Page 118 – The Austin Bulldog

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May 1, 2006 6:00 AM

Why Do They Say ‘Open Government’ and ‘Clean Water’ Like They Were Bad Ideas?

About 5,200 words

The May 13, 2006, election offers Austin voters at least eleven reasons to do what citizens have been doing less and less of in recent decades: actually vote. If ever there was a time to cast a ballot, it’s now.

Voters will determine not only who will be our mayor and council members in Places Two, Five and Six, but also will decide the fate of seven amendments to the Austin City Charter. The charter is the city’s de facto constitution and it will be in full force and effect in perpetuity unless amended. Because of the charter’s permanence, in the long run these proposed amendments may mean far more to Austin’s future than who fills which chairs on the council dais for the next three years.

Of the seven propositions on the ballot to amend the charter, Propositions One and Two are easily the most complex and controversial. (Propositions Three through Seven are outlined in an accompanying article, below.)

Proposition One (Open Government Online) and Proposition Two (Save Our Springs) reached the ballot through a petition drive started last November. Petitioning was led by the Save Our Springs Alliance (SOSA), the ACLU’s Central Texas Chapter, and the Austin Regional Group of the Sierra Club. More than twenty thousand registered voters signed petitions to put these propositions on the ballot.

These two amendments are lengthy. This is a summary:

Proposition One—The Open Government amendment would protect privacy while opening access to city business, city functions, and top city officials’ calendars and communications.

Further, the amendment would provide access to information related to civil litigation and settlements, economic development, and agency memoranda—all of which have been withheld in the past.

It would also require that meet-and-confer contract negotiations between the city and a police officers’ association be open to the public. Past meet-and-confer meetings have been closed. This resulted in “gutting” civilian oversight and granting overly generous police raises at the expense of social services, proponents say.

This measure would open to public scrutiny Austin Police Department personnel files that have been kept closed but which are readily available in many other law enforcement agencies, including the Travis County Sheriff’s Office.

ACLU proponents of police accountability say the weak civilian oversight and closed personnel files have helped fuel and perpetuate community distrust of police, especially in view of Austin’s history of minorities dying at the hands of police officers.

The requirement to make all public information available online would be phased in over time, “as expeditiously as possible and to the greatest extent practical,” judgments that ultimately would be up to the City Council.

Who wouldn’t want open government and why? The opponents to Proposition One base their opposition on two main points: high estimated cost, which could cause postponement of the planned November bond election, and loss of privacy.

Central to the question of both cost and privacy is that opponents argue Proposition One would require city e-mails to be put online in real time, a task the city estimates would cost thirty-six million dollars the first year and twelve million dollars annually, forcing an increase in property taxes. Proponents say the city’s interpretation is mistaken, that e-mails would not go online but instead must be archived for future retrieval in response to a public information request.

Proponents say Proposition One will save money by opening closed-door government deals to public scrutiny, that it’s the government’s privacy opponents want to protect, not citizens’ privacy which is already protected by law.

Proposition Two—The Save Our Springs charter amendment aims to reinforce the current Save Our Springs Ordinance by strengthening city policy to direct development to areas outside the Barton Springs-Edwards Aquifer watershed.

It would eliminate subsidies for development within the Barton Springs watershed, including but not limited to tax abatements, infrastructure commitments, fee waivers, and consent to create utility or other special districts.

The proposition also would require greater scrutiny of “grandfather” claims that allow projects to be constructed in the Barton Springs watershed under old water-quality regulations. The City Council would have to approve grandfathering by a two-thirds majority vote in open session. Since enactment of the SOS Ordinance in 1992, grandfathering decisions have been made by a committee meeting in closed session. Opponents say this could invite intervention by the Texas Legislature, while proponents contend nothing is being changed except to allow the public to witness and comment on how grandfathering decisions are made.

Austin’s three major environmental organizations want Proposition Two to be approved, while developers and most on the city council don’t.

City Council misconstrues ballot language

During the council meeting of March 9, Austin City Council members voiced strong opposition to Propositions One and Two before unanimously approving language to describe these measures on the ballot. (Read the transcript at www.ci.austin.tx.us/council/2006/council_03092006.htm.)

On March 28 a lawsuit challenging the ballot language was filed in state district court by plaintiffs Jeff Jack, Glen Maxey, Ann del Llano, Paul Robbins, Jordan Hatcher and Peggy Horowitz. District Judge Stephen Yelenosky on March 31 ruled that the city had “exceeded its discretion by adopting ballot language that does not fairly portray the chief features of the…charter amendments.”

Yelenosky’s ruling stated the ballot language was both negative and incomplete. The ruling also said that the costs of implementing Proposition One as described in the ballot language—thirty six million dollars initially and twelve millions a year thereafter, and requiring a tax increase of three cents per hundred dollars of valuation or a reduction in city services—was “not sufficiently certain and references a tax increase that the city concedes is not compelled by the proposed measure.”

The judge ordered the city to revise the ballot language. The City Council met April 3 and adopted language that addressed only the specific shortcomings cited in Yelenosky’s ruling. Because time had run out to get the ballots printed, proponents said it was too late to file another lawsuit. Thus the council’s wording is what voters will see on the ballot.

“We believe the ballot language is still not a ‘fair portrayal’ of either amendment,” SOSA Executive Director Bill Bunch stated in an e-mail. “In both instances, the ballot language is still clearly hostile and argumentative—basically electioneering.”

Bunch says the language omits any mention of Proposition Two’s true purpose and is intended to frighten residents by indicating they won’t get services they need. He says the language also makes it sound like the proposition would take away someone’s property rights—maybe yours. “We cannot take away any property rights even if we wanted to,” he stated.

As for prohibiting the city from participating in “certain road projects,” as the ballot language states, Bunch says restrictions only apply to toll roads that would be financed based on projected trips to serve major sprawl in the watershed. This is crucial, because the City Council and the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization have already approved one and a quarter billion dollars to pave the Barton Springs watershed with highways and toll roads—“spending money to do what nobody wanted,” Bunch said. For a fraction of that, he said, more land in the watershed could be purchased for preservation and the roads wouldn’t be needed. That would “free up one billion dollars for transportation to put development where we want it.”

Kathy Mitchell is the local ACLU chapter president and campaign treasurer for the Clean Water Clean Government Political Action Committee (PAC). She says the ballot language in Proposition One still errs in stating that it requires “private e-mails to public officials be placed on the city web site in ‘real time,’ including e-mails or electronic communications between private citizens and public officials in all city departments, and limit the ability of citizens to keep private the details of these communications, unless legal exceptions apply.”

Putting e-mails online is not required, Mitchell says. The amendment only requires the city to establish a system that automatically archives e-mails involving council members, the city manager and assistant city managers, their staff members, and city department heads. These e-mails are already recognized as public records under the Texas Public Information Act. The purpose of the amendment, Mitchell says, is to ensure that e-mails are maintained for public disclosure when requested. To ensure they are, officials would be prohibited from using private e-mail accounts for city business. Privacy would be fully protected under existing laws, she said.

Mayor Pro Tem Danny Thomas cast the only vote against the revised ballot language. Thomas says, “I think we should have compromised a little bit more with the people who bought the petitions. That’s what the judge was trying to tell us…I couldn’t support what was passed and put on the ballot…I agree with the amendments they brought forth. We should have done more to make it more clear (on the ballot).”

The mayor pro tem said while he wants voters to approve both propositions, the proponents have been put at an unfair disadvantage. “Will it pass?” Thomas said. “I don’t think so because of the language.”

Contentious public debate

The proponents of these measures faced off with opponents in a two-hour debate April 13 at St. Edward’s University.

Arguing for were Bill Bunch and Ann del Llano, a lawyer who has worked with the ACLU for sixteen years, mostly as a volunteer.

Arguing against were former Mayor Gus Garcia, who left office in 2003, and former City Council Member Daryl Slusher, who left office in June 2005. Since September 2005 Slusher has been employed by Austin Energy, which like all city departments would be subject to these amendments.

In describing the overarching purpose of enacting Proposition One, Del Llano began by quoting some of the opening words of the Texas Public Information Act: “…government is the servant and not the master of the people, it is the policy of this state that each person is entitled, unless otherwise expressly provided by law, at all times to complete information about the affairs of government and the official acts of public officials and employees. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know.”

Del Llano said the thrust of Proposition One is for information that is already available to the public by law be made accessible online as soon as “practical, possible, and with privacy protected.”

She said the city’s estimated cost of thirty-six million dollars the first year and twelve million dollars a year thereafter for achieving this result is “false.”

“We all know the Internet saves money,” del Llano said. “Insider deals cost money.” She provided a pungent example of why the Open Government Online amendment was needed: “We didn’t know about it when the city negotiated four hundred million dollars in a police contract and left social services out in the cold.”

Del Llano displayed a chart that showed a total of more than two hundred and thirty-nine million dollars had been awarded to nine projects by the City Council. These included one hundred million dollars for a water deal with the Lower Colorado River Authority; fifty-eight million dollars for Samsung; thirty-seven million for Simon Property Group; and fifteen million dollars for Stratus Properties.

Slusher said this isn’t money the city spent in all cases, but income, some of which is abated to the developer. It should be noted, however, that the LCRA sum was indeed money the city spent—one hundred million dollars in cash, up front. The other deals were done in the name of economic development, but were “done deals” before the public learned about them, critics say.

Bill Bunch outlined the high points of Proposition Two. He said it would require development applications and staff comments about them be placed online, and a public comment section be created to give citizens equal standing.

In the current system of development, Bunch said, citizens “are always late to the party. We’re not invited.” As a result, he said, “We get a city built for developers.”

As an example of how projects are kept from public view, he noted the previous day’s front-page article in the Austin American-Statesman about the city water treatment plant proposed in Roy Guerrero Colorado River Park. (This idea so enraged East Austin residents and park advocates that the City Council was soon forced to wave a white flag and consider other sites.)

Contrast that to how planning could work under Proposition One, proponents said. Citizens would been informed the park was being considered, and public input would have created a better plan from the beginning.

Daryl Slusher presented the opposition to Proposition One. Slusher criticized the way in which Propositions One and Two were brought about. He said eight to ten people drafted the propositions, signatures were collected and the petitions were “sprung on the city” and “now we get to decide.” Slusher did not mention that this is how citizen initiatives have typically always gotten on the ballot, as provided for in the Austin City Charter. (To put it in perspective, the Declaration of Independence was written by one man, Thomas Jefferson. As for who did write these propositions, see accompanying article, below, “Who Drafted Propositions One and Two.”)

