Joining a great many other Central Texas communities, the Austin City Council on Wednesday June 19, unanimously approved a resolution opposing the 430 mile natural gas pipeline that energy company Kinder Morgan is routing through the Hill Country.
With that, Austin joins the ranks of cities and counties, school districts, and businesses and organizations opposed to the PHP as planned.
They passed it because speaking up against this pipeline is the right thing to do. Building an entirely new pipeline corridor that cuts through Texas’ vulnerable karst topography and an immense system of interconnected watersheds, rivers and aquifers is plain wrong.
This isn’t a red or blue issue. It’s a Texas issue. Kinder Morgan shouldn’t threaten the drinking water that millions of Texans rely on.
Council Member Leslie Pool noted that the resolution goes beyond symbolic opposition. It asks city environmental staff to study the potential water quality impacts the pipeline would have on area aquifers as well as a study of other legal avenues the City could pursue to more effectively oppose the pipeline and other hydrocarbon pipelines that might follow.
Our gratitude goes out to all those who co-sponsored this resolution: Council Member Leslie Pool, Council Member Ann Kitchen, Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison, Council Member Alison Alter, and Council Member Sabino “Pio” Renteria.
We look forward to the work that the Austin City Manager will do to study the potential water quality impacts of the PHP and to review other legal avenues to effectively oppose it.
The Wimberley Valley Watershed Association has been working hard to oppose this pipeline since day one and we will continue to do so. We are grateful that our contacts from the city of Austin listened and did what was right to protect their water and their community.
We encourage you to ask San Antonio council members to follow suit and join Austin in opposing the PHP.
Please contact them here.
If you have yet to do so, please sign our petition of almost 5000 people opposed to the Permian Highway Pipeline.