District Judge Reverses TCEQ’s Final Order Granting Dos Republicas Coal Partnerhship Renewal of Water Discharge Permit into Elm Creek and Rio Grande River, Remands Case Back to TCEQ

By: Miguel Munoz, Eagle Pass Business Journal, Inc., Copyright 2017

Travis County, Texas 250th Judicial District Judge Tim Sulak issued a Final Judgment on Monday, October 23, 2017, in the appeal of Maverick County, City of Eagle Pass, Maverick County Environmental and Public Health Association, Ernesto Ibarra, Walter Herring, Gabriel De La Cerda, Mike Hernandez, Boulware and Anson Family, LTD., and Environmental Defense Fund reversing the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) July 13, 2016 Final Order granting Dos Republicas Coal Parntership’s TPDES Permit No. WQ0003511000 for industrial coal mining wastewater discharges from DRCP’s Eagle Pass Mine in Eagle Pass, Texas into the Elm Creek and the Rio Grande River.

Judge Sulak’s Final Judgment signed on October 23rd is a legal victory for the citizens of Maverick County, Eagle Pass, and concerned local farmers, ranchers, and Native American representatives regarding their over 25 year battle against the open surface coal mine in Maverick County, Texas from operating and polluting the community’s sole potable water supply from the Rio Grande River as a result of DRCP’s coal mining and industrial wastewater discharges into Elm Creek and other creeks within the coal mine permit area that directly discharge into the Rio Grande River at approximately one to two miles from the coal mine site.  

The cities of Eagle Pass, Texas and Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico municipal water treatment plants are on the banks of the Rio Grande River approximately one mile downstream from where the Elm Creek discharges into the Rio Grande.  Both cities sole source of potable water is the Rio Grande River.  Over 310,000 residents from both cities rely on the Rio Grande River as their sole source of potable water.

Judge Sulak expressly stated in his October 23rd Final Judgment that “the Court hereby REVERSES the TCEQ’s Final Order, because the agency’s determination regarding the proper entity to be identified as the operator of the Eagle Pass Mine was made in violation of statutory and regulatory provisions, was not reasonably supported by substantial evidence considering the reliable and probative evidence in the record as a whole, and was arbitrary and capricious.”

Judge Sulak affirmed the other issues appealed on the TCEQ July 13, 2016 Final Order, but did order that the matter or case be REMANDED to TCEQ for further proceedings consistent with the Court’s ruling.

As a result of Judge Sulak’s October 23rd Final Judgment, Dos Republicas Coal Partnership’s application with TCEQ to renew, extend, and amend its TPDES Water Permit No. WQ0003511000 to discharge coal mining and industrial wastewater into Elm Creek and the Rio Grande River will have to return to TCEQ for further hearings to determine if it should be granted or not.  The new TCEQ hearings will allow all parties to present evidence to support their positions.  

Dos Republicas Coal Partnership may appeal Judge Sulak’s October 23rd Final Judgment to the Third Court of Appeals or the Texas Supreme Court.  DRCP is a Texas Limited Partnership whose two partner corporations are owned by a Mexican corporation known as Minera Del Norte (MINOSA), a subsidiary of Mexico’s steel and mining company known as Grupo Acerero Del Norte owned by the Alonso Ancira Family and other investors.

Dos Republicas Coal Partnership mines bituminous coal at its Eagle Pass Mine in Eagle Pass, Texas and ships the coal via railroad to Mexico to be burned at the Mexican government owned Carbon I and Carbon II coal-generated electricity power plants in Rio Escondido, Coahuila, Mexico within the County of Nava, Coahuila, Mexico.  

The EPA has previously reported the Mexican Carbon I and Carbon II electricity power plants, located within seven to ten miles from the United States-Mexico border, as major contributors of air pollution in the Big Bend National Park in West Texas, the State of Texas, and Southwestern and Central  United States.