DICKINSON — Although a divided city council won’t appeal the permit of a wastewater treatment plant, appalled residents are clamoring for another hearing.
The Dickinson City Council voted Tuesday against spending $2,000 to $3,000 in attorney’s fees on appealing the April 8 ruling by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
The ruling grants developer of record Marlin Atlantis White a permit to build a sewage treatment plant that could in its final residential development phase serve 1,300 houses and dump up to 500,000 gallons of treated effluent daily into Gum Bayou.
Gum Bayou drains into Dickinson Bayou, which the state said is impaired in terms of both oxygen and bacteria content.
Commissioners approved the permit despite testimony in a September contested case hearing in Galveston that revealed an engineer used only photographs and modeling to measure the width and depth of Gum Bayou. The bayou’s precise height and width, however, are important factors in considering whether the bayou can support the plant, opponents argued.
Citing budgetary constraints, the state also ignored its own draft study, which revealed the majority of stations monitoring E. coli and enterococci show elevated levels of the bacteria nearly 90 percent of the time. E. coli and enterococci are indicators of the presence of fecal matter in water.
Dickinson City Councilman Kerry Neves, who opposed the plant, was among the 4-2 majority voting against appealing the permit.
“The chances of getting the commission to reconsider what it just decided is very small,” Neves said. “We decided we’d put up a good fight, and the residents of Tropical Gardens did a good job of getting the information together, but we didn’t prevail and decided it was time to end the fight.”
Council members Mary Dunbaugh and Louis Decker voted to appeal the case, which began in 2006.
“One main reason is they never came down to my knowledge and (measured) the depth and width of Gum Bayou,” Decker said. “I don’t think the bayou can handle it. With 500,000 gallons in a 24-hour period, that’s quite a bit going into the bayou.”
In asking the commission to rehear the case, Dickinson resident Mary Stringer and others said the plant would use chlorine gas and at times have no one monitoring the facility. The gas can be lethal if released, and there are other, less hazardous options, she said.
An attempt to reach a commission spokeswoman Friday on the status of the permit was unsuccessful.
Neves said he opposed the plant because of the concerns of residents who live along Dickinson Bayou.
“I think the bayou is distressed enough as it is,” Neves said. “They swear it (discharge) will be pure and clean, but there’s always the potential for malfunction.”