Slusher said Open Government Online could cause a tax increase and lost productivity as council members and top managers are required to log their conversations involving city business. Despite assurances by proponents that e-mails would not be required to be placed online, Slusher claimed the proposition would require it.

“It’s not the words said here that matter,” Slusher said, “but what is written on the page.”

Responding to a question from the moderator about costs, Bunch said, “The city is already committed to putting the (land) development process online, but they didn’t intend to give the public the password.” He said the cost of public access being added was small, and savings would accrue when citizens got a heads-up on “insider deals.”

Del Llano repeated that the city was already working to put its land development process online, “but they crossed out the two hundred thousand dollar cost of letting the public see it.”

Garcia nevertheless maintained, “It’s unfair to pass this when we don’t know what it will cost.”

What is the cost? Bunch said, “It’s too much of a ‘black box’ to put a fixed number on, but I believe (it will cost) a few million at most to do the mandatory parts” of Proposition One.

Del Llano added that while no one is certain of the cost, the city’s witnesses had conceded under oath in the lawsuit trial that no tax increase was mandated.

Garcia said he saw no need for Proposition One. “We don’t have a crisis of information,” he said. “If anything there’s too much information flowing. All of our meetings are open where we make decisions. Why is this on the ballot if there’s no crisis? And if there is a crisis, why put this in the charter?”

When answering questions from opponents, Bunch said, “It cracks me up to hear how sacred the (city) charter is. I imagine no one here has read it. What’s sacred here is the soul of our city—not this charter. If something is in here (in the amendment) that’s not exactly right…that’s such a trifle compared to losing the soul of our city.”

Del Llano said, “This belongs in the charter because it’s about the transparency of our government and the transparency of our water.”

Proposition Two debate

In the Save Our Springs debate, Slusher led off by saying the amendment would have no effect on AMD’s plans to build its new facility over the aquifer. He said the amendment might prevent the city from being able to negotiate future agreements that would result in less impervious cover on grandfathered tracts.

“This will be a lose-lose proposition for the environmental community,” Slusher said. “I’m glad they’re not united.” (While some individual environmentalists oppose the propositions, this seems a curious claim, given that Austin’s three major environmental groups—SOSA, the Sierra Club and the Save Barton Creek Association—were involved in drafting the petitions and have endorsed both propositions.)

In presenting the proponents’ case for Proposition Two, del Llano said the people of Austin had spoken in 1992 by overwhelmingly approving the SOS Ordinance.

“It did work,” she said of the ordinance. “Companies were afraid to go there.” But that has changed, she said. “Today, AMD is going there. It’s time to stand up again now or we will lose our treasure.”

Bunch said although application of the SOS Ordinance has been restricted somewhat by state legislation, for many years the community respected the mandate. Today the mandate is being ignored “because they think we’ve forgotten.” He noted that the City Council had refused even to pass a nonbinding resolution to discourage AMD for building on the aquifer.

He said the grandfathered rights being used by AMD were not legitimate because the original project was to have been a shopping center, not a major employment center. “The law is clear. When the project is not the same, the decision rests at the local level,” he said, and “the council cowed.”

Bunch conceded the charter amendment would not legally bar AMD’s project, but said if it passed he hoped AMD would respect the community’s wishes. Bunch challenged the opponents to join him in a press conference to ask AMD to “please stand down and honor our community.”

Slusher replied, “I’ll say it here. I ask Hector Ruiz (AMD’s CEO) not to locate over the aquifer.”

Slusher agreed with Bunch that AMD building on the selected site “would set off other development and cause pollution. I think they should locate in the Desired Development Zone.”

Wrapping up the debate

At the end a half-dozen audience members were allowed to ask questions, touching off further exchanges among the panelists.

Slusher criticized Propositions One and Two for not containing definitions of what was meant by certain terms. “These two amendments are based on distrust of the City Council, yet you let the city define what these mean,” he said.

Bunch acknowledged the amendments did not define terms because that would be inappropriate. “Imagine if the U.S. Constitution had a definition for ‘freedom of speech’ or ‘due process of law,’” he said. (In point of fact, the existing Austin City Charter contains no section defining terms.)

In response to an audience question about whether the Open Government Online amendment might result in cost savings, Bunch said, “That’s a critical point,” as it makes instantly available information that otherwise must be manually produced upon request. He said implementing this amendment would be similar to what was achieved when the state implemented the Texas Legislature Online system (www.capitol.state.tx.us).

Slusher agreed the Texas Legislature Online system was good, adding, “The city does the same thing with the council agenda and back-up material…but you cannot find out who Texas legislators talked to today…People will stop talking to council members because it will get on the Internet.”

Another audience member criticized the extended secret negotiations between the city and the LCRA for a long-term water agreement. Slusher said the negotiations were secret at first but “the city needed to do this. It provides water for the city for fifty years and the option for fifty more years.”

Bunch countered, “The point is it should not have been a secret deal” that over the long term will cost the city a billion dollars. “The city’s water policy says planning should have been an open process that involves everyone…The council is trying to run our city and spend a billion dollars, and we get to watch a City Council meeting and scream for three minutes,” he said to loud applause, referring to the amount of time citizens are allowed to address the council.

Political campaigns ahead

The campaigns have already begun to wage a war of ideas to win the hearts and minds of voters. Both the Austin American-Statesman and The Austin Chronicle have editorialized against these propositions.

On April 16, Kathy Mitchell, the treasurer of the Clean Water Clean Government PAC, said the proponents had thirty-eight thousand dollars in the bank. “We will try to communicate with voters through all available means,” she said.

Mitchell anticipates voters will favor passage of these amendments to the Austin City Charter, just as they did in passing the Save Our Springs Ordinance in August 1992 by the overwhelming margin of sixty-two percent in favor.

She said that a poll conducted in mid-February indicated, “People love open government and they really want to see things change in Austin. We believe when they understand what these amendments do, they will vote for them overwhelmingly.”

Bunch is also upbeat about the chance for these propositions to pass.

“We’re going to do our best to run a campaign and debunk all those lies and have faith in Austin voters that open government is resisted by the powers that be for a reason, and they’re very much afraid of it,” Bunch said.

“There is a high level of trust in organizations like the ACLU and various environmental groups that are supporting these amendments,” Bunch said. “I’m hoping that at least more than half of the voters will see through all that disinformation and go with the basic idea that Internet-based systems (will be an effective way) to hold our community more accountable and more transparent, and that the time is here to take back our local government from corporate special interests.”

Opponents cite costs and privacy issues

The corporate interests that Bunch decries are sparing no effort to defeat these measures. Of the three PACs voicing opposition, the only one that had raised significant sums through early April was the Committee for Austin’s Future. This PAC netted more than a hundred and eighteen thousand dollars. All of it came in large contributions from major business interests.

Greg Hartman, treasurer of the Committee for Austin’s Future, is a veteran of many campaigns. When asked to describe the result of his PAC’s polling, Hartman used language remarkably similar to Kathy Mitchell’s. He said, “When you have an amendment that goes by the title of open government and water quality, people think they must be a good thing. But once you describe what’s in the amendments, the voter rejection of these amendments is overwhelming.”

In Fact Daily on February 14 quoted Hartman saying, “Both amendments are…full of vague language that we believe could ultimately jeopardize the privacy of anyone who has dealings with the City of Austin including just asking a question. It will cost local taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, send the city to court indefinitely, and lead the Texas Legislature to weaken, not strengthen, our ability to protect local water quality.”

Although Hartman describes himself as a “progressive Democrat” and a supporter of the ACLU, he refuses to accept the ACLU’s assurances that privacy will be protected under Proposition One.

Hartman says the judge’s order to strike from the ballot language the city’s estimated cost of thirty-six million dollars to implement Proposition One, does not render the figure meaningless. “You can argue it’s going to be less or it’s going to be more but it’s still going to be significant expenditures,” he said.

Bunch said the city failed to address the possibility of saving money by doing business online. “They’re already moving to do development permitting online because it’s so efficient and time-saving. Just like in the private sector, the city is moving as fast as it can to put information online. You can do work, store it immediately for instant retrieval, and get customer to do a lot of work for you. It’s ‘through the looking glass’ to argue it will cost so much more than you’ll save.”

Nevertheless, the opponents don’t accept assurances about costs and privacy and they’re using these issues to drive home their message with voters.

The EDUCATE PAC (Environmentalists and Democrats United for Charter Amendment Truth and Education) mailed a political flier in mid-April to selected parts of the city hammering these points. The mailer is headlined “Costs Too Much, Goes Too Far,” a variation on the “No Rail: Costs Too Much, Does Too Little” slogan that opponents used to narrowly defeat Capital Metro’s light-rail campaign in November 2000.

The flier noted that the Capital Area Progressive Democrats, Central Austin Democrats, and West Austin Democrats were opposed to both propositions, and that the University Democrats were opposed to Proposition One.

Ted Siff, treasurer of EDUCATE PAC, says the cost of Proposition One would force the city to delay a bond election that had been planned for November. On that point he is echoing what Council Member Betty Dunkerley said in the council meeting of March 9. The contention is that if the city’s estimated cost were valid, the city couldn’t go into debt to pay for other needs because the money to repay the bonds would be chewed up by these propositions.

Siff says the city staff estimates that “seventy-five hundred acres of land over the aquifer is under imminent threat of development. If we postpone the bond election for an indefinite time, say a year, at least hundreds of those acres will be developed and lost.” The bond election would likely include somewhere between forty-five million and seventy-five million dollars to buy land for preservation, Siff said.

Proponents Bunch and Mitchell said there would be no need to delay the bond election. “It’s clear that (the estimated thirty-six million dollars) is putting literally every shred of information on line in the next few years—and that’s not required by the amendment and that’s not practical. When it’s passed they will abandon that concept immediately,” Bunch said.

The fact that proponents maintain the bond election would not be delayed does not reassure Siff, who has previously served with the Trust for Public Land and the Austin Parks Foundation.

“Forty-five million dollars for conservation rights or purchasing land is a heck of a lot better for eliminating pollution than pulling us into court for the next decade,” he said.

Bill Bunch said, “We wouldn’t endorse something Orwellian (a term used to label these propositions in a Statesman editorial). We endorse the reverse of that. Orwell says it’s horrible when government is looking at you. This says you’re looking at government. We do recognize that we’re up against the biggest interests in the city—because they don’t want to come out of the backrooms.”

Ken Martin is editor of The Good Life

Who Drafted Propositions One and Two?

Anyone trying to decide how to vote on these measures must ask: who drafted these measures and whose interests do they represent?

Kathy Mitchell—president of the ACLU’s Central Texas Chapter and treasurer of the Clean Water Clean Government Political Action Committee—identified the following individuals:

ACLU representatives Ann del Llano (a lawyer), Scott Henson, and Mitchell.

