The wheels of Austin’s conspiracy-theory machine got a few turns recently when Mayor Gus Garcia appointed David Anderson to the city’s Environmental Board. According to an Oct. 28 memo from Garcia to the City Council and City Manager Toby Futrell, his office has received numerous e-mails requesting him to reconsider Anderson’s appointment. “The complaints … are not against [Anderson] personally,” Garcia wrote, “nor do they question his ability to perform the duties as a board member … [but] arose because he works for Kellogg, Brown and Root.”
An engineering, procurement, construction, and maintenance contractor, KBR — the company that built Mansfield Dam and the ill-starred South Texas Project nuclear plant — is a unit of Halliburton, the energy company once headed by Vice-President Dick Cheney. While KBR has built federal projects for many years, it has gained “significant additional business” since the Sept. 11 attacks, The New York Times has reported. In July, the company got almost $10 million from the U.S. Dept. of Defense to build a 204-unit detention camp for war-on-terror prisoners at Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay. “Although KBR is probably not the largest recipient of all the government contracts related to terror efforts, few companies have longer or deeper ties to the Pentagon. And no company is better positioned to capitalize on this trend,” wrote NYT reporters Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr.
Last week, members of the Environmental Board told Naked City they were concerned about Anderson’s appointment because they knew more about his employer than about him. “I have some problems with Brown & Root,” said board Vice-Chair Tim Jones. “I don’t know him personally; I can only hope that he’s a good guy.” Added board member Karin Ascot Bongiorni, “I’m withholding judgment until I at least meet him. But I do find it funny people don’t seem to know who he is.”
A troubled Anderson professes a sincere commitment to the environment and admiration for Austin’s vibrant activist community: “Without them, I don’t think the environment would get the protection it needs,” he said. While reticent to discuss his work with KBR, Anderson — a civil and environmental engineer with a strong interest in water issues — says he hopes to contribute to the board an extra measure of scientific expertise. In addition to volunteering with the Nature Conservancy on several habitat preservation projects, he’s an avid camper and outdoorsman, and has been following the Environmental Board’s activities for the past few years, he says.
In his memo, Garcia acknowledges KBR’s involvement in the “U.S. war machine,” and admits that he opposes some of its projects. However, he wrote, Anderson “is not now, nor has he ever been” involved in the company’s controversial projects; he joined the company to work on water planning issues after the 1997 passage of Texas’ SB1 water-resource legislation. “I disagree with the philosophy that any appointee should be disqualified from serving on a board or commission solely based on his place of employment,” Garcia wrote.
This article appears in November 1 • 2002.