any of the other traditional
environmentalists come.”
Criticism of Goodman and Garcia by both the traditional and “hardcore”
environmentalists began in earnest last March, when the two attempted to
negotiate a PUD agreement with Freeport after a majority of the council on
February 23 had struck down a more liberal PUD deal. Both agreements would have
permitted the PUD’s development by extending a wastewater system to the area,
and given Freeport a fee waiver of more than $3 million for the transfer of
sewer rights.
In the proposed agreements, Freeport would have paid 75% of the Lantana
water system. Now, Freeport promises to pay for the initial costs of the system
if the city reimburses the entire cost in three annual installments beginning
in 1996. The city will not have to pay interest. It should be noted, however,
that the system in February was estimated to be only half as expensive as it is
now, causing Lantana opponents to question the veracity of the city’s current
expense estimates.
Opponents of the approved Lantana deal are also wary of what seem to be
arbitrary build-out projections. While the city projected in February that
Lantana would add 99 living unit equivalents (LUEs, or customer hook-ups to the
system), the city now projects 606 LUEs per year. To solve the problem, all of
the aforementioned groups proposed a pay-as-you-go scheme where the city would
pay back Freeport based on the number of LUEs that are hooked up. A proposal by
Brigid Shea to do just that received the support of only Goodman and Nofziger.
Goodman admits that the build-out projections are questionable. “I would be
surprised if [Lantana] built out to [Freeport’s] projections. But if Lantana
never uses it, we can tie into other people. Other development will happen
there.”
Such a scenario could turn environmentalists’ concerns that Freeport’s PUD
could also hook up to the water system into a reality. “Freeport could tie into
it,” Goodman concedes. “Yeah, that’s dangerous. We were stuck between a rock
and a hard place. If we went to court and it was shown that we denied an
interest-free loan from Freeport, I have the distinct foreboding we’d get
slam-dunked.”
To serve the PUD, a majority of the council would have to expand the city’s
water service boundaries to the PUD, which is outside the city limits. Such an
occurrence would likely require a fourth councilmember with the same
developer-mentality as Mayor Bruce Todd and Councilmembers Eric Mitchell and
Ronney Reynolds. A true developer majority could come as early as May,
especially if once-faithful Goodman supporters rethink their loyalties and
split the environmental community enough to allow a Chamber-backed candidate to
slide into office. Garcia’s seat is not up for re-election until 1997.
“There were a lot of people there Thursday night, who have been active
supporters of Jackie’s campaigns, who were commenting that they’ve had it with
her,” says Singleton.
The vote also has the effect of fueling a recall petition for Todd and
Reynolds. “The volume of phone messages I’ve been getting from people that want
to work on the recall has taken a dramatic turn after Thursday,” says
Singleton, who initiated the recall petition three weeks ago.
Part of the inspiration for the increased interest may have been the
mayor’s haste to pass the Lantana item at the expense of public participation.
To fit the Lantana vote onto the agenda before the meeting ended, the mayor
tore through a public hearing on the budget at breakneck speed, allowing each
speaker only two minutes, instead of the usual three, and occasionally asking
the crowd after an inspiring speech to “Please hold your applause, it only
takes up more time.”
n
This week in council: Vote to appropiate $600,000 of Com-munity Development
Block Grants for architectual work on the Central City Entertainment Center.
This article appears in August 25 • 1995 and August 25 • 1995 (Cover).