Adelante El Paso

El Paso Group News
• In order to expedite implementation of the Clean Air Act in Texas, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has begun to remove some permitting authority delegated to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) 16 years ago.
• After protests from El Paso Sierrans, City Council demanded and got El Paso Electric Company (EPEC) to raise its funding subsidy for home solar installations from the present $127,000 per year to $500,000 in 2012 in addition to an agreement to allocate $10 million for large-scale solar demonstration projects in the next two years.
• The City of El Paso is considering imposing “flow control” on commercial trash from private haulers to deposit it in city-owned landfills, thereby diverting about 600,000 tons per year from Sunland Park’s Camino Real landfill and generating about $3.7 million for the city.
• The recent recession and the NIMBY (not in my backyard) syndrome have delayed area alternative energy projects. Construction of a $9 million wind tower factory in Santa Teresa, NM has been delayed until 2011. And some residents of Marfa, TX are protesting the proposed location of 1000 three-storied mirrored dishes for a concentrated-solar energy plant on 200 acres two miles from town. Concerns are noise as well as visual pollution. Marfa has some of the darkest skies in the nation.
• El Paso Water Utilities’ (EPWU) newest open space project, the 200 acre Palisades located at the southwestern tip of the Franklin Mountains, is being planned to give hikers and bikers legal access to more arroyos and trails as well as to allow natural water flow during El Paso’s monsoon season. The utility also announced plans to generate electricity from methane gas produced at its sewage plants, saving $22 million over 20 years. The equipment will be purchased with federal stimulus money.
• Mayor John Cook is pushing the addition of a 19-mile stretch of the Rio Grande to the Texas Paddling Trails system. The stretch from the NM state line to American Dam near ASARCO would feature five designated put-in and take-out areas for canoes and kayaks and only cost about $21,000 to develop.
• City Council has at least temporarily saved the El Paso Regional Group’s former Environmental Center from destruction. A fast-food restaurant had been proposed there. The solar house was run by Sierran John Sproul as the city’s first recycling site in the 1980’s. Maintenance and management proved to be an unsustainable drain on Group resources.