BSEACD gets 300 comments on EP
Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District received 312 comments on the Electro Purification permit with 11 of those comments requesting a contested case with the district’s Board of Directors.
No person or entity requested a hearing with the State Office of Administrative Hearings, often called SOAH, but that doesn’t mean the state office won’t end up overseeing the case.
“This doesn’t rule out SOAH,” Alicia Reinmund-Martinez, General Manager of Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District, said. “The Board or the applicant (Electro Purification) can still make that request. There is a board meeting on July 12 to make that final process decision, and the applicant still has time to make a request for a SOAH hearing.”
The BSEACD will hold a regular meeting on July 12 and will decide if it wants to take on the contested case itself or if it wants SOAH to oversee the contested case. While that item will be on the agenda, no decision will be made during this meeting to approve or deny Electro Purification’s permit.
If the district decides to oversee the contested case, it would decide if the 11 contested case requests would be allowed to be a part of the case. If the directors ask SOAH to oversee the case, SOAH would decide if the 11 requests will be a part of the contested case.
Precinct 3 Commissioner Lon Shell said that Hays County asked to be a part of the contested case.
“Hays County is an invested partner in the study of our aquifers,” Shell said in a letter to BSEACD. “In the past two years, Hays County has contributed $200,000 toward the establishment of five groundwater monitoring wells, one of which is operated by BSEACD and others which are operated by the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District. We want to know more about our natural resources, particularly when our economy and our very lives rely on its quality and its availability. Until we have eliminated the unknowns, I humbly request that the District consider implementing additional safeguards before granting a permit of any kind to Electro Purification LLC.”
The agenda for the July 12 meeting of the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District Board of Directors will be posted on www.bseacd.orgon Friday.