The U.S. Geological Survey has effectively discredited a hair-raising Austin American-Statesman series last year that blamed pollution in and around Barton Springs Pool on an old coal gasification plant up the hill from the city treasure. A federal study released Tuesday corroborates the city scientists’ long-held belief that coal-tar based pavement sealer used on parking lots is the most plausible source of the PAH (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) toxins found on the hillside above the pool. The daily series, published in January 2003, put city officials in high defensive mode – but not before first shutting down the swimming pool for three months. The daily essentially took the city to task for placing the protection of the endangered salamander above health and human safety. The series was also critical of city officials and environmentalists for trying to limit development upstream when, according to the Statesman, the most harmful pollutants were probably the remains of an old coal gasification plant closer to the pool. The city’s next step will likely move toward enacting a ban on the more likely source – coal-tar based pavement sealants.
This article appears in April 30 • 2004.
