At a public hearing Thursday, a few dozen locals demanded that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) shut down the W.A. Parish power plant in Fort Bend County.
The W.A. Parish facility has four natural gas units in addition to its four coal units.
The owner of the Houston-area facility, NRG Energy, is requesting the extension of federal Title V permits, which would enable it to keep running the natural gas and coal facilities at the location for an additional five years.
For a number of years, the plant has faced resistance from locals and environmentalists. They quote a study from Rice University that calculated the plant caused roughly 178 preventable lives annually. The majority of the fatalities were caused by PM2.5, a kind of particulate matter that has been connected to stroke, asthma, and Alzheimer’s disease.
Haley Schulz has spent her entire life in Fort Bend County and is an organizer for the advocacy group Public Citizen. She described using an inhaler as a child, getting sore throats all the time, and more recently, having costochondritis, which caused burning feelings in her chest.
During a public discussion, she stated, “My body knew this plant existed, but I had no idea until about two years ago.”
According to NRG, the facility supplies about 5% of the on-demand energy sources for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which runs the state’s power system, and it complies with both state and federal standards. How much of that energy is produced by natural gas and how much is supplied by coal was not immediately apparent.
NRG’s south region’s vice president of plant operations, Roger Morgan, likened the permits to speed limit signs, which have penalties for breaking them. According to him, the factory complies with the permission conditions.
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“We’re operating in good faith under our permits,” he said in an interview with Houston Public Media following the meeting.
The W.A. Parish power plant is a safe place to work, according to Morgan, who used to work there and said his son now works there as well.
“We want to be a good steward of the environment and a good steward in the community,” he stated. “We want to make sure that the community is safe at all times.”
After a question-and-answer period, the public was given one hour to voice their opinions. Speakers requested air quality monitoring at the location and raised health concerns over the factory. Some people complained that the meeting had not been well publicized, which contributed to the low attendance.
Veronica Pia, the vice chair of the Fort Bend Environmental Committee, spent many years working as a mechanical engineer in the oil and gas industry before leaving when fracking became more common.
“It was very difficult for me to give up a lucrative career, but the personal choice to look away would not allow me to continue the blatant disregard of fossil fuel projects polluting the Earth, harming wildlife and affecting human health,” Pi a told the public.
According to Pia, she has become aware of the negative health effects of pollution on her friends and neighbors.
“I hope NRG (and) Parish transition to green, renewable energy,” stated Pi a. “Environmental justice has been violated long enough in Fort Bend County.”
Some in the audience became irate when the TCEQ switched off a speaker’s microphone and threatened to use security enforcement after he went on talking for longer than allowed.
Before making a judgment, the TCEQ will consider feedback from the general public. The federal Environmental Protection Agency reviews Title V permits as well.
