Editorial: Eagle Ford Town's Residents Disgusted by Waste Site's Approval

Posted on the Texas Tribune on May 3rd, environmentally-focused writer Jim Malewitz, shines a spotlight on the small town of Nordheim, a population of 316 which will soon have to face a 143 acre facility to store waste. Driving two hours north at a time, local residents fought the decision to approve the construction of the facility to Texas regulators in Austin, and finally lost this Tuesday. Now, as the small town will now have to prepare as oil based muds, fracking sad, and various toxic oilfield leftovers potentially pollute the air and possibly other areas of life. 

Now on the other hand, with so many potential problems of runoff, air polution and general complaints, Commissioner Ryan Sitton says "the margin of error is exceptionally small".  Developers claim it to be a highly engineered landfill so that residents of the small town will not be disturbed. Yet they already are. While this could bring in business and create better infrastructure for the small town of "cracked local roads", this was land that was forcefully taken from residents and nature that will be disturbed by major construction. Whether they construct this well or not, this was a case of a little town being taken advantage of. With more than 200 people protesting the creation of a landfill so close to their day to day life, it is sad to see that nothing will come of it, that because of a lack of representation, will find their lives disrupted by the coming and going of cement trucks and whatever else will arise from the consequences of this decision.