Save Our Springs Alliance lawyers Bill Bunch, Brad Rockwell and Sarah Baker.

Jordan Hatcher, a technology advocate and board member of EFF-Austin, a group that promotes the right of citizens to communicate and share information without unreasonable constraint.

Also consulted were:

Mary Arnold, a longtime environmental activist and former board member of the SOS Alliance.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Harold Daniel, president of the Save Barton Creek Association.

Rebecca Daugherty, director of the Freedom of Information Service Center, a project of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Katherine Garner, executive director of The Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.

Robert Jensen, associate professor in the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Journalism.

Donna Tiemann, a board member of both the Austin Sierra Club and Save Barton Creek Association.

—Ken Martin

Propositions Three Through Seven

While Propositions One and Two are drawing most of the media coverage and political involvement, five other proposed amendments to the Austin City Charter are on the ballot. All were initiated by the Austin City Council and are summarized below.

Proposition Three—This is a change to comply with state election law, so that the mayor and council members will take office on a date set by the council by ordinance not later than eight weeks after the date of election.

Proposition Four—This change would allow a mayor and council member first elected after April 30, 2006, to serve for three consecutive terms. A two-term limit was approved by fifty-nine percent of voters in May 1994. This amendment would also close a loophole that allows a council member to exceed term limits by running for a different seat. An officerholder could still choose to run for terms in excess of the limit by submitting a petition signed by at least five percent of qualified voters (as Jackie Goodman, Beverly Griffith and Daryl Slusher did in 2002). It should be noted that in May 2002 fifty-five percent of voters cast ballots to defeat a measure that would have repealed term limits.

Proposition Five—This would raise to three hundred dollars the limit on campaign contributions a candidate for mayor or council may accept from an individual contributor. The current limit is one hundred dollars, as approved by seventy-two percent of voters in November 1997. The new limit if approved would be adjusted annually based on the Consumer Price Index.

Further, candidates would be authorized to accept contributions totaling thirty thousand dollars per election, and twenty thousand dollars for a runoff, from sources other than natural persons eligible to vote in a zip code partially or wholly within the City of Austin. The current limit on such contributions is fifteen thousand dollars per election and ten thousand dollars in a runoff. The addition of the zip code would make it easier to verify compliance.

In addition this amendment would allow an elected official to retain up to twenty thousand dollars in campaign contributions in an account to pay officeholder expenses. It also would allow fundraising by unsuccessful and retired council members to retire campaign debt.

Proposition Six—This would restore a city employee’s ability to purchase additional insurance coverage for domestic partners by repealing a prohibition approved by sixty-two percent of voters in May 1994. That prohibition was established through a citizen initiative to repeal these benefits after the City Council had approved them.

Proposition Seven—This amendment would allow the terms of municipal court judges to be four years instead of the current two years. Municipal court judges are appointed by the City Council.

—Ken Martin

These articles were originally published in The Good Life magazine in May 2006

Historical footnote: The detailed results of the May 13, 2006, election for these propositions is posted on the City of Austin’s Election History web page. A summary is provided as follows:

Proposition 1: Failed (yes 24%, no 76%).

Proposition 2: Failed (yes 31%, no 69%)

Proposition 3: Passed (yes 82%, no 18%)

Proposition 4: Passed (yes 55%, no 45%)

Proposition 5: Passed (yes, 68%, no 32%)

Proposition 6: Passed (yes 68%, no 32%)

Proposition 7: Passed (yes 64%, no 36%)

How safe is your hospital?

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November 1, 2003 11:09 PM

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About 15,100 words

Photography by Barton Wilder Custom Images

The clinic called with bad news about the pain. A CT (computed tomography) scan indicated a serious case of appendicitis and Claudia Sperber of East Austin needed to go straight to the emergency room at Seton Medical Center.

“I sent a friend to get the test results while I went directly to the ER (emergency room),” Sperber told The Good Life. “I waited not too long, and got an exam within thirty minutes. A surgeon came in to do the exam. He was unimpressed. He didn’t pay attention. I didn’t have the test results to show him, and he discounted my experience.”

When the friend arrived with the test results, “there was a sudden attitude adjustment” and the hospital promptly sent her into surgery. “The surgeon came in with the phone glued to his ear and they were setting me up for surgery. He ran a form by me. Said the surgery would be exploratory because we didn’t know what the problem was. When I mentioned the appendicitis, he asked, ‘How many appendectomies have you done?'” At this point, it was Sperber who was unimpressed. Nevertheless the surgeon removed her appendix with no complications.

Surveys among all industries tend to show that people today are less attached to a specific brand or company, more suspicious, and want to have greater control over their lives. For medicine, this is a sea change and many doctors and hospitals continue to struggle with the high level of participation patients want to have in their own care. That participation starts with the decision about which hospital to choose, and continues throughout the hospital stay. The Good Life investigated ways to choose the best local hospital, and then stay an active participant in your care.

Hospitals are not all the same

Historically, patients have primarily relied on their doctors to direct them to a particular hospital. But today, with the help of your health plan and a widening range of online services and government databases, you can participate in that choice directly. And the increasing range of information about our local hospitals shows that they are not all the same.

According to HealthGrades, a national company that provides healthcare quality ratings, Texas hospitals rank poorly compared to other states. “On average, you have a 54.9 percent increased chance of dying if you have an angioplasty or other percutaneous (through the skin) coronary intervention in Texas rather than New York,” said Samantha Collier, HealthGrades vice president of medical affairs. HealthGrades recently ranked Texas thirtieth overall for hospital care (based on outcomes for five procedures and conditions), and forty-first for procedures to correct a blocked artery.

But of course you can find a good hospital here. In line with more than a hundred studies, hospitals with a higher volume of a given surgery also tend to have a lower mortality rate for that surgery. This gives Central Texas residents something very concrete to look for before selecting a hospital.

For example:

Balloon angioplasty—This is a common surgical treatment for heart disease. More than 2,700 people underwent balloon angioplasty in Central Texas hospitals between April 2001 and March 2002. Those who went to The Heart Hospital of Austin—which conducted significantly more of these procedures than any other area hospital—enjoyed a better than expected mortality rate (fewer deaths), a shorter hospital stay, and lower average charges than patients at other area hospitals, according to reports published by the Texas Health Care Information Council (THCIC) and the Texas Business Group on Health (TBGH), a coalition of businesses that purchase healthcare for their employees.

Mortality rates for this procedure were not unexpectedly high at any area hospital, and both South Austin Hospital and Seton Medical Center performed more than 400 of these surgeries between April 2001 and March 2002. The TBGH, which produces several “report cards” on hospital performance, considers any hospital doing more than 400 of these surgeries to be a high volume hospital likely to have better outcomes.

“Practice makes perfect,” says Marianne Fazen, TBGH president and chief executive officer (CEO). “We don’t rate hospitals with fewer than seventy-five procedures, but we also don’t want people to go to those low-volume hospitals. Practice is the key. The high-volume hospitals have better systems, better processes in place. And we are in the business of driving business to the best performers.”

TBGH, HealthGrades and the Texas Health Care Information Council (THCIC) all report “risk adjusted” mortality rates, meaning that the rate takes into account the age, gender, and health condition of the patients in each hospital. The risk-adjusted rate can be used to compare hospitals. (Actual mortality rates might vary because a given hospital experiences sicker patients.)

Congestive heart failure—Hospitals that perform well on balloon angioplasty also tend to perform well on other measures of heart disease treatment. After adjusting mortality rates for the different kinds of patients that local hospitals treat, the THCIC reports that both Heart Hospital and South Austin Hospital have mortality rates significantly lower than the state average for patients with congestive heart failure (2001 data).

Coronary artery bypass—More than 1,000 people underwent coronary artery bypass operations in Austin hospitals in 2001. Heart Hospital, Seton Medical Center, and South Austin Hospital hosted three-quarters of them, and these hospitals all demonstrated mortality rates below the state average.

By contrast, the lowest volume hospital, Brackenridge, shows risk-adjusted, in-hospital mortality rates higher than the state average. Seven out of the fifty-six people who got this surgery at Brackenridge died (one in eight), compared to only five of the 254 who died at Seton Medical Center (one in fifty). Risk-adjusted mortality at Brackenridge for this complex surgery was, in fact, nearly three times the state average in 2001—a statistically significant difference—and the mortality rate had increased in both 2000 and 2001.

“One would expect that,” says the TBGH’s Fazen. “I am not surprised if a hospital that is not a specialty hospital in cardio, that has a low volume of procedures, doesn’t perform as well.”

Pat Hayes, chief operating officer of Seton Healthcare Network, which manages the city-owned Brackenridge Hospital, agrees that volume matters for complex procedures. “You can feel really great about going any place where your doc had a good team that did a high volume of procedures,” she told The Good Life. “Volume is a factor, there’s no question about it.

“As a matter of fact, we had a transplant program at Brackenridge Hospital that is on hold because the volumes weren’t high enough, so we didn’t want to be in that business,” Hayes said. “On the other hand, we have a new Brain and Spine Center, and we made a decision to move the work from Seton Medical Center over next to the Trauma Center at Brackenridge to aggregate the volumes in an area where we think we can get the highest level. I think if you looked at the numbers, and said pick a place for neurosurgery in the Seton system, I’d say Brackenridge. If you said pick a place for cardiac surgery in the Seton system, I’d say Seton Medical Center. And not everything is at that level of complexity. Pick a place to get your tonsils out, it’s probably okay anywhere.”

The risk-adjusted mortality rate for coronary artery bypass surgery at St. David’s Medical Center, another low-volume hospital, was somewhat higher than the state average but within the statistically predicted range. And on many of the indicators reported by the state, almost every hospital in Austin conducts too few procedures to reasonably report risk-adjusted mortality rates. (See accompanying article, “Some Procedures Rarely Done in Austin”.)

Jon Foster, chief executive officer of St. David’s HealthCare Partnership—a partnership between the not-for-profit St. David’s HealthCare System and Hospital Corporation of America, which operates four area hospitals—disputes the correlation between volume and quality of care.

“Certainly there’s some logic saying if a place does more of these they must be more proficient at it,” Foster told The Good Life. “The problem I have with that is the data doesn’t show it. North Austin Medical Center in our partnership doesn’t do an enormous volume of open heart surgeries but their outcomes are sterling.”

North Austin Medical Center hosts a modest amount of heart surgery, but all report card information from HealthGrades and THCIC is favorable.

