Growth and pipeline continue through COVID-19 pitfalls

While I stay home, trying to not catch The Plague, two things are driving me a little nuts right now. No, not having to eat my own cooking every day, and no, not even our national health crisis, but a couple of things, both having to do with development overreach. And I think these are some very bad ideas.

One is the full speed ahead plans of the regional transportation planning board, CAMPO, who wants to not only put a toll road down the middle of I-35, as it goes through the Austin area, but also has a plan, which just came to my attention, to put all kinds of brand new roads, and to widen a whole lot of country roads throughout Hays County. This will not only ruin land and water sources, but will bring more dense, urban style development into our hills and valleys, putting our aquifers at risk of pollution and depletion.

This transportation push is linked to another project I see as unsustainable development during a time of unpredictable financial and societal changes: The ongoing Permian Highway natural gas pipeline plowing right across Hays County, along with lots of other Texas Counties, in a time of zero growth in that industry, and in fact, severe contraction. Oil and gas are both plummeting, and yet, the pipeline project continues to rip through our lands, our aquifers and our homes. They are intent on building a pipeline to carry oil and gas nobody wants to buy.

And they do it because they can. They do it because they think they must.

I say STOP. Stop because it is a bad idea. Stop because you are ruining our land and risking our water. Stop, because your business model is flawed, and based on flawed data. Stop, because whether or not the law allows it, you really do not have the right to destroy our lands or our water.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

The way I see it is that both of these projects were planned in a different economy, and for reasons that are no longer either real or financially viable. The only reason they are not being reconsidered in light of new realities on the ground, is that they have been FUNDED, they have the money, and they know that unless they forge ahead these project now, they will not be able to, because these very expensive projects are not really priorities in our new CoronaEconomy.

But, they continue, unabated, in spite of changing circumstances.

We need to reassess our local, regional and national priorities, and stop projects that will not use money wisely, and will not make our lives, post-Covid-19, better.

What occurs to me is that both of these projects, and likely countless others, are based on outdated data. Old driving data, and older housing data, old ways of looking at energy needs, and even older ideas about what kind of society we want to create.

It is hard to stop things once they get going, but we need to stop them, because if we allow these bad ideas to change, or ruin, our lands and lives, that will be forever.

Susan Cook