The Bastrop Advertiser and County News (Bastrop, Tex.), No. 50, Ed. 1 Thursday, August 21, 1980 Page: 2 of 16
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iSBaSSW!
Issues
and Opinions
N
a,
V
Page 2
TEXAS’ OLDEST WEEKLY NEWSPAPER
THE BASTROP ADVERTISER AND COUNTY NEWS
Thursday, August 21,1980
Lignite's aftermath
By DAVIS McAL'LEY
Bastrop County residents
could end up paying for more
growth in Austin, San
Antonio and even Houston.
That's a warning implicit in
a government study dated
April 1979.
The study was sponsored
by the Texas Energy
Advisory Council the U.S.
Department of Energy and
the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. It was
written by the staff of the
Radian Corporation of Aus-
tin, the energy and environ-
mental engineering firm
hired since by the Bureau of
Land Management to study
the environmental impact of
the proposed mining of Camp
Swift lignite.
The Camp Swift EIS is
now being drafted. It is
scheduled for public release
in October, and should take
into account specific condi-
tions in Bastrop County
which were ignored in the
1979 study of the entire
Lignite Belt
According to the 1979
report strip mining lignite
and burning it in mine mouth
electric generators should
produce substantial economic
benefits for urban areas of
Texas. But a disporportionate
share of the costs of that
development may well be
paid by the rural areas where
the mines and power plants
will be, according to the
“Integrated Assessment of
Texas Lignite Development”
The cities of Austin and
San Antonio have joined the
Lower Colorado River Auth-
ority to bid on the deposits of
soft brown coal underlying
Camp Swift In addition, the
three giant utilities already
own or have lease options on
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thousands of acres of lignite
reserves in the county
outside the federally-control-
led Texas Army Guard
Training Facility.
GENERATORS
Preliminary plans call for
construction of lignite fired
generators at Lake Bastrop.
All three utilities can
condemn land anywhere in
Texas for power plant
construction, for reservoirs
and for transmission lines. All
three are tax-exempt
The reasoning of the
Radian experts is simple.
“Since the lignite resource
runs through essentially non-
metropolitan areas of the
state, the energy developed
in the region will be exported
to other areas, namely the
large metropolitan areas on
both sides of the Lignite
Belt" That is, Austin, San
Antonio and Houston. The
Austin City Council last
month agreed to sell up to a
third of its present electric
output to Houston.
“In terms of value added to
the economy, these energy-
consuming areas may derive
substantially more of the
benefits from lignite develop-
ment than the producing
region.”
Rural areas, such as
On Target?
The Radian report on the impact of lignite mining
through a wide belt of Texas may be off target for
Bastrop County.
Local residents and property owners will want to
know more than generalizations as they try to make
up their minds on whether to support widespread
mining here, at Camp Swift and on private land.
Is there evidence, for example, that a large
population would be attracted here due to the mining
and thus strain local schools, sewers and other
facilities? Or would lignite construction and mining
workers live in a wider area and drive to Bastrop as
they did to build the Fayette Power Plant and build
and man the federal prison here?
Local school districts will also be trying to find out if
lignite mining may in fact generate tax revenues, if
not from federal property at Camp Swift, at least from
private land where mineral rights are leased to the
Lower Colorado River Authority. What will the tax
take be?
As to the exporting of local resources to larger
metropolitan areas, that is a fact of life for every rural
county. Beef, timber, cotton, peanuts and, yes,
recreation are exports of rural counties. Why would
energy be different? -Jack Fraser
Bastrop, the study goes on to
say, may “receive compara
tively few of the long-term
benefits, experience a dis-
proportionate number of
costs, and find itself overly
dependent on the economic
fortunes of lignite."
The study is quite explicit
about the kind of costs the
county, school district, and
incorporated towns can
expect.
"The costs of this pattern,
which translates into higher
)t Jtetrop Stobertisier
Published Monday and Thursday at the Bastrop Advertiser office, 908 Water Street,
Bastrop, Texas 78602. Second Class Postage paid at the Bastrop, Texas Post Office
78602. An independent, home-owned newspaper, .ion-sectarian, non-partisan, devoted
to the welfare of the people of Bastrop County. Subscription rates $8.50 per year,
payable in advance.
Jack Fraser - Publisher
Jerry Appel - Business Manager
Davis Me Auley - News Editor
Katherine Reynolds, Kathleen Claps, Jai Dev Kaur Khalsa - Production
Chris Cice - Photography, Production
Bob Standifer, Fay PanneD,
Richard Cochran, Janine Peters - Circulation
BASTROP ADVERTISER [USPS 045-020)
MEMBER TEXAS PRESS ASSOCIATION 1980
[?
38
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ISHI
Editorial
Is Carter a Truman ?
Will history this year
repeat the stunning political
upset of 1948 when Demo-
crat Harry S Truman
defeated the "certain win
ner” Thomas E. Dewey?
President Carter’s staffers
are suggesting it will happen
and Carter is said to be
reading everything he can
about that story book
ending.
Those of you who were
around will recall that
Truman, that mighty man
from Missouri, had to fight
the Dixiecrats on one side
and the ultra-radical Wallac-
ites (Henry, not George)
onthe other inside his own
party. That on top of fighting
the Republicans, led by
Dewey. Dewey may have
looked like the little man on
top of the wedding cake but
he was well financed and had
a ton of issues on his side
since the Democrats had
been in office for 16 years
straight and were tired out.
Truman pulled off the
biggest upset of modern
times in America and made
The Chicago Tribune, poll
sters and most of the smart
money in Texas and else
where look like fools. He did
it by courage, skill, good luck
and by being at the helm
during good times.
