Bastrop APO Community Advisory Council Needed Now

In most states, miners follow basic guidelines that include letting neighbors know how their work will impact the area around them. Plans must be discussed and shared before soil is extracted. Not in Texas. Miners do not notify neighbors before tons of prime farmland, often near vital riverways, are extracted, nor are they required to monitor or pay for damages caused, nor clean up the mess left behind. These costs -repairing roads, installing air monitors, reclamation and more — are left to you the taxpayer.

Currently, a tremendous amount of time, energy and money is wasted by this lack of transparency or public process. Texans typically discover miners have arrived when they are suddenly awakened by the roar of industry and hundreds of gravel trucks clogging their county roads. And because the few simple rules that do exist are flauted — like installing turning lanes to accommodate multi-ton trucks — people are needlessly injured and die. Not just neighbors, but the drivers who are contracted to drive these dangerous loads. Ultimately, neighbors resort to filing expensive and repeated lawsuits to ensure basic protections. But, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Given the proliferation of mining companies along the Colorado River, Bastop needs what Kerr County already has: an APO Community Advisory Council

Please contact your county officials to establish this for Bastrop.

Visit Texans for Responsible Gravel Mining to learn more