Proposed recycling plan helps but it doesn’t go nearly far enough

Council member Dex Ellison tag-teamed with Chief of Staff Jerry Hendrix at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting to unveil a proposed plan to extend the city’s recycling collection services from strictly single-family residential to apartment complexes. It’s a small step in the right direction but, sadly, it appears to be the only step the City is willing to take right now to protect the environment. 

“Our purpose here is to allow Kyle residents living in apartments to have the same opportunity to recycle as residents in single family homes,” Ellison told the council.

Hendrix noted that the number of individuals in Kyle living in apartments has doubled during the last five years. “Currently we have over 3,000 apartment units in the city,” with an estimated 7,000 individuals in Kyle who are apartment dwellers, he said. He added another 600 apartment units will open by the end of the year with another 822 units planned for 2022.

“Currently, only half the apartment units in Kyle offer recycling,” Hendrix said.

Ellison and Hendrix engaged all 14 of the current multi-family property managers by telephone, in-person visits and, in many instances, both “to get a feeling where their recycling services were at,” the council member said — “their desire to either, if they didn’t have (recycling), bring that to their complex; or, if they did, how they felt about the service being provided and perhaps if capacity could be increased.”

Hendrix said it’s possible recycling services can be provided to apartment dwellers at no additional cost. “If we’re going to divert recycling into the garbage stream, the rate in the TDS (the City’s sanitation services provider) contract for a recycling dumpster is the same as the rate for a garbage dumpster. So, if we’re able to divert one dumpster of garbage into a dumpster of recycling, the net cost to the apartment complex should be zero.”

The City sponsored an on-line survey of apartment dwellers which attracted only 250 respondents, meaning the results are not statistically valid. Of those respondents, 200 said they lived in a complex that does not offer recycling services.

The next step, Ellison told the council, is a pilot recycling program in four apartment complexes, two of which already offer recycling of some sort and two that don’t.

“For those who do not have it, figuring out the spacing of where to put the containers, getting that program started, various different things like that,” Ellison said. “For those that do have recycling, we’ll be heavier on the education to make sure they are recycling properly, as well as making sure they have the right amount of capacity.”

Ellison said TDS is working with the City’s staff to develop the pilot program and Hendrix described TDS “as engaged and committed to making this work.”

“No specific timetable is set at this time” for the kickoff of the pilot program, Hendrix said today. “The specifics of the pilot program are still being worked out. The goal will be to develop service delivery models for providing recycling service in the apartment communities. This may require a mix of dumpsters and carts, or just one of the two. Valet services are also part of the discussion.”

He said the four apartment complexes that will participate in the pilot program have not been selected.

Hendrix also said today a number of objectives for the pilot program are currently under discussion.

“For properties that currently offer recycling: Education opportunities and delivery methods to increase diversion and decrease contamination; ‘rightsizing’ the garbage and recycling receptacles for each property; reviewing collection area placements to see if there may be a better place for them; and controlling litter from the collection areas.

“For properties that do not currently offer recycling: How to introduce the service to residents in a manner that will maximize their ‘buy-in’ and participation; optimum placement of dumpsters/carts; education messages and opportunities; and tracking diversion rates and impact on garbage waste stream.”

At the conclusion of the pilot program, Ellison said he hopes to bring before council a multi-family recycling ordinance that would require multi-family property managers to offer recycling services to their tenants.

“Through the ordinance we will be able to create some economies of scale, a standardized process across the board and a level playing field for all apartment complexes and the people who live there — making sure they’re all getting the same service,” Hendrix said.

Recycling is important not only for environmental reasons, but financial ones as well (and it has nothing to do with income derived by selling recyclables and everything to do with the negative impacts on municipal budgets and, as a direct result, the amount of increased taxes residents pay if recycling is not instituted).