Foster believes that the surgeon’s experience is a more important factor. “It has more to do with the skill of your surgeon, the skill of your anesthesiologist, and the skill of your nursing staff and your perfusionist than it does the volume. And so what I would want to know more than anything is that the surgeon has done a lot of these. Do you want to go to a hospital that has done a thousand open-heart surgeries but get the surgeon who is doing his first one on you?”

Unfortunately, there is no public information on mortality rates by surgeons in Texas, and very little information available about the quality of physicians generally. The Texas State Board of Medical Examiners will release information about physicians who have been disciplined, but even this information is likely to be old because physician discipline is subject to an extensive appeal process.

Coronary artery bypass operations are major surgery with major costs. Average billed charges for an average stay, which varies from hospital to hospital, ranged from a high of $70,438 at South Austin Hospital to a low of $40,491 at Heart Hospital—the hospital with one of the best mortality rates as reported by THCIC. While the charges do not reflect the discounts that hospitals give to insurance companies and large employers, they do reflect the price an uninsured patient would be billed for the procedure.

“Even though most people are not paying their own bill,” says the TBGH’s Fazen, “we think it’s important that people understand what the sticker price is. Those who are uninsured will pay the sticker price. For those on Medicare, Medicare reimburses a flat rate on heart care, so it won’t make a personal difference but it raises questions.”

Compare before you buy

Thirteen acute-care hospitals today serve the Central Texas area. (See chart, “Acute Care Hospitals Serving Central Texas.”) A person with health insurance may be limited to half that number, but usually still has several options available in-network.

See sidebar story: Acute-Care Hospitals Serving Central Texas

Patients preparing for a scheduled heart surgery—as well as many other common surgical procedures and treatments—can now look at any of several major “report cards” based upon detailed government information. The reports cover the volume, mortality, and hospital charges associated with a wide range of specific procedures. Patients may be able to get information through their own health plan.

After years of delay, the THCIC began last year to publish mortality rates for selected procedures that consumers can use to compare one local hospital to another.

Using this information and survey data, the TBGH publishes information about mortality, cost, and adherence to certain best practices. Aetna, a major area health plan, allows members to create personalized reports about hospital quality on-line. And national quality report cards, like HealthGrades (www.healthgrades.com), include Texas hospital information from federal sources, primarily Medicare.

“This new public reporting is the most significant event for consumers,” says the TBGH’s Fazen. “Hospital quality has been a black box. This is the first time it’s been opened up, and it’s finally making the providers accountable. Performance improves because nobody wants to look bad.”

Many patients scheduling surgery probably don’t know about the mortality rate, cost, and hospital-performance measures currently available. Hospitals generally don’t tell consumers about the reports, and there has been very little Austin-area press coverage.

Larry Sauer, a local attorney, asked his doctor to conduct a heart scan two years ago. Several tests and preliminary procedures indicated severe blockage and he had to schedule bypass surgery. Sauer researched his hospital the only way he knew how.

“At each stage we checked with friends and other doctors,” he said. “When we knew I needed surgery, we immediately called a family friend of a friend to ask about the surgeon. We talked to a couple of other people too.”

The references reassured him that he could expect good treatment at Seton Medical Center, and he went forward with the surgery there. “I thought they were good. The doctors were great.” His sextuple bypass, open-heart surgery went well and he is completely recovered.

But he would have looked at the data on heart care if he had known about it. “If there’s a variation among the hospitals, I would have wanted to know that,” says Sauer. “I would expect my surgeon to tell me that.”

Area employers are starting to tell their employees about the report card information. “Any Dell or HEB employee can access this,” says the TBGH’s Fazen. “Right now employees are going through open enrollment and they are definitely using this information. The movement to get more information about quality to consumers is partly employer driven.”

St. David’s Foster believes that the data is not yet good enough for consumers to use to evaluate hospitals, in part because some of the reports rely on two-year-old data.

“Am I a believer in public information of quality outcomes? Absolutely I am,” he says. “Do I think the community ought to know what kind of outcomes their hospitals are producing? Absolutely I do. Do I think it ought to be accurate and timely and have a methodology that is statistically valid? Yes, and I don’t think we’re there yet as an industry. And we need to get there.”

So you’re having a baby!

The highest volume business at most any hospital is the birthing center. Area hospitals facilitate the birth of about 20,000 new regional residents each year, largely at Brackenridge Hospital, Seton Medical Center and St. David’s Medical Center.

Because many healthy people use the hospital only when it’s time to give birth, birthing care has become a significant cost driver in health insurance. As managed-care plans looked for ways to reduce spending in the nineteen-nineties, they began to track a wide range of birthing-care data. In part because of that early interest in cutting cost, consumers today can gather a great deal of helpful information on local hospitals—including comparative prices.

All local hospitals in Austin conduct fewer Caesarian sections that the statewide average, and Brackenridge Hospital conducts relatively few compared to other area hospitals. The THCIC reports that fewer C-sections may indicate higher quality, but the TBGH is cautionary.

“There is a lot of controversy over the reduction in C-sections,” says Fazen. “Some have done studies that show that when the C-section rate gets too low, there are complications.”

Scott and Jessica Ogle of Pflugerville were shopping for a birth hospital in the spring of 1998. They toured a number of delivery facilities, and twice came back to visit Seton Northwest Hospital. They decided that it would be a good place to have their baby, which arrived via a full-term, uncomplicated April delivery.

But when their baby stopped breathing in her mother’s arms two hours after birth, the hospital didn’t respond as the parents expected. According to medical reports filed with their lawsuit in Travis County, “When the nurse called for help there was not an immediate response and she called out the door, she pushed the emergency call buttons, she called the nursing desk, and the father proceeded to the emergency room to get an emergency room physician.” An anesthesiologist arrived but put in a breathing tube that was too small, according to their lawsuit, and twenty-four minutes after the baby began to suffer, a neonatologist arrived, transferred the baby to a different nursery, and replaced the tube with a larger one. By this time, baby Lindsay Ogle was suffering from significant brain damage. The family settled with Seton last year. Lindsay Ogle died this summer.

The most significant quality-of-care issue for parents choosing among hospitals may be the hospital’s ability to handle the worst, unexpected complications of childbirth. Only four hospitals in the Austin area have a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), for example. Babies like Lindsay Ogle, born at Seton Northwest Hospital, and those born at Seton Southwest Healthcare Center, who need an NICU will be transferred to either Children’s Hospital of Austin or Seton Medical Center. Children born at South Austin Hospital or Round Rock Medical Center will be transferred to either St. David’s Medical Center or North Austin Medical Center.

Even if the hospital has a NICU, it may not be adjacent to the regular birthing areas. When the City of Austin elected to create a new city-owned hospital on the fifth floor of Seton-run Brackenridge Hospital (the Austin Women’s Hospital, to be operated by the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston), ease of access to the NICU for those mothers who elected the fifth-floor hospital was a critical issue addressed in the final contract.

According to St. David’s Foster, parents should ask about the system of transport to an NICU if the facility does not have a unit on site. “If they don’t have a neonatal ICU on site, that hospital should have a seamless and very quick transport system to get the baby to a neonatal ICU should the baby need one. And also have neonatologists available to care for the baby on an interim basis until the child can get to the neonatal ICU. That’s why the St. David’s (HealthCare) Partnership has a neonatal intensive-care transport system, which is an ambulance system solely dedicated for neonatal transport.”

Peg Moline, editor of Fit Pregnancy magazine, recommends that families select a hospital with an NICU just in case the baby needs extra help after birth. “When you take a tour, what you want to look at is how the place feels to you. We like to say, find a place that’s homey and high-tech,” she told ABC News this spring.

Complex patients and the frail elderly stress the system

Frail elderly, very sick, or complex patients with several related health problems require much more support from hospital staff than younger or healthier patients, and if the level of care slips, the results can be disastrous. For example, when a person with fragile skin or bony joints must stay in bed to recover from illness or injury, the skin can break down into open wounds, called skin ulcers or bed sores. In an elderly patient, skin breakdown can lengthen recovery and lead to serious infection and even death.

In 2001, the family of Clarence Grohman sued South Austin Hospital over wounds he allegedly developed while under the hospital’s care. According to the lawsuit filed by Grohman’s family, the bed sores he developed in the hospital contributed directly to his death a few months later. In this case, the medical reports filed with the lawsuit said that Grohman was checked for skin deterioration every shift but no evidence of a problem was noted except for nursing notes showing application of a dressing. After his transfer to the hospital’s skilled nursing unit, a physician ordered wound care, but there was no evidence that a treatment plan was implemented. By the time he returned to the nursing home, he had serious wounds, and “his loss of skin integrity directly contributed to his overall decline and death,” according to the family’s medical expert. South Austin Hospital denied liability and the lawsuit is still pending.

See sidebar story “California Implements Minimum Nurse to Patient Ratios”

Also in 2001, staff at a local nursing home sent photographs to Medicare investigators of nine such wounds on another elderly patient transferred back from South Austin Hospital, whose name was not disclosed in Medicare documents. According to the Medicare investigation, the man, who had been able to walk with a cane and had no notable skin problems, arrived at South Austin Hospital with a fracture. Although hospital staff initially assessed him as high risk for skin ulcers, no special treatment plan was created to prevent them and once they began to appear, there was no documentation that a registered nurse (RN) ever evaluated the wounds in accordance with hospital policy. By the time he returned to the nursing home, the patient had sores on his heel, low back, buttocks and shoulder.

South Austin Hospital responded to the Medicare investigation by modifying its assessment tool and improving referral to the hospital’s specialty wound nurse. According to the hospital, it has now adopted a skin and wound scoring scale that assists caregivers with assessment of risk and choice of treatment.

Many fragile elderly patients and those with several health problems end up in intensive care for part or all of their hospital stay. Therefore the quality of the intensive care unit may be the most important factor in selecting a hospital. Based on many studies of quality outcomes, a “closed” ICU run by “intensivists,” physicians who specialize in the care of complex and very sick patients, is recommended by the Leapfrog Group (www.leapfroggroup.org), a coalition of more than 140 public and private organizations that provide healthcare benefits. This closed system limits the care to a designated group of doctors and is designed to ensure that all the specialists work in a coordinated fashion.

No local hospital is organized in the way recommended by Leapfrog, but all use intensivists to coordinate care in the ICU.

“Within our organization we have intensivists at all our hospitals and they pretty much provide the bulk of all the care in our intensive care units,” said Foster of St. David’s. “It is not mandated that they are the only ones that can care for patients. Because frankly, if you have an open heart surgery patient, immediately after surgery there are surgical issues that I would want the surgeon addressing and not a medical, critical-care intensivist. At some appropriate time, there’s …a hand-off to the critical-care physician. And we do have those resources available.”

