The Houston City Council recently passed a municipal setting designation ordinance that allows Brown Fields (sites where past industrial activity has resulted in soil/water contamination) development before full clean-up of groundwater contamination occurs. The ordinance requires that the developer and those who use the site not use contaminated groundwater under the site for drinking water.

The Houston Sierra Club (HSC) testified at a July public meeting of the Houston City Council Environment and Public Health Committee and an August Houston City Council meeting on the ordinance. Comments by the HSC resulted in changes to the ordinance that provide the public with additional public notice time to comment on specific proposals under the ordinance that will go before Houston City Council for approval. HSC comments also resulted in the addition of the Health and Human Services Department as a city agency that will be involved in the review process for each proposal.

The HSC expressed the concern in the Houston Chronicle on August 21, 2007 that "Sometimes (contaminated groundwater) travels and gets into our streams and reduces the quality." If contaminated groundwater is not cleaned up and gets into streams the water quality and the aquatic life in those streams will be degraded. Unfortunately, this particular concern was not addressed by the ordinance and was left to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to handle.

September 2007

Last updated:  11/02/2007.   Content © 1999-2007 by the Sierra Club.