September 18, 2018
TEXAS
*
STATE®
UNIVERSITY
The rising STAR
of
Texas
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
Office
of
the
Chief
Clerk
MC-105
P.O.
Box
13087
Austin, Texas 78711-3087
RE: PUBLIC
COMMENT
concerning the Silesia Properties, L.P., Texas Pollutant
Discharge Elimination System (TPDES)
permit
application, #WQ0015688001 in Comal
County, Texas.
Dear
Chief
Clerk:
The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment ("The Meadows Center") files these
comments in response to Silesia Properties, L.P., TPDES application No. WQ0015688001,
which would authorize the discharge
of
up to 500,000 gallons per day from the plant site via pipe
to a dry tributary; thence to Honey Creek; thence to the Guadalupe River.
As a vital
pai1
of
Texas State University, The Meadows Center faculty and staff provide multi-
disciplinary expertise to complex, real-world, water-related challenges. Since 2002, The Meadows Center
has brought together depai1ments and research centers to both
en
~
ge
in
scholarly inquity and to provide
practical science-based solutions to these challenges. Our future depends on water. As such, the Meadows
Center's mission is inspiring research
and
leadership that ensures clean, abundant water
for
the
environment
and
all humanity.
The Meadows Center fulfills its mission by integrating activities across four pillars
of
action
in
powerful
ways. Our work in each
of
these pillars begins at Spring Lake - one
of
the largest artesian springs in the
world - and ripples outward across Texas and beyond. Our fourth pillar, Leadership: Transforming
Knowledge into Action, states:
"The Meadows Center supports responsible natural resource and water policy in Texas and
convenes stakeholders to address critical water and natural resource concerns and the grand
challenges that we will face in the decades to come ... The Meadows Center also lends its expertise
to build the capacity
of
local communities so that they can protect
and
manage their own water
and
natural resources."
It
is
on this statement
of
commitment and support to local communities that we wish to comment on this
application by Silesia Prope11ies, L.P
..
THE
MEADOWS
CENTER
FOR
WATER
AND
THE
ENVIRONMENT
601
University Drive San Marcos, Texas 78666 I
phone
512.245.9200 I fax 512.245.7371
www.meadowscenter.txstate.edu
Texas State University-San Marcos,
founded
in 1899.
V!:t-'0
(
~
THE
TEXAS
STATE
UNIVERSITY
SYSTEM
.