Foster believes that families of patients with very complex or critical health problems should pick the hospital with the widest range of specialists available. “I would want to be very sure that whatever hospital I admitted my family member to had a very comprehensive array of physician specialists that were on staff that would be there to care for my family member, number one, because there are multi-system issues going on with those patients. And number two, these patients probably have a higher probability of maybe having some kind of problem that would land them in the intensive care unit. And so I would want to make sure that there was a well trained group of intensivists, or critical-care specialists.”

A complex patient like Clarence Grohman requires continuous attention to detail from an often busy staff, and sometimes patients and families report better care if the hospital allows the family to bear a portion of the load.

Mirav Schloss, a severely autistic adult child with significant physical disabilities, has been in and out of hospitals all her life with a complex array of conditions. “The best hospital stay we ever had was in Round Rock Medical Center,” reports her mother, Hadassah Schloss. “I stayed there twenty-four hours a day for a week. They let me administer her meds. They were so happy that I stayed.”

On another occasion when Mirav was an in-patient at St. David’s Medical Center, Schloss noted the nursing staff shortages. “They don’t have enough staff,” she recalled. “I clearly remember it was the same people from early in the morning till late at night. They worked long shifts. That’s why they were so happy to have us. Mirav had to be fed and helped with the washing and everything. I got her up. I made her bed. I think it would have been a problem for them if I was not there. A lot of families around us did that too, because there was not enough nursing staff.”

Nursing shortages

Families that cannot sit bedside twenty-four hours a day must rely on staff, and staff can sometimes be stretched thin at Austin’s hospitals.

“I was in the hospital three days and two nights,” says Claudia Sperber of her appendectomy care at Seton Medical Center. “I probably saw one nurse twice. Otherwise, I never saw the same nurse twice. The nurses were very busy and they made mistakes. One messed up (inserting) an IV (intravenous device for delivering solutions, medicines and nutrients). Another gave me medication in the middle of the night and again early in the morning that was only supposed to be given on a full stomach. It made me sick and I couldn’t (check out) when I was supposed to.”

This kind of experience is unfortunately all too common, and the shortage of nurses carries dire implications.

A study of 232,342 patients, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association last year, found that patients’ risk of death increases seven percent for each additional patient under a nurse’s care. Nurse-to-patient ratios at the hospitals studied ranged from one to four to as high as one to eight for general medical-surgical units. Researchers estimated that a nationwide ratio of one to eight would result in 20,000 additional patient deaths each year.

Reducing the number of patients under a single RN also reduces the patient’s chances of getting urinary tract infections, pneumonia, shock, and other serious complications of hospitalizations, according to another study published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine. It found a two percent to nine percent increase in the rate of serious complications in hospitals with fewer RNs on staff. The number of less qualified staff (licensed vocational nurses or technicians) do not appear to affect patient outcomes.

“Patients should definitely ask their hospital how many RNs there will be on their ward,” says the TBGH’s Fazen. “Its kind of like school. You want to know that there are enough teachers for the number of students. In a hospital, you need to know not only how many are on the day shift, but the ratio for all three shifts. A hospital that is customer oriented should be ready to make this (information) available. If the hospital doesn’t, maybe you should be looking somewhere else.”

The Texas Nurses Association also encourages patients to ask about the ratio of RNs to patients but does not support a minimum ratio. “Everyone should ask,” said Executive Director Claire B. Jordan, “but there is not a set ratio that is the right delivery model for every patient.”

Currently Texas does not mandate that hospitals disclose nurse-to-patient ratios to prospective patients. The American Hospital Association collects information on nursing staff levels, but this information is only available to those willing to buy a costly database, according to Consumer Reports magazine.

According to Hayes, Seton hospitals would provide prospective patients with information about the number of nurses on the ward to which they would be admitted.

St. David’s Foster argues that patients should not try to shop for a hospital based on nursing staff ratios, and said his hospitals would not provide that information because it is not helpful.

“I don’t think a patient would want to try and shop what the patient ratios are from one hospital to the other, because they may be on one unit in a hospital with a mix of patients very different than on another unit in another hospital with a totally different mix of patients, where the staffing may be totally different. And so most hospitals staff based on acuity (the severity of the patients’ illnesses).”

The National Nurses Alliance, a project of the Service Employees International Union representing 110,000 of the nation’s nurses, disagrees.

“Of course the staffing must be based on the acuity of the patients,” said Caroline McCullough, coordinator for the Alliance. “But there’s a standard level of care that must be met at all times regardless, and then you analyze the needs of the individual patients and you increase your staffing if necessary.” The Alliance recommends that patients ask how many RNs there will be. On a normal medical-surgical unit, the Alliance states that patients should expect no more than four patients for each RN.

“It’s our responsibility as healthcare professionals to inform consumers what they can expect from their hospital care,” McCullough added. “All this secret stuff really doesn’t help get quality in hospitals in America. You can find out more about the accident rate of the car you buy than you can find out about the delivery of care in the hospital. Hospitals are resistant, and that’s why there should be a law that sets out a minimum standard that all hospitals have to meet.”

Filling the nursing gap

The American Hospital Association estimated that the nation needs 126,000 more nurses that we had in 2001. Texas ranks fifth among states with the most severe nursing shortages, according to the Texas Nurses Association.

The severe nursing shortage puts additional pressure on the nurses we do have. Seventy-two percent of nurses surveyed last year by the Regional Center for Health Workforce Studies, a research facility within the Center for Health Economics and Policy of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, said they were exhausted, and fifty-five percent reported increased patient loads in the last two years. “I observed large patient loads per nurse,” one nurse commented, “nurses who floated to another unit without adequate preparation…low pay for hospital nurses, mandatory ‘doubles’ (double shifts), and denial of vacation requests due to patient census.”

Realization of this dire nursing situation and recent national studies linking high nurse-to-patient ratios with increased patient mortality have bumped the nursing shortage to a high priority on the nation’s legislative agenda. Lawmakers in Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Florida, and Pennsylvania proposed bills that would mandate specific minimum staffing levels. California implemented such a bill this year. (See accompanying article, “California Implements Minimum Nurse-to-Patient Ratios”) The Governor of Illinois just signed into law a bill that mandates disclosure of nurse-to-patient ratios for Illinois hospitals. Several other states are considering variations on such a law—but not Texas. US Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) introduced federal legislation this spring.

Meanwhile, the Texas Nurses Association is working with Texas hospitals to implement a number of additional measures of quality that relate directly to the adequacy of nursing staff. “We are requiring that hospitals measure indicators like falls. More patients fall if there are fewer RNs because if they hit the call button and don’t get a response (patients) are more likely to get themselves up,” said Jordan.

In 2001, Medicare investigated such a fall at Seton Medical Center. A registered nurse was not immediately available to help a patient clean up incontinence. The patient ended up on the floor and she could not get back in bed, even with assistance. She later complained of bruising when staff pulled her up and back into bed. Seton agreed to address the increased need for monitoring of such patients in the plan of care.

Since that time, both Seton and St. David’s have hired additional nurses, reduced the use of temporary nurses, and eliminated mandatory overtime that was once used to make sure the wards were staffed.

“We asked our people about staffing last week,” said Seton’s Hayes. “It was a problem two years ago. Not so right now. Five years ago we were using lots of (temporary) agency nurses. But just as important as having the number is having the right combination (of nurses) and having some continuity.”

Donna Stanley, a former Brackenridge RN now working at North Austin Medical Center, agrees that there are now more nurses than there were a few years ago. But she says the new nurses lack training, and continuous training by more experienced nurses is critical.

“You have to train the nurses. When they get out of school the training has only just begun,” she says. “Make sure the teaching is set up from people qualified to teach.” Stanley, concerned about inadequate training at Brackenridge, complained to supervisors and was eventually fired, leading to a whistleblower suit currently pending in Travis County.

“We brought younger nurses up to charge position (a supervisory role),” she told The Good Life. “But we had trouble with managers not training them and then they were fired. We wanted them trained.”

According to Hayes, Seton has significantly improved the way nurses are organized. “The new patient-care model puts nurses in teams on the floor so they have some backup for a more complex patient. Or if there’s a nurse right out of school, then they will have a more experienced nurse available.”

Massive expansions currently under construction at both Seton Medical Center and St. David’s Medical Center will require many additional nurses in the next year as new emergency room and medical units open up. But RNs are difficult to find. Recent recruiting efforts to fill the thirty-three RN slots at the Austin Women’s Hospital (on the fifth floor of Brackenridge Hospital) shows that it’s hard to find enough candidates even for that facility. An October 7 story in the Austin American-Statesman said that just ten RN applicants showed up on the first day of a two-day job fair. That facility was expected to open this month or next. Competition for nurses also stemmed from the new twenty-three bed Austin Surgical Hospital that opened in Rollingwood in September. The local demand for more nurses will go up still further with another new hospital scheduled to open in August 2004. The multispeciality hospital will be located in the Westlake Medical Center, with twenty-three overnight beds, plus some twenty-five post-operative overnight recovery beds, said Rip Miller, principal and general partner.

St. David’s hospitals have worked to recruit nurses from a variety of sources to cover the expansions. “We’ve got international recruitment we’ve done in the Philippines and England and all sorts of multifaceted ways we are trying to grow the nursing program. As I’ve told people, if the nurses aren’t there we won’t open the beds,” Foster said.

The use of foreign nurses depresses wages. A registered nurse working in a Texas hospital makes an average of $45,780 a year and frequently works a second job to make ends meet, according to Jordan of the Texas Nurses Association. “Nurses through the nineteen-nineties had flat wage levels, and going out of the country helps keep those wages down.”

And the use of foreign nurse recruitment is only a short-term solution. “Nurses coming in from foreign countries stay four to six years max,” says Jordan. “They want to go home eventually. The nurse that is educated in the area tends to have a higher probability of staying in the area.”

Both the Seton and St. David’s systems are supporting significant efforts to increase the number of nurses and other healthcare workers that are educated in Austin and will work in Austin, according to both Hayes and Foster. “There are 3,000 more qualified nursing applicants to nursing schools than there are slots available across the state of Texas. And it’s principally because the faculty is not there,” said Foster.

“We have formed a partnership with ACC (Austin Community College) to create a series of grants that have enabled them to expand the faculty, and therefore expand the capacity to take on new students,” he said.

According to Foster, these efforts have already opened up forty to fifty new nurse-training slots this year at ACC. The hospitals hope to train an additional sixty nontraditional students using an on-line curriculum next year.

“In addition to that, we have been working with the Health Industry Steering Committee (an area-wide workforce planning group that includes both major hospital systems) to solicit and expose people at a younger age to the clinical and health professions that are available to them.”

