As 2019 draws to a close, Preserve Our Hill Country Environment and Stop 3009 Vulcan Quarry are so grateful to all our supporters and volunteers in the ongoing battle against the huge, 1500-acre quarry planned by Vulcan Construction Materials between New Braunfels and Bulverde.
Over the past two years, with your help, our team has achieved many key accomplishments.
Vulcan has not started construction or operation of the proposed quarry.
We organized Comal County citizens to request a public meeting (over 500 attendees) and submit comments (over 1,000).
We trained citizens to request a contested case hearing and receive affected party status. We worked with the City of Bulverde and Comal ISD to pass resolutions both opposing the quarry and requesting affected party status in the hearing.
Hundreds of individual contributions enabled us to hire legal representation and expert witnesses to defend citizens, file legal briefs, and make written and oral arguments and responses throughout the contested case hearing process. We worked together with hundreds of neighbors to successfully convince the administrative law judge to expand the radius for affected parties to five miles.
We reached nearly 40,000 people through stop3009vulcanquarry.com and rallied support from over 4,000 Facebook followers and email subscribers.
We increased awareness of the proposed quarry and related aggregate mining issues through media coverage in the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, San Antonio Express-News, Austin American-Statesman, WOAI News 4 TV, Spectrum News TV, AM 550 KTSA, Texas Public Radio, Public Citizen, and many other outlets.
Our scientific analysis and grassroots efforts resulted in the installation and operation of two new TCEQ air quality monitors in our area, including the only particulate matter monitor in Comal County.
We are actively collaborating with numerous state legislators, school districts, and other grassroots organizations on legislation to implement some common-sense regulations for the over-aggressive aggregate industry.
We are optimistic about and look forward to working closely with the newly formed APO Interim Study Committee in the Texas House.
Read more from the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung here or on the Stop 3009 Vulcan Quarry website here.