City, County, and Community’s Appeal of Dos Republicas Coal Partnership Railroad Commission of Texas Permit set February 25th
By: Jose G. Landa, Copyright 2014, Eagle Pass Business Journal, Inc.
The future of Eagle Pass and Maverick County, Texas, as well as the United States-Mexico border communities downstream from Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, are at stake in the City of Eagle Pass, Maverick County, Maverick County Hospital District, Maverick County Environmental and Public Health Association, and George Baxter’s appeal of the Railroad Commission of Texas’ controversial split vote 2-1 January 29, 2013 permit to Dos Republicas Coal Partnership, a Texas Partnership comprised of two Texas corporations owned by a Mexican subsidiary of Grupo Acerero del Norte, S.A. de C.V. and Altos Hornos de Mexico, S.A. de C.V., to construct, operate, and manage an open surface coal mine only three miles north of the City of Eagle Pass city limits on the banks of Elm Creek, a direct water tributary of the Rio Grande River, will be heard on Tuesday, February 25, 2014, in the 126th Judicial District Court of Travis County in Austin, Texas, at 9 A.M. before the Honorable Darlene Byrne.
The City of Eagle Pass and Maverick County citizens have opposed the permitting and opening of an open surface coal mine only three miles north of the Eagle Pass city limits and within densely populated northern Maverick County farming, ranch, and residential areas near Farm to Market Road 1588 (Thompson Road) for over 24 years.
An overwhelming majority of Maverick Countians have vehemently opposed the opening of the Eagle Pass Mine by Dos Republicas Coal Partnership and its predecessors on several grounds, including, but not limited to, that the discharge of coal mining waste and stormwaters into Elm Creek and the Rio Grande River upstream only a mile or two from the City of Eagle Pass municipal water treatment plant will contaminate and pollute the community’s 60,000 residents only source of potable water, the Rio Grande River, as well as the City of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico municipal water treatment plant with over 250,000 users and every community downstream on the Texas-Mexico border, estimated at over three million residents; pollute the air within the community with coal dust, silica, dirt, and other chemicals which will increase cardio pulmonary diseases, particularly among children and elderly persons; increase public health diseases such as various forms of cancer, cardio pulmonary, and others; destroy the habitat of federal endangered cats such as the Ocelot and Jaguarundi; destroy Native American archaeological and burial grounds; pollute the air by transporting daily over 150 railroad cars loaded with coal through the middle of Eagle Pass and the community into Mexico; and others.
Dos Republicas Coal Partnership denies these allegations and promises to abide by all local, state, and federal regulations and laws concerning coal mining.
Dos Republicas Coal Partnership plans to export the coal mined in Eagle Pass to Mexico via railroad to Nava, Coahuila, Mexico to either one of its Mexican sister companies or a private Mexican company who in turn will sell the Texas coal to the Mexican-government owned Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE-Federal Commission of Electricity) to burn in the two largest coal-generated electricity power plants in Latin America known as Termoelectrica Lopez Portillo (Carbon I) and Carbon II, located only a few miles from the U.S.-Mexico border in Rio Escondido, Coahuila, within the Ayuntamiento (County) of Nava, Coahuila, Mexico. These two coal-fired power plants are owned by the Mexican government’s Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE).
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the two Mexican-government owned coal electricity plants are among the largest polluters of carbon dioxide, mercury, arsenic, and other carcinogenic causing chemicals to the United States, including the Big Bend National Park, Texas, and Southwest and Midwest United States. These two coal electricity plants have been operating for over 30 years without any scrubbers in their giant smokestacks and would not meet current EPA clean air and emission standards if they were in the United States.
According to Dos Republicas Coal Partnership’s website, Dos Republicas is owned by Minera del Norte (MINOSA), a Mexican subsidiary of Grupo GAN of Mexico. Mexican press reports indicate that MINOSA and Grupo GAN are owners and operators of an existing open surface coal mine in northern Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico known as Tajo Norte and Tajo Zacatoza on the banks of the Rio Grande River directly across from northern Eagle Pass and Seco Mines and that this open pit coal mine has been operational since at least March of 2011, approximately a mile or less upstream of both Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras’ municipal water treatment plants on the Rio Grande. Members of the Maverick County Development Corporation received a private tour of this Mexican open pit coal mine on November 14, 2011.
If Dos Republicas Coal Partnership opens the Eagle Pass Mine, its Mexican parent company will have two sister open surface coal mines with one in Piedras Negras on the banks of the Rio Grande River and another in Eagle Pass on the banks of Elm Creek, a tributary discharging into the Rio Grande.
Currently, the Eagle Pass Mine is permitted for approximately 6,700 acres by the Texas Railroad Commission, but at a December 3, 2013 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Public Hearing held in Uvalde, Texas plans were publicly unveiled to expand the Eagle Pass Mine up to 25,000 acres in the future, approximately four times its current permit size. The City of Eagle Pass currently has 7.4 square miles. At 6,700 acres, the Eagle Pass Mine would be approximately 10.5 square miles or 1.42 times larger than the city limits of Eagle Pass. If expanded to 25,000 acres, the Eagle Pass Mine would be approximately 39.1 square miles or 5.3 times larger than the city limits of Eagle Pass.
Recent events in Charleston, West Virginia concerning the spill of coal chemicals in the Elks River caused over 300,000 residents to be without potable water for over a month and the spill of coal ash into the Dan River in North Carolina caused the contamination of potable water supplies to residents have raised concerns among Maverick Countians and downstream water users such as Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley regarding the Eagle Pass Mine.
State District Judge Darlene Byrne advised the parties earlier that she expects to make a ruling in Mid-March 2014.
Meanwhile, the future of Eagle Pass, Maverick Countians, and Bi-national water users of the Rio Grande River downstream of Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, estimated over three million persons, anxiously await the outcome of the appeal of the Texas Railroad Commission’s permit to Dos Republicas Coal Partnership to construct and operate an open surface coal mine in Eagle Pass, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico border.