High school students will start to understand their options in the health professions better after participating in the new Health Science Institute at Lanier High School.

“AISD (Austin Independent School District) and ACC developed a curriculum that has enabled people who elect to enter the (Institute) to take ACC credit courses,” said Neal Kocurek, CEO of St. David’s Health Care System. “And if they maintain a certain grade level in this health (Institute) program, then they can enter the ACC nursing program straight out of high school.”

This could help relieve the long-range need for nurses, Kocurek said. “The average age of people entering the ACC program has been twenty-nine. They go back to school from another career or they just wait a long time to make that decision to go into nursing. We will be moving eighteen or nineteen year olds into the field. The average age of a nurse is forty-four, and if you don’t start until twenty-nine it shortens the career. This will help put people into the program much earlier.”

Jordan of the Texas Nursing Association notes that even in conditions of severe nursing shortage, some hospitals manage to be fully staffed. “The American Nurses Association studied why some hospitals have no shortage while others do, and they built a set of standards based on the characteristics of the no-shortage hospitals.”

The nursing staff standard promoted by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, a subsidiary of the American Nurses Association, is called the Magnet Award. “There are eighty-eight hospitals or hospital systems that have met those standards,” said Jordan. “The Seton system here is one of those hospitals. Magnet status should ensure you a higher level of care.”

Seton Medical Center, Brackenridge Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Austin, and Seton Northwest Hospital—all operated by Seton Healthcare Network—were awarded Magnet designation in December 2002. Although studies comparing patient outcomes at Magnet hospitals attribute improvements to higher nurse-to-patient ratios, Magnet hospitals are not required to meet minimum staffing levels. According to JCAHO, patients in Magnet hospitals spend less time in ICU, “perhaps reflecting a lower frequency of adverse patient events and earlier nursing interventions for incipient problems.”

“One of the things we’re blessed by,” said Seton’s Hayes, “is a recognition that in a community that has grown forty percent in the nineteen-nineties, we need everybody on the team to provide healthcare. So the majority of the time St. David’s and Seton look for ways that we can work together, and we’ve done that not just in (Health Industry Steering Committee) but in the indigent care collaborative and in planning after 9-11. (In) most communities, the hospitals don’t cooperate.”

Medical error

When thirty-eight-year-old Tammie Abrego scheduled her hernia operation at Seton Medical Center in 2001, she didn’t expect to end up back in the hospital again quite so soon. But when she woke up in the recovery room she realized that her surgical scar was on the wrong side.

See sidebar story “To Pick the Best Hospital Use Your Right to Know”

Her doctor had operated on the right rather than the left side, even though her medical order clearly indicated where the surgery was to occur, according to a physician who reviewed her medical files for her lawsuit. She had an unnecessary operation, and had to go back for the original surgery. Angry, she charged the hospital with assault in a civil suit. Seton settled her lawsuit and she signed a confidentiality agreement preventing her from talking about her case.

Between 44,000 and 98,000 patients die every year from medical errors, according to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, a nonprofit organization that provides independent guidance on matters of science and medicine. Mistakes in surgery or misdiagnosis can result in death in the worst cases, and frequently require repair by additional surgery or an extended hospital stay. Yet hospitals do not publicly report information about their rates of medical error and consumers cannot find out if one or another area hospital is more prone to mistakes.

The hospitals’ national accreditation agency, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), has called on hospitals to voluntarily report very serious medical errors that result in death or serious injury, but reporting levels are low and the information held by JCAHO remains confidential. The voluntary guidelines call for the hospital, as part of its quality of care system, to perform an analysis of the root cause of the death or serious injury and submit the analysis to the JCAHO. The JCAHO said it would not release information contained in the analysis, but would confirm whether it considered the analysis to be “thorough and credible.”

To relieve serious lower back and leg pain in 1998, Betty Jean Valerga underwent spinal surgery at St. David’s Medical Center. Six weeks later, she appeared to be healing and felt well enough to return to work. But in October 2000 she began to experience severe pain again in the same region. Her family doctor ordered an emergency x-ray, and identified a five-centimeter (two-inch) object at the surgery site. “On the x-ray it looked like a metal rod in the surgical area,” Valerga recalls. “My primary care physician sent me home to bed immediately.”

Valerga said when she called her surgeon’s office, the nurse told her that it “could not be our problem; we never leave anything inside after surgery.” The next physician she consulted told her surgery would be required to remove the object—which eventually turned out to be a surgical marker (a thread originally attached to a sponge) from the first operation. She filed suit. St. David’s denied any culpability, but also responded by suing Johnson & Johnson, the maker of the product.

“It would have made me feel better if someone had simply said, ‘We screwed up,'” says Valerga. “But to say, ‘We didn’t do anything wrong,’ it was like I made the whole thing up. I know people are lawsuit happy, and there are many things that are beyond a doctor’s control. But not to be held accountable, that’s not right either.”

According to Foster, St. David’s HealthCare Partnership hospitals routinely draw the surgical site on the patient to avoid operating on the wrong part of the anatomy. Seton conducts what Pat Hayes calls “patient safety rounds” to regularly investigate processes of care and look for ways to improve.

Medication errors

Medication mistakes are among the more common patient-care errors. According to the Leapfrog Group, more than a million serious medication errors occur every year in US hospitals, including administration of the wrong drug, drug overdoses, and overlooked drug interactions and allergies. The Institute of Medicine estimates that medication errors cost 7,000 people their lives every year and add $2 billion to our nation’s healthcare bill.

Studies show that certain best practices by hospitals can substantially reduce medication errors—at least in certain units—but no hospital in the Austin area has yet implemented these recommended practices, according to the TBGH report cards.

When Charles Ly dropped to the sidewalk outside a local restaurant in 1999, he was rushed by ambulance to Seton Medical Center. At Seton, an emergency room physician misread a computed tomography scan and misdiagnosed bleeding in the brain as calcification, according to the family’s medical reports filed in court. The physician prescribed a drug with a higher risk of complication for patients with hemorrhage. Ly’s condition worsened, and his family ultimately sued Seton over the care he received. Ly survived but needed significant rehabilitation, and the family’s lawsuit is ongoing. Seton has denied any negligence in the case.

Federal Health and Human Services investigators substantiated a medication error at Brackenridge Hospital last year. An emergency room doctor prescribed a sulfa drug to a patient with sulfa-drug allergies, even though the allergy was clearly recorded in the emergency room record. According to the hospital’s response to Medicare, information about the allergy was not transcribed from one set of forms to another, to be available to those who were to administer the drug in question. In fact, the form seen by the treating nurse erroneously claimed that the patient had no allergies.

According to the Leapfrog Group, this is exactly the kind of medical mistake that can be readily avoided by computerizing the prescription process. Computerization allows hospitals to intercept errors when they most commonly occur—at the time medications are first ordered. The doctor enters the order directly into a computer, which checks the order against other patient information including lab reports and other prescription information. The system automatically warns against drug interaction, allergies, and overdose.

Neither St. David’s system hospitals nor Seton system hospitals have a computerized physician prescription system in place. St. David’s expects to initiate such a system. St. David’s Foster said, “We’ve installed the necessary prerequisite software pieces to get there, but before that we’re going to be installing the Electronic Medication Administration records, the bar-coding system for medication administration, and that will be coming on line next year. It’s the concept of bar-coding all drugs, bar-coding all patients with their armbands, and the nurse wanding the drug, wanding the patient armband, and if there’s not a match she doesn’t give the drug. It takes any human error out of the process.”

Seton is investigating such a bar-code system, Hayes said.

St. David’s HealthCare Partnership’s four hospitals started the effort to eliminate human medication error by computerizing medication delivery within the hospital pharmacy.

“We’ve already done some things that no other hospital in the community has done,” says Foster. “We have a robotic system within our pharmacy that has a 99.999 accuracy rate in pulling drugs out of inventory. When humans are doing it there’s the possibility of human error, grabbing the wrong drug or the wrong dose, but we’ve automated that function to promote 100 percent accuracy, since it’s a robot that, based on orders entered into the system, pulls the drug and dispenses it to the dispensing cart and ensures that it’s accurate. So that, coupled with what we’re doing on the nursing side for the Electronic Medication Administration system next year, ought to make that pretty much foolproof. Once you layer on top of that the physician’s computerized order-entry of the medication you’ve closed out the entire loop. That’s pretty significant because…this technology takes that to a whole new dimension, a whole new threshold.”

St. David’s will install the new medication information systems in stages next year starting with North Austin Medical Center, then St. David’s Medical Center downtown, then Round Rock, and finally South Austin Hospital. “We’re talking about a multi-million-dollar investment in the technology to be able to do that,” Foster said. “A lot of hospitals can’t afford that. I think we will be the first in Austin and in this area.”

Hospital acquired infection

Nancy Trease has spent a lot of time in the hospital with recurring bouts of cancer, and her medical needs are complex. But her stay at Seton Medical Center got a lot longer last year when she came down with a drug-resistant, staphylococcus (bacterial) infection that invaded her chest and added a month to her hospital stay.

“No one discussed this possibility with me,” she says. “I ended up with severe, septic cellulitis. I had to be in traction because they couldn’t repair a break in the left hip until they got the infection under control.” Trease remembers little about that time, due to the fever and pain. “I was on morphine constantly,” she says now.

See sidebar story “Some Medical Procedures Rarely Done in Austin”

But a friend who stayed by her side during that terrible month attempted to improve the care she was receiving. Trease said, “Randy wrote a letter to the hospital about the infection. He was identifying things that were not satisfactory. Every time something wasn’t right, Randy would raise Cain and it would get better. The orthopedist really objected to Randy advocating for me. He said, ‘How could Randy know I had gotten that infection from the hospital.'” Trease is convinced her infection was a result of the care she received in the hospital, but was grateful for surviving her ordeal and let the matter drop.

Patients like Trease can get infections in the hospital because hospitals are indeed a favorable breeding environment for a wide variety of germs. At the greatest risk are surgical patients, those in the intensive care unit, and those using invasive technologies like catheters, ventilators, and IV lines that can carry germs into the body.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 88,000 people each year die from infections they contract while they are hospitalized for other health problems, making this the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States. “I’ve been living with cancer for many years,” says Trease, “but that infection just about took my life.”

Years ago, in an effort to help hospitals develop better ways to prevent the spread of infection, the CDC set up a national, voluntary infection-reporting system. Although more than 300 hospitals nationwide now participate in this system, no local hospitals participate. According to St. David’s, most of the participating hospitals are teaching hospitals or academic centers. Hospitals participating in the CDC system reduced infection rates over the last decade, but there is little public information available about infection-control improvements for most hospitals in the country, including Central Texas hospitals.