Admittedly, this is a gross over-simplification, but a landfill is basically a huge hole in the ground into which trash is dumped. And, as soon as that hole fills to capacity, the landfill operator seals it up and looks for another place to locate another huge hole in the ground. The problem for municipalities and their tax-payers is finding that next location. Plus, digging another huge hole in the ground is an expensive operation. Not only are land costs a factor, but so is location. A new site for a landfill is almost always going to be at a distance that is significantly greater from the city that uses it than the current one. Thus, daily transportation costs are going to increase dramatically along with vehicle maintenance expenses. So it behooves a community to take whatever steps possible to prevent a landfill from reaching capacity.

And that’s especially true of the landfill at Creedmoor, owned and operated by TDS. For most landfills, after the huge hole is dug in the ground, an expensive liner — a sort of impenetrable bowl — but be placed inside  that hole to prevent the waste from seeping into adjacent soils (often farmlands) and contaminating them. Eventually this contamination migrates to and poisons rivers and streams. The Creedmoor landfill is unique because the land in which it is located is encased with a natural rock formation that prevents any and all seepage into adjacent properties. Finding and securing another location with an identical geological profile is going to be … well, actually, it’s going to be impossible.

One way to keep landfills from reaching capacity is through natural decomposition. A banana peel will decompose completely within two to 10 days. However, a disposable diaper will take between 250 and 500 years to decompose in a landfill. That plastic water bottle you love to drink from will take up to a 1,000 years to decompose in a landfill. Those plastic bags we use to take home our groceries will take between a decade and a 1,000 years to decompose. According to statistics from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, every three months in the United States, enough aluminum cans and packaging are deposited in landfills to completely rebuild the entire American commercial air fleet and those aluminum cans can take between 80 and 100 years to decompose.

Another way to keep landfills from reaching capacity is by accelerating the decomposition process by employing biotechnology techniques; i.e., basically constantly recirculating leachtate along with surface/storm water, through a series of underground pipes. This technology can add between 50 to 100 years onto the life of a typical landfill.

The problem with this, however, is landfill decomposition produces methane gas and unless the landfill has a system to send this methane to a gas processing plant that will convert it into a commercial energy source, the methane escapes into the air. This escaped methane absorbs the sun’s heat and thus accelerates global warming. For this reason, methane is labeled a greenhouse gas.

European landfill operators, particularly those in Germany, have developed technologies that convert landfills into recycling operations in which all trash collected — everything that someone throws away — is converted into energy that powers homes and businesses. Instead of holes in the ground with birds constantly circling above them, these European landfills look from the outside like a typical office building at best, a scaled-down electrical power plant at worst. This waste-to-energy technology is available in the United States, but it has been blocked by a coalition of mega-landfill operators, organized crime cartels that still control a lot of landfill operations, especially in the Northeast, and federal judges who do what the first two instruct them to do. These operators are interested only in making money from their landfill operations, not investing money in them. The European-styled recycling landfills require a lot of garbage to make them economically viable, and the courts have repeatedly blocked flow control measures which would force trash to these recycling landfills and away from those operated by the large private operators.

Which means the only viable alternative is diversion — finding other ways to dispose of trash other than sending it to landfills. And recycling is the most popular of these diversion methods. Others include thermal and biological treatments, reuse and return and implementing waste reduction methods.

Which returns me to my original thesis that Kyle’s plan to try to implement recycling in multi-family units is a nice step, but in the overall scheme of things is a rather insignificant one if the goal is environmental protection. The city needs to broaden its scope. It needs to broaden its thinking and planning. But then, I’ve been making this complaint about the City of Kyle ever since I came here seven years ago. Kyle thinks small. If it plans at all, it plans five-years out. Geez, My Hero, who once operated the largest landfill in the state of Texas and the sixth largest in the country, who was the former president of the Texas branch of the Solid Waste Association of North America, spearheaded the development of a 50-year master plan – planning 5-0 YEARS in the future – for sanitation services for one of the largest cities in Texas. And that was 15 years ago!!! The City of San Francisco now diverts 80 percent of all waste generated in that city away from landfill disposal through source reduction, reuse, and recycling and composting programs. How did San Francisco accomplish that? The same way other cities have. They set a timetable for achieving zero waste, like My Hero developed in her 50-year master plan, and then outlined a step-by-step, long-range plan for reaching that goal.

