The Sulphur River Basin Authority (SRBA) approved accepting additional funding for its Clean Rivers Program at its meeting Tuesday [January 20]. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) announced earlier this year that it had allocated additional funding for the Clean Rivers Program, and SRBA submitted a request for work to be completed in the basin.
"We were granted over $20,000 to put back in the program," said Michael Burke, executive director for SRBA. "Additional monitoring, equipment and training is the type of work they'll pay for." One of the projects to be funded is two additional monitoring events for Lake Wright Patman. "The lake is under an advisory as a water body of concern for low dissolved oxygen and high Ph," Burke said. "They are consistently asking us to support monitoring to get to take it off the list."
The project is estimated to coast $6,000, and the physical monitoring will be done by Texarkana College and TCEQ. The state agency has set monitoring sites they check every year, leaving the smaller tributaries to SRBA. The additional funding will also pay for monitoring of stream flow in support of a proposed permit action that the Wagner Creek wastewater treatment plant in Texarkana is pursuing. The monitoring will take 18 months and cost $4,500.
The Authority will use $2,000 for a training event at Texarkana College on an electrofisher device. "The device will allow an agency to monitor a water body as it relates to fish," Burke said. "You catch fish using a slight shock and evaluate the effect the water quality is having on the fish." The state also approved the purchase of a $4,030 electronic flow meter.
In other business, the Authority heard a presentation from engineer Bob Murray on finding additional funding to pay for a resolution to the logjam located on Highway 37, north of Mount Vernon. Murray, with MTG Engineers of Texarkana [Murray, Thomas & Griffin, cohorts of the SeRBiA -- R], noted that he looked at both state and federal agencies for potential sources of funding.
"With all the agencies, if you receive the funds, before you can expend the funds, you have to do an environmental impact statement and evaluate the implications of any permits required," he explained. "That puts you right back to the Corps of Engineers, back to the only agency that has the authority to technically allow you to do anything that would be a dredge or a fill in a river basin."
At the last SRBA meeting, the board had asked Murray to see if the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) might assist in paying for the logjam study that many believe was worsened due to the severe ice storm a few years ago. "The only way around the Corps is with FEMA, which requires a certain level of disaster," Murray said. "It would have to be declared a disaster that meets FEMA criteria. It can't be to prevent a disaster."
Murray added that any solution from FEMA would probably not be a long-term fix but simply move the problem downstream, allowing the logs and silt to build up again and bring the logjam back. The logjam is causing flooding, erosion and frequent road closings. The logjam was created from cut timber moving down from Talco over the last several years. In addition, the silt buildup has led to flooding episodes during heavy rain. Relieving the logjam has been one of SRBA's main projects.
COMMENTARY BY ROBERTO
The concluding statements in this newspaper article are clearly incorrect. The logjam was not caused by logs from Talco which is DOWNSTREAM from the logjam. The logjam was caused when a river channel was created to speed up the flow of water from WESTWARDS and UPSTREAM from the bridge on Highway 37 between Bogata and Mount Vernon. Perhaps there is a river impediment near Talco exacerbating this jamming of logs, but the logs themselves did not originate in Talco.
Omitted from this news account are three items which need to be noted for the record. When President Judy Lee moved to set the next meeting date, she remarked that she would be out of town on February 17 and suggested that the meeting be scheduled for February 24 instead. The motion was made and seconded; but then audience member Red Birdsong of Denton objected, stating that to set an alternate meeting date in this manner is in direct violation of Section 4.05 of the SeRBiA By-Laws, which explicitly states that these regular public meetings are to be held on the third Tuesday of each month. Mike Burke chimed in that he would get this meeting date change posted to their website ASAP, so that there would be no public "confusion" about it. Mr. Birdsong still objected, but Judy Lee flatly stated that she would trust Mike to do the right thing.