“Unfortunately, there is no good reporting,” says the TBGH’s Fazen. “A hospital infection is a ‘never’ event—something that should never happen. But right now it’s nearly impossible for a consumer to get information about hospital infections.”

Local hospital officials concede that they do not publicly report infection-rate information and consumers cannot readily find out whether a hospital has an infection problem. “You might not know. That’s a very valid issue,” said St. David’s Foster. “There’s a blue ribbon, gold standard (method) of how you address that relative to antibiotic therapy prior to surgery, and of course we require that all of our patients receive that. And that pretty much addresses your surgical infection rates. Across the country, surgical infection rates are very low. Now there may be other infections that occur out there for other reasons.”

According to Foster, all hospitals track infection rates internally. “All hospitals would be tracking their infection rates and have a process for reviewing that. We have infection-control nurses and infection-control policies and procedures in our hospitals and that’s something the Joint Commission (on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations) reviews you on. All hospitals do that.”

Seton also tracks its infections internally and does not disclose that information.

According to the CDC, diligent handwashing is among the most important procedures that actually prevent the spread of infection among hospital patients. This basic precaution may be one of the most difficult things to enforce in a large hospital with a busy staff, and handwashing procedures have to encompass all the staff who move from room to room.

Both Heart Hospital and South Austin Hospital have been investigated by Medicare and found deficient in certain infection-control practices-particularly with respect to food service and housekeeping staff.

Medicare found problems with Heart Hospital in 1999 related to staff working in both food service and in housekeeping, with potential cross-contamination. Heart Hospital—which declined to be interviewed for any aspect of this story—addressed the problem by promising to monitor infections and communicable disease, and giving disposable gowns to dietary employees, according to the Medicare report. Medicare has not identified problems at Heart Hospital since then.

In 2002, Medicare found that South Austin Hospital dietary employees moved from room to room—including rooms where patients were at higher risk of infection—without washing hands. Visits in both January and February 2002 found continuing deficiencies in handwashing. According to Medicare, “The facility continued to fail to insure a consistent infection-control program as it specifically related to the delivery of patient trays and handwashing.”

Medicare investigators found that staff delivering food trays at South Austin Hospital did not remove gloves or wash hands between rooms, nor did they ensure that the right tray went to the right patient by checking the patient’s wrist band or calling the patient by name. In response to the investigation, South Austin Hospital promised to have the dietary director observe tray delivery and monitor compliance with infection-control processes daily.

“Our infection-control procedures and process call for washing hands in between seeing patients,” said Foster of St. David’s Partnership, which operates South Austin Hospital. “Now, is there a possibility that there is someone who doesn’t wash their hands? Obviously, you wouldn’t believe me if I said that it doesn’t happen. Now someone who doesn’t wash hands as an oversight or something doesn’t automatically create an infection. But it isn’t following our own internal processes. We take those very seriously. There is a process. There are policies. They are monitored. If an employee forgets one time or something, that may happen but it’s not very often. It’s drilled into their heads.”

But there are also technical solutions. Many busy hospital staffers do not wash enough because they don’t feel they have the time to stop and scrub between every patient contact—even though they know how important it is. Many hospitals use an alcohol-based alternative to soap that kills germs with less time spent scrubbing.

“We certainly are using (alcohol-based washes) more,” said Seton’s Hayes. “Its very, very effective and convenient. I don’t know the extent of our current use, but I’m guessing it will ramp up. Now that isn’t going to happen in surgery, but when you are going out of patient rooms time after time after time, that’s where that is really helpful.”

According to the CDC, the extra days people have to stay in the hospital due to a hospital-acquired infection add $5 billion to the nation’s healthcare costs. A study released last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association noted that the additional cost associated with an average infection due to medical care was $40,323. According to the hospitals, they bear the bulk of that extra cost themselves.

“Most insurance plans pay a lump sum amount for the diagnosis that is cared for in the hospital, regardless of whether the patient stays three days or 300 days,” said St. David’s Foster. “So because of that, typically speaking for the vast majority of our patients, that is how payment is rendered. So the hospital would end up absorbing the incremental cost beyond what is expected.”

Uninsured patients, of course, do not negotiate diagnosis-based, lump-sum bills. According to St. David’s, those patients don’t pay anything, whether or not they get a hospital infection. “They don’t pay anything. The truth is in 2003 we’ll render close to $100 million in free care for the people of Central Texas, largely those that are uninsured and can’t afford to pay.”

Many groups advise consumers to remain vigilant on handwashing and other safety issues. “People should ask their nurses and other caregivers if they have washed their hands,” the TBGH’s Fazen advises, even if the question seems awkward.

Clarian Health, an Indiana-based hospital system, advises patients to “be a handwashing warden” by asking all hospital personnel who enter the room to wash their hands in your presence. Clarian further advises its patients to ask personnel who wear fake nails to put on gloves before touching them, because studies show that harmful bacteria collect under these nails even after washing.

Tony Field, a British financial advisor who turned patient advocate after suffering a serious hospital infection, advises patients to carefully examine their room for dust and get someone in there to clean it if needed.

Our local hospitals advise that patients take an active role in all their care. “If a patient (or) a family member feels concerned about the level of attention to a particular thing…they should very much bring that to the staff’s attention and voice their concerns,” says St. David’s Foster. “I don’t think anyone should sit idly by. If something doesn’t seem right to them, they should say so.”

Emergency room care

Because emergency rooms have to take all comers, regardless of ability to pay, and have to address every kind of illness for all ages and types of people, the emergency room has become the nation’s front line against disease. The pressures on emergency rooms are fierce—too many patients and sometimes too few doctors and nurses to diagnose and treat them. At the same time, patients with serious illnesses don’t expect long waits for emergency treatment, multiple transfers in search of the right specialist, or medical errors.

Austinite Pam Uhr, mother of three very active boys, has visited local emergency rooms many times over the years. “I have several ER experiences with my kids at Children’s Hospital and Seton, and visits for myself and my mother-in-law at North Austin (Medical Center).” Most of those experiences have been good, she says, and some hospitals appear to have systems in place to smooth the bumpy ride.

“Seton has what they call a ‘minor emergency track’ that diverts some of the patients,” Uhr said. “That way you get to see a doctor quickly. At Children’s all the kids are together. You are divided by only a curtain. One time, on the other side was a kid who was very, very ill. It makes you wonder about infection. The ‘minor’ ER lets them separate the really sick ones from the ones who still need to be seen but are not so sick.”

According to Foster, all St. David’s HealthCare Partnership hospitals now have such a “fast track” system. “We have a fast-track triage at all of our hospitals now for patients with less urgent needs. We call it Quick-Care. To try to expedite care, we also have bedside registration, meaning the paperwork gets done at bedside after the triage and basic treatment begins.”

“My wife broke her arm,” said Neal Kocurek, CEO of St. David’s Health Care System. “Immediately she was taken into a treatment room. She was treated, then the administrative person brought the computer on the rolling cart to do the registration.”

Waiting can be more than just an inconvenience. When Pam Uhr’s mother-in-law was very ill with pancreatic cancer, she called Uhr one day in terrible pain. “I called the doctor and he said to take her to the ER. We waited in the waiting room at Seton Northwest Hospital for hours. It was horrible. It was crowded. Packed full of people. She was barely able to sit up. She would rather have suffered at home than in that waiting room. Once she was admitted, it was really great. The doctor was so good we had to call and thank him. As soon as he came in he ordered pain meds and got her stabilized. But it was a long wait.”

Sometimes patients wait hours in the ER for an on-call specialist needed to review the case. A South Austin resident went to South Austin Hospital emergency room this past spring after a serious bicycle accident left him with deep skin damage, a twisted ankle, and shoulder pain. “It was 8am on a Saturday,” he remembers. “After we got there, it took an hour to do the paperwork, then I sat on a cot for an hour. A doctor came in and cut open the elbow area and pulled the stones out. Then I sat there for hours, holding my arm up. The doctor said he needed an orthopedic surgeon and they didn’t have one. I waited for hours. The guy never came.” The patient finally left the hospital about 7pm, without a consultation from a surgeon and with instructions to see his own doctor on Monday. When his doctor referred him to a specialist, the broken clavicle was finally diagnosed. “It’s not really fixed,” he says now with chagrin. “I can’t swim laps at Barton Springs anymore, and the ER cost a lot of money.” The patient, who spoke on condition of anonymity, is still negotiating a payment plan with the hospital over thousands of dollars in billings that resulted from this incident.

Brackenridge hospital was cited by Medicare in August and November 2002 after an on-call neurosurgeon twice refused to come to the ER to see emergency patients, according to Medicare inspection reports. In both cases, a patient arrived at the ER with persistent headache and a computed tomography scan that indicated bleeding in the brain. The neurosurgeon told the emergency room physician that she would not come in because “she did not provide care for aneurysms,” and she “accepted consultation for pediatric and personal patients only.” One of these two patients had been transferred once already from another hospital that was unable to provide adequate care.

Seton, which manages Brackenridge Hospital, refused to say whether this neurosurgeon was disciplined, citing the privileged status of the hospital’s peer-review process.

Access to neurosurgeons became a very serious problem for local hospitals last year after “a majority of the neurologists” resigned from the Seton medical staff, according to Seton’s response to Medicare investigations. This left Seton hospitals without enough such specialists to have full seven-day-a-week, on-call access for ER care.

According to Seton’s Hayes, the real problem isn’t physicians who don’t come to the ER, but the shortage of specialists in the community. “The community has a huge problem having enough specialists. That’s a big cutting-edge problem,” she told The Good Life. “Having said that, no, there’s not a problem with physicians on call, particularly at Brackenridge, where we pay for call.” Brackenridge Hospital pays specialists to be on call at the trauma center in accordance with trauma center certification requirements of the American College of Surgeons.

“There aren’t enough,” Hayes added. “Our community is facing an issue where we’re not going to have (enough specialists in)…neurology is an example. But we just don’t have anybody signed up.” According to a written follow-up statement from Seton, the system continues to struggle with specialist access because some specialists do not work with hospitals at all, but only out of a private office, while others are not willing to take emergency room calls due to practice patterns and lifestyle choices.

Medicare investigated this situation at the Seton system after a September 2002 car accident. The victim, with evidence of a brain hemorrhage, originally arrived at the Seton Northwest Hospital emergency room but had to be transferred twice before getting to a St. David’s HealthCare Partnership hospital that had neurologists and neurosurgeons available on call.

In the fall of 2002, Seton administrators met with their counterparts at St. David’s and Travis County EMS to develop a transfer protocol to ensure that patients needing neurological care would go to Brackenridge and St. David’s hospitals. St. David’s reports that its hospitals have now recovered from the neurology shortage.