But 1980 will be tougher
for Carter than 1948 was for
Truman, in our opinion.
First and foremost Carter
is no Truman. Harry Truman
never in the world would
have allowed a religious
fanatic to hold 52 U.S.
taxes or user fees, includes:
increased demands on public
services and facilities, such as
schools, police and fire
protection, hospitals, etc.; and
the need to finance.....roads,
streets, sewage treatment
systems, waterworks and
utilities,”
The study goes on to say
that “certain essentially non-
economic costs also result.
These include traffic conges-
tion and noise, pressures on
social and political institutions,
loss of wildlife habitat,
aesthetic change, air quality
degradation and social and
environmental impacts.”
Health impacts are discus
sed elsewhere in the study.
The experts add, "Because
neither mining nor power
generation is labor-intensive,
growth immediately related
to it may be very narrowly
based."
Radian estimated that
construction of a typical strip
mine would employ 200
workers for two or three
years. Construction of a
1500MW power plant could
require up to 2,000 workers
for six to eight years.
The permanent work force
for mine and plant operation
would be much smaller.
About 200 employees will
operate a typical 1500MW
lignite-fired power plant,
estimates Radian.
YOUNGER
The construction force will
be younger, on the average,
than the "native” population.
Much of their wages will
likely be spent outside the
immediate area.
But married workers who
move in with their families
will have more school-age
children, on the average, than
old times.
Even with the best will in
the work, it would be hard to
balance costs and benefits
fairly. “It is not only difficult
to calculate net costs precise
ly, but it is also difficult to
devise revenue transfer
mechanisms which can be
both precise and administra
tively efficient” argues the
report
The authors of the report
understand clearly the “wide
spread belief that lignite
development will lead to a
wide variety of secondary
economic growth in the
Lignite Belt.” Much of a very
king chapter explains why
this Ls wishful thinking at
best.
Stripped of jargon, the
significant facts are that
Bastrop County and other
parts of the Lignite Belt have
finite resources of water and
clean air. Massive strip
mining and burning lignite at
the mine mouth will consume
so much of those valuable
resources that there may be
very little left over to support
any other development, says
the Radian assessment.
Letters
military and diplomatic
personnel as hostages inside
our embassy property for
eight days, let alone eight
months. Never.
And he wouldn’t have
entrusted a diplomatic mis
sion to an alcoholic brother.
He would have used career
advisors.
And he wouldn't have
demeaned himself by court
ing either Dixiecrat chiefs or
Henry Wallace once the
nomination was over as
Carter did with Sen. Ted
Kennedy at Madison Square
Garden.
As the campaign wore on
that summer of 1948, we
personally saw huge crowds
gather to see and touch
Truman, in response to his
gallant and telling campaign.
He had the great good luck
to be able to campaign
around the country with a
bumper crop of good local
candidates.
Truman also had a
Republican Congress to
blame for his problems.
Carter can’t use that tactic.
And most important, the
American public may finally
have grown tired of hearing
that federal programs are
needed to solve every last
problem we face. What
about persona] initiative and
responsibility for one's own
problems and future? That
can strike a winning theme
for the Republicans this year
if it’s backed up by concrete
suggestions.
The next 60 days or so will
tell if Ronald Reagan has .
some answers, not' jfcst?
rhetoric, and can prevent a
born again 1948 upset.
Wiley thanked
Dear Editor;
We would like to express our
most grateful thanks to
Wilma Wiley, our Commis
sioner, for removing a
terrible blight from our
neighborhood.
My husband and I became
aware of an unsightly
garbage dump that was
beginning to spill over in open
view near Pershing Street
week
earn
1nor/v 30-MONTH
10.25% certificate.
$100 minimum. *
Matures in 30months.
10.95% 30-MONTH
Effecive 8/21/80ANNUAL YIELD..
Remember, we pay higher rates than
banks, a nd we lock in your higher interest
rate for 2Vfe years, protecting you from
declining interest rates.
* Federal regulations require substantial
penalty for early mthdraual
Together.
we’re growing stronger.
RilK Maynard-Ayi-m
Member FSUC
the entrance road into our
subdivision. Upon further
investigation, we discovered
yards and yards of garbage,
approximately three feet
high in places, extending
back from the road and
behind the trees.
We were shocked to
discover that people had
been using this area to dump
their entire garbage. The
variety of the matrial was
unbelievable - huge fallen
trees, concrete blocks, moun-
tains of tin cans, bottles,
paper, and bags of wet
garbage from kitchens and
bathrooms.
Mrs. Wiley brought her
men and equipment out and
they cleared this mountain
ous heap of rubble away.
We in the area who care
and strive to keep our homes
and yards clean and attrac-
tive want the public to know
how much we appreciate
Mrs. Wiley's cooperation and
effort in this matter.
It is disgraceful that
equipment and manhours
had to be used for garbage
cleanup, due solely to sloven
behavior on the part of
others, when they are so
badly needed elsewhere.
“No Dumping" signs have
now been placed at this
location and, since DUMP-
ING IS AGAINST THE
LAW, it is hoped that the
individuals who participated
in this cowardly behavior will
take heed.
Iris Stremmel
Lake Bastrop Ranchettes
Start* Department of Htgnwarrs
•nd PuMc Transportation
Change of Address?
V\ rite:
Bastrop Advertiser
Box 459
Bastrop. Texas 78602
MP^CT'Srr'*”; • -« -A*'
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McAuley, Davis. The Bastrop Advertiser and County News (Bastrop, Tex.), No. 50, Ed. 1 Thursday, August 21, 1980, newspaper, August 21, 1980; Bastrop, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth736266/m1/2/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Bastrop Public Library.