Why was there a need to change this meeting date? Well, there are only four board members who are functional, and two of those (Patsy McClain and Robert Parker) are questionable in terms of their legality. Four members are needed to constitute a quorum. If Judy Lee were absent, the other three could not conduct a meeting. Mr. Birdsong is correct. If there is an absence of a quorum, then the regular meeting has to be cancelled. It can't just be arbitrarily moved to another date for the convenience of a travelling board member. Judy Lee violated their By-Laws by setting a new date. The proper course of action would have been simply to cancel the February meeting and reconvene again in March.
If such reckless disregard of the By-Laws is allowed to continue, then, why, they might even try to hold some "informational meetings" behind closed doors!
"La Grande Dame" Billie Lindsey of Bogata stood up and inquired if she could ask a question. Billie stated that she'd been coming to these meetings for about three years, but that she was still not completely sure of the "job description" of the SeRBiA. "What exactly is your job description?" she asked. She added that she hadn't really seen any evidence that the SeRBiA was taking care of the Sulphur River Basin. Hear, Hear, Billie! Mike Burke told her that he would mail her some information on the "purpose" of the SeRBiA. Other than these suspiciously expensive monitoring programs, what else have they been doing lately to benefit life in the Sulphur River Basin? Very little. They can't even clean up the logjam. As for Mr. Murray's statements regarding funding, it sounded to me a lot like a cat chasing its own tail. The Corps tells you to consult ABC first, but then ABC tells you to consult KLM first, and then KLM tells you to consult XYZ first, but finally XYZ tells you to consult the Corps first. If we are ever going to get this logjam removed, then we shall probably have to take the law into our own hands and burn the damn thing illegally! As for the "job description" of the current SeRBiA, it is simple, Billie: the construction of the Marvin Nichols Reservoir!
After the meeting, I was standing by the water fountain, talking to John McConnell. I guess that I must have been "blocking" the water fountain, but Patsy McClain came up and rudely poked me in the back, as if to "shoo me away" from the water fountain so she could use it. Then after Patsy McClain headed out to the parking lot, astonishingly Mike Burke walked right up to me, stuck out his hand and said "Hi, Robert." I shook his hand politely, and then he (with Judy Lee right beside him) walked on down the hallway. I noticed that someone stopped in the Civic Center's administrative office, probably to illegally modify their next scheduled meeting date. Neither Mike Burke nor Judy Lee and I have ever exchanged a "personal word" or handshake before, because I have deliberately avoided them. I consider such people to be "enemies", at least in terms of Marvin Nichols. I find such inappropriate behavior hypocritical at the very least.
And finally, I have some personal thoughts. As we know, it is prohibited as unconstitutional to offer prayers in public schools and at public school athletic events. The Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments were recently ordered to be removed from an Alabama courthouse. There is a clear separation of church and state in this country, and we are all perfectly aware of that: it has been the cornerstone of our democracy. Nevertheless, Chairman Tony Williams still prays at Region D meetings, and prayers are offered at governmental functions from Region D to Capitol Hill. All such public prayers should be abolished. Let people practice their religions in the privacy of their own churches and homes.
In spite of all that we may have disliked about Mike Huddleston, when he was President of SeRBiA, to his credit, he did not open these monthly meetings with a prayer. But, lo and behold, Baptist Judy Lee has now adopted this unconstitutional practice. As the new President, she began this meeting with a prayer, which she ended by saying, "In Jesus' name we pray, Amen." Two of us who regularly attend these meetings are Buddhists, and such prayers are offensive. The messianic existence of Lord Jesus Christ, as important and essential as He might be to Christians, is irrelevant to Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and Moslems. That is the purpose of this provision in the Constitutional Bill of Rights, isn't it? Of course it is, and we all know it. If those like Tony Williams and Judy Lee wish to begin their meetings with prayers, then perhaps they should end their prayers this way: "We pray in the name of the Almighty God of the Universe, Amen." That, at least, would be more "inclusive", even though it would still be technically unconstitutional. I don't plan to make a federal case out of this, but I find this public praying to be most arrogant and repugnant.