Here in Kyle? 

“A ‘zero waste’ plan is not currently being discussed,” Hendrix confessed today.

So the obvious question is “Why not?” Why hasn’t the City appointed a blue-ribbon committee composed of environmental scientists, educators and practioners to develop a long-range plan aimed at achieving zero waste? Of course, you could argue that Kyle is only one of the 180 cities in 45 counties served by the Creedmoor landfill, but that misses the larger point of leadership and innovation.

Another question I believe demands an answer from city officials — either elected or staff — is why, when manufacturers such as General Motors have formally announced the date when they will cease manufacturing autos that run on fossil fuels, has the City of Kyle failed to initiate a plan to transition its fleet to environmentally friendly vehicles? And, of course, why does the City continue to ask taxpayers to waste money on buildings that are not LEEDS certified?

In short, why does the City of Kyle consistently brag about the baby steps it takes, while at the same time it utterly fails at the task of long-range planning for a sustainable future for its citizens?

City decides it’s not worth it to fight climate change, adopts anti-environment policy

Full disclosure No. 1: I’m an avid environmentalist. I firmly believe in the science that proves climate change is the single most existential threat to our planet, our very existence. I actively as well as financially support such organizations as the Sierra Club, the National Audubon Society, the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, the National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Green America, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the Rainforest Action Network, the Environmental Defense Fund and, of course, the National Geographic Society. In short, I’m a “tree-hugger” and proud of it.

Some of the most precious moments of my life have been spent in our country’s national parks, celebrating their wonder, their very existence. And I have had the opportunity to spend time in every single one of them at least once. My two very special places of refuge are the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley (admittedly not a national park, but a national treasure just the same).

That’s why I am ashamed to learn that the city I now call home doesn’t agree with me. It appears city policy is now “Becoming a ‘Green City’ is not worth the investment,” even though facts demonstrate going green can save taxpayers money, can drastically reduce overall city expenditures.

If you haven’t already heard about it, let me introduce you to a program called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, a product of the U.S. Green Building Council. USGBC’s vision is “that buildings and communities will regenerate and sustain the health and vitality of all life within a generation. Our mission is to transform the way buildings and communities are designed, built and operated, enabling an environmentally and socially responsible, healthy, and prosperous environment that improves the quality of life.”

Unfortunately, in my opinion, it is readily apparent that the city of Kyle has adopted a policy doesn’t want a “environmentally and socially responsible, healthy, and prosperous environment that improves the quality of life” for its citizens. Why? It appears they don’t think it’s worth the investment.

This near-sighted vision is not new to me. I hear many people say words like “The planet is not going to turn into an uninhabitable cinder block in my lifetime, so why should I care.” That, to me, is the same argument as “That kid ain’t going to support me in my old age so why should I invest my hard earned money in the brat’s college education.” My response? “YOU are not the subject of this conversation. The subject of this conversation is the future of that child that you helped to bring into this world.”

But, then, that’s a constantly repeating thought process I see in everyone involved in city planning, whether they be elected or staff. When they talk about the future, they look no further than, say, five years into the future; some, perhaps, 10. But no one, absolutely no one, looks beyond two generations into the future. And that’s why Kyle has adapted an environmentally unfriendly policy towards new construction or really anything involving the environment.

If it wasn’t so depressing, listening to city council members, past and present, talk about recycling would almost be laughable in its stupidity. They talk about it as if it were a commodity — about the possible ROI in selling recycled materials and the markets for these goods. Recycling is not about dollars, but about achieving the much desired goal of zero waste. But Kyle doesn’t care about achieving that goal. That’s why, for example, even with all the apartment complexes sprouting up all over the city, there is no recycling programs for Kyle residents living in multi-family complexes. Or, for Kyle businesses, for that matter.

