Neighbors win in fight against proposed 'forever chemical' plant near Florence
Residents say they are delighted that a company has withdrawn a proposed air permit that would have allowed the corporation to manufacture "forever chemicals" in their Florence-area neighborhood.
The owners of Exfluor Research Corp. did not respond to several requests for comment about why they decided to withdraw the permit. They had said they planned to build an estimated $10 million, 22,000-square-foot plant on 36 acres at 1100 County Road 236 in northwestern Williamson County. The company withdrew its request to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for a proposed air permit on June 21. It currently operates a facility in Round Rock.
No information was available about whether the company will build something else besides a chemical plant at the property.
The company's proposal had faced opposition from residents who said the new plant would pollute their air and water, including the aquifer where they get their drinking water and the nearby North Fork of the San Gabriel River. They said the kind of chemicals the business plans to make, called "forever chemicals" because they don't degrade, are dangerous.
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Resident Ann Friou, who owns a ranch with a home on it about a mile from the proposed site, said last week she was "relieved" that Exfluor wasn't going to locate a plant on County Road 236.
"It's obvious that the infrastructure doesn't exist in our rural area to support even a small lab, like Exfluor," Friou said. "We don't have sufficient water or roads to meet their needs, and the local volunteer fire departments don't have enough firefighters trained to handle chemical fires, should they occur. I think Exfluor's management made a well-considered decision, after long and careful deliberation, that CR 236 isn't the place for their operation."
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Suzanne Johnson, another resident of the area, said she had been concerned about the proposed plant because her family collects rainwater to live on instead of using well water. The evaporation pond that the company was proposing as part of the new facility might have affected the water her family collected, she said. Johnson said she and many of her neighbors also raise honeybees that might have been affected by the plant because the insects could have become contaminated by going to the company's proposed evaporation pond.
"It was just a lose-lose situation all around for us, plus the property values go down," Johnson said. "I'm delighted, absolutely delighted, (Exfluor) withdrew their proposed permit."
A nonprofit group called the North San Gabriel Alliance had been fighting against the proposed chemical facility since 2022. It gathered 3,300 signatures in a petition against the plant, said Hank Mulvihill, a member of the alliance.
The petition said the proposed Florence site was surrounded by more than 150 family farms, ranches and homes, plus water recreation areas, agricultural lands and wildlife conservation areas. People also sent about 400 complaints against the proposed plant to the TCEQ, Mulvihill said.
The TCEQ decided, after holding an open hearing about the proposed air permit in December, to schedule a contested case hearing so an administrative law judge could decide whether to grant the permit, according to a TCEQ interim order.
The state agency said it decided to grant the contested hearing based on several issues, including whether the proposed permit was protective of air quality, animals and plants as covered by the Texas Health Code. Exfluor withdrew its requested air permit before the hearing was scheduled to be held in June, Mulvihill said.
The co-owner of Exfluor, Thomas Bierschenk, had said the prevention measures the company planned to use would prevent any chemicals it makes from leaking into the air and that none of the water it planned to use would flow into the river.
People mistakenly think the proposed facility "will have billowing smokestacks and smell like a refinery," Bierschenk said at the time. What people will see when they drive by, he said, will be a building with mostly lab and office space.
He said the company would be making perfluorinated chemicals "that are commonly referred to as forever chemicals" at the proposed site. Such chemicals are used to make products that resist heat, oil, stains, grease and water.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Neighbors win in fight against 'forever chemical' plant near Florence
