Mayors Climate Protection Agreement

Don Young - FWCanDo - June 29, 2007
In June 21, 2007, mayors from 540 cities around the nation gathered in Los Angeles to sign the U.S Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, committing to reduce carbon emissions in cities below 1990 levels.

Fort Worth mayor Mike Moncrief did not attend the meeting. While he was fiddling over his Barnett Shale holdings, Metroplex air was getting dirtier as a result of his industry friendly, gas drilling ordinance.

For two years now FWCanDo has been demanding that Moncrief conduct environmental impact studies to measure the effects of gas drilling on air quality in the region. After all, Metroplex air is alraedy declared to be " SERIOUSLY out of compliance" by the EPA. The city has consistently declined to do studies, despite the fact that Fort Worth is Ground Zero for natural gas extraction is the USA. Goodbye "Livable City".

How does gas drilling affect Metroplex air quality? One of many factors are the "rich-burn" gas compressor engines that are scattered around the region.

Read this enlightening report in the Weatherford Democrat and then ask yourself, "Why are my tax dollars paying billionaire energy extractors to clean the air they dirty?"

SPEAK OUT: Public Hearings in June '07

UNIFIED PLANNING WORK PROGRAM (UPWP)
The UPWP for Regional Transportation Planning provides a summary of the transportation and related air quality planning tasks conducted by the Metropolitan Planning Organization. (RTC of the NCTCOG)

The draft Fiscal Year 2008 and Fiscal Year 2009 UPWP
and modifications to the Fiscal Year 2006 and Fiscal Year 2007 Work Program
will be presented at three
PUBLIC HEARINGS by the NCTCOG in June 2007.

How does this impact you?

Failure to reach Federal Air Quality Attainment levels impacts transportation funding and is cited as one reason for the shift from funding roads with gas tax money to converting public state and federal highways to toll roads.

Federal Grants for Air Quality Projects must be included
in the Air Quality Plan.

THIS IS THE CITIZENS' OPPORTUNITY TO SPEAK OUT AND GO ON THE RECORD - STATING YOUR PREFERENCES AND PRIORITIES regarding air quality and transportation projects in this region.

IF YOU SEE FLAWS IN THE GOVERNMENTS PLAN OR POLICIES,
THIS IS WHERE YOU NEED TO GO AND SPEAK OUT!


The 2030 Mobility Plan calls for adding 675 more miles of tolled freeways or tolled lanes to existing highways in the DFW Region in the next 30 years.

(It calls for only 70 additional miles of non-tolled highways).


Changes in the Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP) must be submitted for public comment. (It's a 521 page document covering transportation plans for 2008-2011.


As a citizen, this is your chance to say what you think about adding toll lanes or converting existing highways to toll roads in the DFW Area.

The RTC favors funding new highway construction with private/public partnerships (CDAs) with toll rates higher than necessary to retire the debt and maintain the roads so that substantial surplus toll revenue can be generated over 50 year contracts to fund other regional transportation projects.
If this is what you want, state your opinion. If you do not favor turning most of the major roads in the DFW metroplex into toll roads or adding additional capacity as tolled HOV lanes, this is where you should speak out.
Proposed projects include:
I-30, SH 360, SH 121, SH 161, I-9, Airport Freeway, DFW Connector, and other strategic corridors.
DFW Regional Concerned Citizens will attend these hearings.
If you'd like to join us in preparing for these public hearing call 817 795-2519.
Join DFW REGIONAL CONCERNED CITIZENS

State gives OK to ozone plan

By SCOTT STREATER - Star-Telegram staff writer - Thu, May. 24, 2007

The state approved a controversial plan Wednesday for fixing Dallas-Fort Worth's longstanding ozone pollution problem despite a last-minute warning from a top federal official that the plan may be too weak to win federal approval.

Richard Greene, the Environmental Protection Agency's regional director in Dallas, sent a memo to state regulators Wednesday saying a preliminary federal review of the plan found "significantly fewer emissions reductions" than originally proposed.

Without those additional reductions, Greene said, ozone levels in four areas -- Fort Worth, Dallas, Denton and Frisco -- could continue to violate federal standards by the 2010 federal deadline.

All 19 of the region's ozone monitors must meet the standards for the Dallas-Fort Worth area to comply.

"The state has no desire to really regulate these kilns," he said.

State commissioners, during the nearly four-hour hearing in Austin on the Dallas-Fort Worth plan, defended their decision, saying they believe the plan will be enough for the region to meet the federal standards by 2010.

CLEANER AIR
The plan

The clean-air plan for North Texas approved by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on Wednesday:

Requires cement kilns to cut ozone-forming emissions by 40 percent, less than local leaders had hoped.

Curbs vehicle emissions through ongoing state programs to replace or retrofit off-road construction equipment with pollution controls, to replace the oldest, dirtiest vehicles and to assist low-income motorists in making repairs if their car or truck fails the annual emissions inspection.

Counts on Federal Reformulated Gasoline standards to reduce automobile emissions.

Pushes for expansion of programs to promote carpooling and public transit.


"I am very concerned by these reports, and worry that the changes from the proposal, if adopted, would convert the [plan] from one that I believed had a strong chance of approval to [a plan] that ... may not be approvable," Greene wrote.

Local opposition

Greene's concerns were echoed by a wide array of area leaders and clean-air advocates, who said the plan could doom the area to potentially severe federal sanctions for noncompliance.

"Apparently, they don't consider what we think is important for our communities," Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck said.

"I think it's a tragedy that we don't do everything that we can to keep the air as clean as possible. I'm very disappointed."

Of particular concern are three cement plants -- Ash Grove Cement, TXI Operations and Holcim Inc. -- southeast of Fort Worth that are the largest industrial sources of ozone-forming pollution in the region.

The plan approved Wednesday calls for the plants to cut emissions by 40 percent.

But local leaders wanted the state to include a mandate for the cement plants to at least test cutting-edge pollution-control technology that would chemically change emissions into harmless water vapor.

The technology has the potential to slash ozone-forming emissions from the three plants by as much as 90 percent.

The state clean-air plan, however, calls for much lower emissions reductions, allowing the industry to install less expensive -- and less effective -- pollution controls.

"We think this community is still in danger from emissions from the cement kilns in Midlothian," Tarrant County Commissioner Roy Brooks said. "Without more stringent standards, the state has not done anything to help us at all."

State backing

Instead, the state commission Wednesday amended the clean-air plan to allow cement plants to emit slightly more ozone-forming pollutants than originally proposed after cement industry leaders told the commission's three-member board during its meeting in Austin that the plan was too tough.

"We cannot achieve these low numbers," said Michel Moser, the manager at Holcim's Midlothian cement plant.

Jim Schermbeck with Downwinders at Risk, a vocal cement plant critic, said he wasn't surprised.

Read more