The result is that all those recyclables are now going, with the rest of the trash, to the landfill. And, as the name implies, landfills eventually reach their capacity– they fill up. And, when that happens, a new landfill must be created somewhere else. And this “somewhere else” has to be many, many miles from any honest, G-d fearing, tax-paying U.S. citizen because, really, would you want a landfill anywhere near your home? And that means getting that trash from your home to that landfill involves traveling many, many more miles than before which means spending a lot more dollars on those transportation costs and that means … by now, you see where this is going … much higher utility bills. Not investing today costs taxpayers tomorrow.

This lack of a multi-family and a commercial recycling program proves what I said earlier: Kyle is only committed to keeping up appearances, but not to long-term environmental sustainability. The only alternative is even more horrible to contemplate: That there are, in fact, those in the city that think ahead in the long-term but are systematically ignored into silence or until they take their talents/abilities to the Sierra Club or the National Geographic Society.

Doing everything in its power to preserve and protect our environment, is what drives the USGBC and its LEED certification program, which has created a plan for constructing buildings that use less energy and water than non-certified buildings, avoid waste, save on maintenance costs, improve indoor air quality, offer added comfort to its occupants and create “less environmental burden on their community.” In short, over its life, a LEED certified municipal building will save taxpayers money.

But the City of Kyle doesn’t want to build them? Why? Because the construction cost of such a building is somewhat higher, even though the USGBC has proved over and over again those additional costs are quickly recouped through considerably reduced Operation and Maintenance costs (O&M costs, in the municipal jargon). And it’s those O&M costs that must be paid each year with moneys from the city’s General Fund, that fund that’s replenished annually with your property tax dollars.

Full disclosure No. 2: I voted against the city’s Proposition A, although not for the property tax reasons that were the motivations for just about everyone else’s “no” vote on this item. I voted “no” because I could not get the answer to one simple question: “Is the proposed public safety building going to be LEED certified?” I tried to get an answer. Several times. I’ll specifically mention two of them.

The city hired this PR firm, the Buie Co., to promote the passage of Proposition A. Now, the city will dispute that statement. They will say the firm was hired for “education activities.” But, you see, they have to say that because it’s illegal to use municipal taxpayer funds to promote the passage of a municipal bond program. It’s also illegal for elected municipal officials to use their position to promote the passage of a municipal bond program. But the Buie Co., under the guise of “educational activities,” somehow engaged Kyle City Council members to commit those illegal acts as well. Look, let’s be realistic here. No one hires a PR company for “education activities.” You hire educators for that. You hire PR companies to create opportunities with which to sell a product of some sort, predominantly through the use of free media. In fact, on its web page, Buie brags that “We have seen our proactive approach to community engagement facilitate communications, build common ground and bring together diverse stakeholders to mobilize support. Public relations is all about results. And, we get results.” In this case, Buie mobilized support to pass Proposition A and they got the results they were hired to get.

One of the first thing Buie concocted was this special web page where visitors could go and pose a question about the proposed police headquarters. So, of course, I went on there right away and posed my question: “Is the proposed public safety building going to be LEED certified?” Within 24 hours, I received a non-answer which was a form letter emailed to me which said, in effect, “We have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, but, hopefully, maybe, someday, we’ll come up with an answer to your question.” They never did. Never heard another word. But, like I said, they weren’t really there to provide answers, to actually “educate.”

One of Buie’s next stunts involved a series of virtual town hall meetings in which they described all the reasons why voters should approve Proposition A and then enlisted a city council member to go even further in promoting the bond proposal’s passage. In the virtual town hall meeting I attended, the unlucky city council member somehow convinced to commit these blatantly illegal acts was Alex Villalobos. Now, this is not meant to be a criticism of Villalobos. I’m convinced he’s probably what in some legal terms is known as “an unwitting accomplice” to the actual criminal activity. Anyway, at the end of his sales pitch, virtual attendees were offered the opportunity to pose questions. So, once again, I posed mine: “Is the proposed public safety building going to be LEED certified?” Seeing Villalobos hem and haw around trying to answer the question when it was obvious he had no idea what the question referred to, or, if he did, he didn’t want to get caught in the middle of an environmental thunderstorm, almost made be feel a little sorry for the guy. But, needless to say, I never got an answer.

