The mayor e-mailed Unfair Park last night with an offer to spend Tuesday night with her. At last! Oh, and you are invited as well, when Mayor Laura Miller and the Texas Clean Air Cities Coalition drive down to Waco the evening before the TXU coal-plant permit hearings begin in Austin. And, here's the good part, if you don't wanna drive to Waco for the TCACC's presentation, the mayor's offering to drive you there -- no, not personally, but she is making available charter buses that will leave Reunion Arena at 4 p.m. Tuesday and include snacks and refreshments.
All it'll cost you is a mere 10 bucks a seat, and who knows, you might end up sitting next to the mayor or Albert Huddleston or some other bidness big-wig, many of whom are expected to hitch a ride down and back. If you wanna go, call 214-670-4054 by Friday.
And the Tuesday-night presentation, expected to begin at 6:30 p.m. at the Waco Convention Center, should be plenty fascinating.
In short, the TCACC will essentially offer the very same presentation to the public it plans on giving to the State Office of Administrative Hearings. Says the mayor's release, the coalition's lead (and very pro bono) attorney, Steve Susman, will present an overview of the legal case against the plants, and it will include the debut of a "Google Earth animated presentation of the emissions leaving the plants and traveling across Central, East and North Texas."
That Google Earth animation -- which will essentially let you see the proposed plants from a satellite's-eye view and reveal exactly how much pollution they'll unleash on the state -- is based on the report done by David Allen, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Resources at the University of Texas-Austin. As mentioned here yesterday, he's responsible for the air modeling reports that confirm how much pollution the coal-fired plants will manufacture, and his work will be a major part of the permit hearings, which are expected to last up to three weeks in Austin and include the testimony of Mayor Miller. So, yeah -- the mayor and a bus to Waco. Cannot tell you how many times I've had this dream. --Robert Wilonsky
