Tarrant County residents who have fought against concrete batch plants say the state’s recent move to tighten air pollution standards is a positive step but not enough to relieve their concerns about placing plants near homes and schools.
The new changes come after growing public concern over the environmental impact of concrete batch plants on human health, said Texas Commission on Environmental Quality spokesperson Victoria Cann.
“TCEQ periodically reviews all its rules to make certain that permits are protective of human health and the environment,” Cann said by email. “Given that science and technology are constantly improving, we routinely review rules to ensure that all permits are held to this standard.”
The regulations require concrete plants to set a maximum production limit to 650,000 cubic yards annually. The original rule allowed operators to produce about 300 cubic yards per hour, or up to 2,563,200 cubic yards annually.
While some rules increase the distance between plants and adjacent properties in counties such as Harris and Galveston, those regulations don’t apply to Tarrant County. Companies are required to water, sweep and clean machinery, trucks and plant road entrances to minimize dust, according to TCEQ documents.
The changes immediately affect new plants; current permit holders will need to comply within two years or at the next renewal of their permit. Because permits are valid for a period of 10 years, some concrete batch plant operators may not have to meet the new standards for up to a decade. Harris County and environmental groups have filed suit to challenge that grace period.
“TCEQ believes the amended standard permit will ensure protection of human health and the environment while providing an appropriate and efficient authorization mechanism for these types of facilities,” Cann said. “TCEQ will evaluate the need for further amendments dependent on changes to future rules and/or standards.”
Josh Leftwich, president and CEO of Texas Aggregates & Concrete Association, said members of the organization — which represents 80% of the aggregates, 100% of the cement producers and 75% of the concrete producers in Texas, according to their website — will comply with these changes.
“Our members were supportive of the new rules that came out because (the rules) haven’t been updated in about 10 years,” Leftwich said. “It was time for an update and everybody was supportive of that process that we went through at TCEQ.”
Tarrant County is no stranger to fighting against concrete batch plants. In 2021, a group of Mansfield neighbors became the first in Texas to successfully convince the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to deny a concrete batch plant permit request.
Two years later, residents in Rendon, an unincorporated area between Burleson and Mansfield, began fighting J7 Ready Mix LLC’s proposed concrete batch plant near the intersection of FM 1187 and Oak Trail Drive. The Rendon residents formed nonprofit organization Green Air Solutions to help fight and fund an expected legal battle against J7.
Following a public meeting in December, residents are now awaiting the TCEQ’s decision on their case, which could lead to a years-long legal battle.
“It’s real close to my kids’ schools,” said Brandon McElroy, co-founder of the nonprofit and a Rendon resident. “There’s a lot of elderly around here, there’s churches, there’s restaurants and they’re just expecting that they should be able to put these things up and that’s going to be OK.”
McElroy said the strengthened regulations are not enough. He would like to see other rules, such as having a minimum distance of 300 feet between the plant’s property line and adjacent properties and a requirement to place facilities in industrial areas.
“There’s some good things that are coming, should I say, but it’s still way off from where it needs to be,” McElroy said.
One of McElroy’s main concerns is pollution that could be caused by concrete batch plants — especially since both of his sons have asthma.
“We’re expecting our children to be able to overcome this and when we’re supposed to be fighting for a cleaner world, a cleaner air, we’re just letting them pop up right here in a residential area,” McElroy said.
Leftwich said there’s no substantial evidence that concrete batch plants have environmental or health impacts. However, in a study published last July, Indiana University Bloomington researchers found that 131 concrete batch plants in Harris County — which includes Houston — emit between 38 and 111 tons of fine particulate matter, or soot, that could be inhaled and cause serious health problems.
“For the most part, concrete batch plants emit pollution pretty close to ground level, directly where people live and breathe,” said Nikolaos Zirogiannis, an environmental economist at Indiana University Bloomington and co-author of the study.
Additionally, Zirogiannis said the lack of environmental impact data from concrete batch plants is due to them being “systematically under-regulated” and TCEQ not requiring concrete batch plants to report their emissions.
“The lack of evidence of the impacts of (concrete batch plants) should not be interpreted as (concrete batch plants) being safe for public health. I would say quite the contrary,” Zirogiannis said.
In February, the Environmental Protection Agency announced new regulations to penalize counties that report an annual average of particulate matter above 9 micrograms per cubic meter of air. Ten Texas counties, including Tarrant and Dallas, would fail to meet that standard, based on data collected from EPA monitors between 2020 and 2022. The rules are not expected to go into effect until 2026.
The EPA also recently began a study to see how pollution from concrete batch plants impacts human health — the first such study in Texas.
Zirogiannis said the EPA and TCEQ should implement fenceline monitoring that measures the air concentration of a specific chemical — in this case fine particulate matter— to understand how much of it is emitted. He also said the EPA should require detailed reporting and record-keeping of emissions from concrete plants.
Leftwich said concrete batch plants aren’t built near residential areas on purpose. He said they end up near neighborhoods for many reasons, including city growth around an established concrete plant and infrastructure projects that make it easier and more economical to have plants operating nearby.
“The farther away a batch plant gets from a project, that just means you have to put more trucks on the road,” Leftwich said. “You only have a 45-minute time frame from when you start mixing that concrete in that truck to getting it out of the truck.”
McElroy said he understands the importance of concrete but is against having the plants near his community when health could be impacted.
“We’re not against concrete batch plants. We’re not against concrete, period,” McElroy said. “We know concrete is a necessity for the world. We’re not trying to tell these people, ‘Don’t do this; it’s horrible for the Earth, the world, or people — that’s not what we’re saying. We’re saying take it to a place where it’s the best fit and that is not going to impact people’s health.”
Kevin Vu is a journalism student at the University of Texas at Austin and contributor to the Fort Worth Report. He previously worked for The Texas Tribune as a reporting fellow.
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