And that, in short, is why I voted against Proposition A. I simply can’t support anything that (1) is going to be anti-environment, that (2) is going to facilitate climate change and (3) is, in the long run, going to result in a needless waste of taxpayers’ money. Dallas recently built a new police headquarters. Here is the first paragraph on that city’s web page devoted to that building: “The city of Dallas, Texas is committed to improving the quality of life for its citizens by providing healthier environments through its Green Building initiative. This commitment is exemplified by the Jack Evans Police Headquarters, which achieved a Silver certification under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) program for new construction. The city adopted Silver LEED certification as a standard for all its new facilities in January 2003.”

You see, it is possible. Other cities care enough about their future and the health and well being of its employees and its citizens to take these steps. It’s a shame that Kyle has decided it does not want to be one of them.

I must also admit that I felt a sense of personal betrayal. In one of my earliest interviews with City Manager Scott Sellers he pledged that as long as he held that position the city would never, ever, construct a building that did not seek LEED certification. Now, here we are. Of course, there’s still time. The city can still decide it will try to build an environmentally friendly new police headquarters. And help with that may be on the horizon. During an extended telephone conversation I had with her the day after this past Tuesday’s election, new council member Yvonne Flores-Cale was quite passionate, quite convincing in her pro-environmental beliefs and activities. But then she will only be one of seven votes on the council. 

And then there’s this, perhaps the final turn of the key destined to keep Kyle in environmental purgatory until it’s too late to protect future generations: During Wednesday’s city council meeting, the council voted unanimously to “award a professional services contract to Coleman and Associates for the landscape design of Mary Kyle Hartson Park and 104 S Burleson in an amount not to exceed $93,700.00.” The proposal Coleman and Associates presented the city contained 11 items, the 11th of which was titled “Exclusions.” The sixth listed “exclusion” was “LEED is excluded.”

I asked assistant city manager James Earp about this and he said “LEED, the actual certification, not just the principles, requires a significant amount of additional record keeping, paperwork, processes and the like that dramatically increase cost … If we want LEED certification the bid would have been dramatically understated.”

That, I guess, makes it official. Kyle’s policy is protecting the environment, protecting the long-term health and well-being of city employees along with the rest of the citizens of Kyle, is just too expensive today even if it means saving money as well as possibly saving lives in the future.

You’ll have to pardon me if I respectfully disagree. 

Sewer spill clean-up completed faster than anticipated

Due to what City Manager Scott Sellers called "A quick, coordinated effort among multiple city departments and state agencies," the 117,000 gallons of sewage spilled into the Bunton Branch due to last week’s lift-station malfunction has been removed more quickly than originally anticipated and now the City plans to replace the fish killed by the spill.

A statement issued by the City today said "dissolved oxygen levels in the creek have returned to pre-event status," according to Public Works Director Harper Wilder.

"Work has also been completed on the electrical system at the lift station that was knocked out during last Thursday’s storm," the statement said. "Crews are currently　disassembling the pumps,　pipes and other equipment　used in the cleanup from a nearby landowner’s property."

The lift station failure caused incoming sewage to back up and overflow out of the top of the pump. It then flowed some 200 feet to the Bunton Branch, resulting in a contamination and a subsequent "large fish kill," according to Sellers.

Sellers told an emergency meeting of the City Council Friday "we are estimating it will take us somewhere between 10 and 14 days to halfway drain that creek to TCEQ’s satisfaction. At which point we will introduce more fresh water to ensure we have cleaned it up well." Today’s announcement from the City suggests it finished the job faster than that original estimate.

Mayor Todd Webster called that emergency meeting to appropriate the necessary funds to deal with the environmental crisis. The city approved the City spending up to $50,000 to clean the creek. The City did not disclose any estimates on what the cleanup costs have been.

