ustxtxb_obs_1978_08_11_50_00022-00000_000.pdf

22 ,’978 Printers Stationers Mailers Typesetters High Speed Web Offset Publication Press Counseling Designing Copy Writing Editing Trade Computer Sales and Services Complete Computer Data Processing Services 1 IP 44 I A s .111 f111114 FUTURA 512/442-7836 1714 South Congress P.O. Box 3485 Austin, Texas 78764 PRIME RIP STEAK LOUTER CRAP aeon’s hail b, rj 4. cGT ,y Austin, Corpus Christi, Victoria, Brownsville, Temple, McAllen, Port Aransas, Tucson, \(Ti> DINERS I CLUB College Station, San Antonio, Harlingen Stripping. . . from page 11 respiratory problems, and corrosion of buildings; in high concentrations they can be fatal. Nitrogen oxides contribute to photochemical smog and haze; according to at least one authority, they may also cause cancer. Particulates like soot and fly ash affect visibility, the human respiratory system, and the climate. The 1977 amendments to the Clean Air Act require the use of the “best available control technology”which should mean using scrubbers to control sulfur oxides and electrostatic precipitators to control particulates. Installation of both has been fought by the industry. At present, only one of TU’s power plants has a scrubber. All three have equipment to control particulates, but even so, they exceed emission standards 75 to 80 percent of the time they’re in operation. If the Texas Air Control Board were to determine that the equipment is inadequate, TU would be subject to fines of $1,000 a day, but so far, the board has gone along with the company’s contention that the equipment just isn’t working right. Despite all the hazards associated with lignite development, the mining industry has waged a bitter fight against all regulation. To hear its representatives tell it, their companies will go broke if they are forced to abide by overly strict rules and standards. They lobbied for years to prevent enactment of the reclamation laws, and now they are fighting enforcement. \(Aside from the help Texas mining interests got from John Hill and the Railroad Commission in watering down the federal law, the American Mining Congress, the National Coal Association, and 14 individual companies have also But the agency responsible for enforcement in Texas doesn’t appear to be much of a threat. In the words of a spokesman for Shell Oil, a company with a strip-mine permit pending, the Railroad Commission has been “abundantly fair” to lignite developers. RRC chairman Mack Wallace sees the mining of lignite as a “challenge,” and he has no doubt that it is necessaryTexas must continue to be Number One in energy production. So the commission’s goal is “regulation which enhances development”; its duty, “to see that the mining is orderly, with the least possible damage to Texas land, forest and streams.” The commission, of course, will decide what is the “least possible damage” and, in view of its history as protector of the oil and gas industry, it’s not terribly difficult to figure out whose interests are going to be served. 0 Betty Anne Duke has done extensive research on strip mining of Texas coal and uranium for the House Study Group.