Dos Republicas Coal Partnership Coal Mine Expanded Water Discharge Permit Application to be heard November 16th
By: Jose G. Landa, Eagle Pass Business Journal, Inc., Copyright 2015
The controversial Dos Republicas Coal Partnership (DRCP) amended application for a Texas Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit No. WQ0003511000 to discharge its Eagle Pass Coal Mine waste and stormwaters into Elm Creek and Rio Grande River will be heard commencing Monday, November 16, 2015, at 9 A.M. before Administrative Judge Rebecca Smith of the State Office of Administrative Hearings at the William Clements State Office Building, located at 300 West 15th Street, Austin, Texas. The contested administrative hearing is expected to last one week and is open to the public.
Dos Republicas Coal Partnership seeks to renew, amend, and expand its previously granted water discharge permit from its original 2,700 acres to its newly expanded open surface Eagle Pass Coal Mine covering over 6,300 acres on the banks of Elm Creek, a water tributary which directly discharges its water into the Rio Grande about one mile from both the City of Eagle Pass Regional Water Treatment Plant and the City of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico Municipal Water Treatment Plant.
Both Eagle Pass, Texas and Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico rely upon the Rio Grande for its sole source of potable water supply for a combined population of over 250,000 on both sides of the United States- Mexico border. This figure does not include over six million residents of the U.S.-Mexico border downstream of Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, including Laredo-Nuevo Laredo and the rich fertile Rio Grande Valley.
Contesting the controversial coal miming waste water discharge permit are the City of Eagle Pass, Texas, Maverick County, Texas, Maverick County Environmental and Public Health Association, Environmental Defense Fund, George Baxter, and other Maverick County farmers, ranchers, and citizens.
The other parties to the contested hearing are Dos Republicas Coal Partnership and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
Also contesting the water discharge permit is the Paquache Clan of the Texas Coahuiltecan Tribe under the leadership of Tribal Chairwoman Maria Torres, but they have not been granted party status yet by Judge Smith.
Dos Republicas Coal Partnership is a Texas Limited Partnership comprised of two Texas Limited Corporations whom are subsidiaries of a Mexican Corporation named Minera del Norte, S.A., which in turn is a subsidiary of Mexican coal and energy conglomerate GRUPO Acerero del Norte, S.A..
Dos Republicas Coal Partnership plans to sell the Texas Rio Grande coal to a sister Mexican subsidiary company who has the coal supply contract to the Mexican Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) for burning in the Mexican-government owned twin coal electricity power plants known as Carbon 1 (Lopez Portillo) and Carbon 2, located in Rio Escondido, Coahuila, Mexico, less than 10 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border at Eagle Pass, Texas and Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico. Both Carbon 1 and 2 electricity power plants are the two largest coal power plants in Latin America and reportedly large contributors of air pollution in Texas, including the Big Bend National Park, and United States because they do not have scrubbers and burn the cheapest quality coal in the market.
Interestingly, Dos Republicas Coal Partnership’s Mexican parent company also operates another open surface coal mine in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, opposite Eagle Pass, Texas, since 2011 on the banks of the Rio Grande River, closer to the two municipal water treatment plants of Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras than its Eagle Pass Coal Mine.
An Eagle Pass public official stated that the Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras border, as well as all downstream U.S.-Mexico border communities, face an environmental catastrophe.