Today’s statement said the City "is awaiting information from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality regarding a decision on the possibility of being fined for the spill. It is possible there will be a fine from the Texas Parks and Wildlife due to the resulting　fish kill. The city also plans to restock the fish in the creek."

"A quick, coordinated effort among multiple city departments and state agencies resulted in minimizing further issues and getting the creek back to healthy oxygen levels," the city’s statement quoted Sellers as saying.

“You're part of the traffic you’re stuck in”

The subject of zone can be confusing. First, there’s the ozone layer, which is a good thing. The ozone layer is one layer of the earth’s stratosphere, located between six and 30 miles above the Earth’s surface, and it performs a valuable function. It acts as sort of an outer space sponge by absorbing some of the sun’s radiation before it strikes Earth. We need some radiation to survive, but too much of it can be harmful and the ozone layer protects us from getting too much of it, especially that form of radiation known as ultraviolet radiation which can cause everything from sunburns to cancers.

Then there’s ground-level ozone which is not that good of a thing. It is essentially man-made, formed from the photochemical reaction between two major classes of pollutants, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides. The most common sources of volatile organic compounds are chemical plants, gasoline pumps, oil-based paints, auto body shops and print shops. The most common source of nitrogen oxides are power plants, industrial furnaces and boilers, and motor vehicles.

However, even if you live in an area like Kyle, where you wouldn’t think a multitude of these sources are to be found, wind can carry ozone hundreds of miles from their source points. That’s why, in places where ozone is formed, it is usually heaviest during the afternoon when the heat is the most intense. However, areas downwind from the source points can have its highest levels during the late afternoon or early evening hours.

Breathing this ground level ozone can harmfully affect the human respiratory system, decrease lung functionality and inflame human airways resulting in coughing; throat irritation; pain, burning or discomfort in the chest when taking a deep breath; and/or chest tightness, wheezing or shortness of breath. Evidence also suggests highly daily ozone concentrations are associated with increased asthma attacks, hospital admissions and deaths. Some have compared ozone’s effects as having a sunburn inside your lung.

Ozone is most likely to be at its highest levels on hot, sunny days; however high ozone levels have been found in mountainous sections of the western United States when snow was on the ground and the temperature was near or even below freezing.

There are steps people can take to reduce ground level ozone:

• Conserve electricity and set air conditioner thermostats at higher temperatures
• Try car pooling to work or, if you don’t live far from your place of employment, bicycle or walk to work.
• Refuel cars and trucks after dusk.
• Combine trips as much as possible; i.e., grocery shopping or errand running on your way home from work.
• Limit engine idling. (This means the last thing we need in and around Kyle is a Godzilla truck stop where diesel engines are constantly idling.)
• Use household, workshop and garden chemicals in such a way that it limits evaporation and don’t use them at all on days forecast to be high ozone level days.
• And speaking of high ozone level days, don’t, on these days, light up your fireplace or wood-burning stove, don’t use gas-powered lawn and garden equipment, and don’t burn leaves, trash or any other materials.

Right now, these above precautions are not that necessary for Kyle because, as Fred Blood, air quality program specialist for the Central Texas Clean Air Association, told the City Council Tuesday night "Right now in Central Texas we are well in compliance with all the regulations having to do with air quality." But then he cautioned: "We are close to the level of being over in the non-compliant level for ozone."

"Generally, we have good air quality on 70 percent of the days,’ Blood said. "The days we don’t have good air quality it’s usually due to what they call particulate matter. We also have high ozone days."

Blood said the EPA re-examines its air quality standards every five years and the new five-year report is due around October. He said the agency is about to reduce the safe/unsafe ozone level standard, but no one knows for sure what the standard will be until that report is made public.

"Right now they are talking about a range of 65 to 70 parts per billion," he said. "Our level in this region is 69 parts per billion. So if they lower it to 70, we’re OK. If they lower it to 65, we’ll be non-attainment, which is something you don’t want to be."

Blood said the population at risk on high ozone days includes "children under the age of 11, people over the age of 70, people that already have pulmonary problems and people working heavily in the environment (i.e., outdoors)" and that could amount to almost 40 percent of the local population.

"We don’t want to be in non-attainment because it makes it difficult to build new roads," Blood said. "You have to prove the roads will be in compliance and not create more ozone."

He said it could also affect industrial growth. For example, he said, Toyota originally planned to locate a plant in Fort Worth, but because that area had a non-containment designation, the construction regulations were strict enough that it forced Toyota to instead locate the facility in San Antonio.

"Anything that has federal money in it is going to be harder to get because you’re going to have to prove the impacts on whatever that money is on ozone levels," he said.

Blood said the Central Texas Clean Air Coalition was formed to convince communities to take actions to reduce ozone before the feds come in and ordered such actions. He said Kyle, Leander, Lakeway, Lago Vista, Manor are the only cities in Central Texas with a population of at least 5,000 who are not members of the Coalition, and Leaner appears set to join before the end of the month.

"I’m here tonight to see if I can get you to join," he said. However, not only did no one on the council even hint at the possibility of joining the coalition, the notion was met with some hostility from council member Shane Arabie who demanded from Blood "What’s in it for us?" should the city join since, he said, the city could act on its own to reduce ozone levels.

"Just the recognition of being part of the group that does that cleanup," Blood said.

Blood said the goal of the coalition is to make sure Central Texas stays in containment when it comes to ozone levels. "We want to continue to reduce the amount of ozone," he continued. "If we get in violation of the standard, we want to get back into the standard as quickly and as cheaply as we can. In the meantime we want to reduce exposure of vulnerable populations. We want to minimize the cost to the region of non-attainment designation."

He said members of the coalition are asked to take at least three steps to reduce ozone levels "and this could be as simple as direct deposit of pay checks," informing residents of high ozone days "so they can protect themselves," and equipment replacement.

"The single most effective way we have to reduce ozone is what we do with our vehicles," Blood told the council. "And particularly the big diesels you might have for construction or those owned by the contractors that you hire to do the construction. Make sure that they have the newer diesels because they are much cleaner."

In response to a question from Mayor Pro Tem David Wilson, Blood said "One of the requirements if we go into non-containment is probably going to be what they call an emissions reduction program where they require an inspection of every vehicle on the road to pass an emission test that’s part of the safety inspection for the area."

He said Travis and Williamson counties are the only two counties in the country that require such testing even though they are in containment. "That was the commitment those counties were willing to make sure that we had clean air." He said Hays County commissioners voted unanimously to do the same thing but because the city of San Marcos, by one vote, nixed the idea, it was dropped. Wilson wanted to know if the reason San Marcos opposed it was because of the "burden on the poorest of our citizens."

Blood said the emissions test themselves add about $20 to cost of a state inspection and there are programs in place for lower income drivers so that "We can pay for them to fix up their car or replace it." He said that program is funded with $2 of that $20 fee.

Mayor Todd Webster asked Blood how much of the Ozone problem was Kyle actually responsible for. Blood said 70 percent of the ozone comes from someplace else, "so we have 30 percent we can play with. Of that, about half of it comes from on-road vehicles, thanks to the interstate and NAFTA traffic. We like to remind people that when you are struck in traffic you’re part of the traffic you’re stuck in."

In response to a question from council member Damon Fogley on the ozone-level difference among the various counties, Blood said a lot of that was due to "ambient wind direction" and the weather.

"The perfect ozone weather is between 95 and 105 degrees, no wind and what we call the dog days of summer," he said. "Over the last 15 years, all except for about a half dozen cases, our highest ozone days have been between the middle of August and the middle of September. I think part of that is due to the climatology of this area when we hit the hit, stagnant days of summer. I also think a lot of it has to do with the start of school and people trying to figure out how to get around and a bunch of students trying to figure out how they are going to get to and from classes. We have a lot of activity on the roads at that time that you don’t have earlier in the summer."