“We’ve been able to recruit additional neurosurgeons,” Foster said. “We’ve recruited additional neurosurgeons to the team at North Austin Medical Center and at St. David’s Medical Center, so we have coverage across the entire partnership for neurosurgery emergency department calls. There was a period of time there when there was some spotty coverage, and what the ambulance services would do is do the best they could with that information, and route people to the hospitals where they knew they had neurosurgical coverage, but St. David’s System hospitals are now covered twenty-four/seven.”

Some of the pressure to transfer patients among emergency rooms has also been relieved by the hospital’s major expansion programs. Last year, the Austin American-Statesman reported that patients were increasingly transferred among emergency departments because the emergency rooms were too full to accept more patients. But according to St. David’s Foster, local emergency room capacity has significantly increased in recent months. “Our capital improvements have tripled ER capacity in Round Rock (Medical Center), doubled at St. David’s Medical Center and doubled at South Austin Hospital,” he says.

Keep lines of communication open

Satisfied patients interviewed by The Good Life tended to focus on the positive and respectful communication they enjoyed, while unhappy patients identified those moments when the communication broke down. Often patients enjoy very different experiences of the same hospital.

When Lynne LaFontaine of North Austin checked in to Seton Medical Center for surgery, she felt she participated fully in her care at every stage and came away very satisfied. “My doctor did a good job of explaining to me what to expect, what it would be like, how to prepare, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be,” she told The Good Life. “She asked what I wanted for a sedative. She talked about everything and was open to questions.”

And it wasn’t just the physician staff. LaFontaine found that nurses also communicated openly and took extra time. “The nursing staff did a good job putting in the IV. They told me what to expect and what everything was. They made Scott, my boyfriend, feel welcome and comfortable there. I didn’t have to call them because they checked on me pretty regularly.”

David Dominguez of East Austin, recently under the knife for a hernia, likes St. David’s Medical Center because they always take the time to be informative and caring. “I’ve been in Austin all my life. I’ve had experience with other hospitals. I always get treated at St. David’s if I have the choice, because I always get treated right there. They were very clear about the instructions after my surgery, and they answered all my questions.”

Patients or the family members of patients with complex medical needs can be particularly insistent that the hospital staff pay attention to them, and even take direction. While the staff may be seeing this person for the first time, family members have years of relevant experience and knowledge.

Hadassah Schloss has taken her daughter Mirav to several local hospitals over the years. As a severely autistic adult child with significant physical disabilities, Mirav presents a challenge to any hospital system set up primarily to address physical illness. So her mother expects to be very involved in her care—and have her wishes respected.

“The worst experience we ever had was at North Austin Medical Center,” she says. “Her doctor wanted to see how her kidneys were doing and scheduled tests. We had three meetings to arrange the times for each step.”

See sidebar story “Making the Best of Your Hospital Stay”

But after carefully orchestrating the event, communication broke down. “We got to the room, and the time comes for the sedative, and they arrive with orange juice. We said no, but the nurse said it would be okay. Well it was not okay, and they couldn’t sedate her. It took seven people to catheterize her. They tried to make us (family members) leave the room. She was supposed to have the test at 8:30am. By 1:45pm she still hadn’t had the test and she was (acting) crazy. They took her back to her room and I said she needed to go home…now! But the doctor—it was like talking to a wall. I finally said I want her out, and I filed a complaint. They said they were going to talk to people, but they never got back to me.”

For the Schlosses, this incident illustrates why doctors and nurses should listen to patients and their families—even about something as simple as a glass of orange juice—and why patients and families should take extra care to ask questions and make sure that caregivers follow the treatment plan at every step.

“Make them listen and don’t let them dismiss you,” advises Schloss. “There is an attitude in the medical community that they know better. They tend to dismiss parents particularly, because parents are ‘too involved, too emotional.’ There’s a huge, huge hump you have to get over. I have to swallow lumps. But then I say, ‘Do I have to bring out Mommy Dearest? If I do, I will.”‘

Fazen of the TBGH agrees that families and patients should actively monitor the care and advocate for their own needs. “Family members need to be the advocate for the patient,” she says. “You should be given aspirin for heart care before (surgery) and when you leave. Did the doctor prescribe beta-blockers? You just can’t go into a hospital blind anymore.”

Jordan of the Texas Nurses Association recommends that patients “take a buddy. You are not at your best in the hospital, and it’s important to have someone who is fully functioning to watch out for you. And the more a patient knows about their care, the more they can be a participant. Never think that your doctor is taking care of something. If you don’t know, bring it to a nurse. The nurse is the one caring for you continuously.”

Hospitals are community safety nets

Central Texas residents depend on local hospitals for crucial medical care. Hospitals bear tremendous responsibilities. What they do—or in some cases fail to do—often makes a difference not only in our quality of life but whether we have a life left to live.

What we’ve learned in exploring how well the crucial responsibilities of local hospitals are being carried out is that patients stand a better chance if they can pick the best hospital for a given procedure, but there is not enough information publicly available. Patients and their families and loved ones need to study the charts provided with this story, do additional research, and make informed decisions when deciding what hospital to use.

Further, once in a hospital, patients, with the assistance of families and loved ones, must take an active interest in monitoring how well they are served and be prepared to intervene on those occasions, rare though they may be, when treatment goes awry. It’s a matter of life and death. And whose life is it anyway?

Kathy Mitchell, like most people, is trying to stay healthy and hoping she doesn’t ever wind up in a hospital. But after preparing this report, she will be much more savvy about picking a hospital if she does need one. This article was originally published in the November 2003 edition of The Good Life magazine.

High-Tech Hospitals

All hospitals in the Central Texas area have invested in technology, with more investments to come, and focused on improving quality in specialized areas of care. The investments and reorganizations give prospective patients a sense of the hospital’s priorities.

Neurology—Both St. David’s and Seton have reorganized neurology and neurosurgery into comprehensive care units. The St David’s Institute for Neurology and Neurosurgery at St. David’s Medical Center “is where we have our rehab programs, our rehab hospital, where we have our outpatient therapy clinics, our neurosurgery program, our neurology program, (and) our neurology ICU (Intensive Care Unit),” says Jon Foster, president and CEO of St. David’s HealthCare Partnership (a partnership between the not-for-profit St. David’s HealthCare System and Hospital Corporation of America). “It’s where we have aggregated all those neuroscience procedures and services into a robust program that is doing a fantastic job and continues to improve year over year. And that’s because it has received so much concentrated attention.” Seton has similarly aggregated such services at Brackenridge, in coordination with the trauma facilities there. In August 2002, Seton opened the new Brain and Spine Center, a continuum of care primarily focused at Brackenridge Hospital, a result of several years of work by Seton staff to put together a neuroscience center that aspires to be second to none.

Pain management—A hospital’s ability to safely, promptly and effectively manage pain can be the deciding factor separating a good hospital experience from a bad one. St. David’s had focused on improving pain management, and has been identified by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) as a top hospital. “Our pain management process within the St. David’s system have been cited by the Joint Commission as a best practice in the nation for how we monitor and deal with pain management issues for our patients,” says Foster. “That is one area we feel we’ve made great progress. It’s a much more robust system of getting feedback from patients by ranking their pain in layman’s terms, so we can really get at the heart of how they are doing and be responsive to their pain needs.”

Devices—Some procedures can only be provided if a hospital has the right tools. St. David’s system hospitals can provide digital mammography services, and expect that this new mammography tool will increase early detection of breast cancer by twenty percent. A gamma knife allows patients to substitute a noninvasive technique for cranial surgery, but the device is currently not available in Austin. St. David’s recently purchased one and is in the process of installing it and implementing a program. Last month, Seton Medical Center announced a new Nuclear Medicine System that will help physicians diagnose how well a heart is functioning, and will help pinpoint the location of cancerous tumors, bone fractures, and ruptured abdominal blood vessels.

Somebody may be watching—And this time you might be glad about it. Not yet, but in the future, patients in St. David’s intensive care units might be placed under camera surveillance. “As an additional layer of care, we would have all of our cardiac and physiological monitoring systems wired into a central station where…intensivist physicians would monitor the vital signs twenty-four hours, seven days a week, 365 days a year of every ICU patient. And in addition to that, we would have cameras of such a sophistication loaded into our ICUs that could literally do retina scans of patients, they are so powerful,” says Foster. “There aren’t enough intensivists to be in every patient’s room, so this system would leverage the ability of the physician. I think it will be the standard of care in about five years, and we’re looking at it right now for maybe implementation sometime next year.”

Model medical-surgical units—With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the fourth-floor medical-surgical unit at Seton Northwest Hospital will pilot new health-delivery systems from October 2003 through March 2004. The program, called Transforming Care at the Bedside, was open to all nursing Magnet hospitals, but Robert Wood Johnson chose only Seton in Austin, Shadyside Hospital in Pittsburgh and Roseville Hospital in Sacramento. A national team of experts will work at each of these three sites to test new ideas for improving care, and expect to end up with proposals for better delivery of care on hospital general medical-surgical units by next year.

—Kathy Mitchell

Some Medical Procedures Rarely Done in Austin

The Texas Health Care Information Council reports on the total number of selected procedures conducted by local hospitals each year. For each of these procedures, a higher volume is usually associated with better care. But for the following procedures, Austin hospitals conduct relatively few compared to hospitals in Dallas and Houston.

Pediatric heart surgery—Children’s Hospital at Brackenridge conducted seventy-five of these in 2001, while all other area hospitals did fewer than five such operations. By contrast, Children’s Medical Center Dallas conducted 382, and Texas Children’s Hospital Houston conducted 442.

Esophageal resection—Only The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center conducts more than ten of these procedures each year. No Austin hospital conducted more than five. Esophageal resection is a complex cancer surgery for cancer of the esophagus. Studies have shown that providers with higher volumes have lower mortality rates.

Pancreatic resection—No area hospital conducted more than five procedures. M.D. Anderson conducted sixty-six. Pancreatic resection is a complex pancreatic cancer surgery for which studies have also shown that providers with higher volumes have lower mortality rates.

Carotid endartectomy—The Heart Hospital of Austin and Seton Medical Center each conduct about ninety-five such procedures a year, while other area hospitals conducted fewer than forty. By contrast, Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas hosted 324 such procedures in 2001. A carotid endartectomy is a surgical procedure to remove blockage of the carotid artery in patients at risk for stroke.

—Kathy Mitchell

Acute-Care Hospitals Serving Central Texas

There are thirteen acute-care hospitals located in Travis, Williamson, Hays, Burnet and Caldwell counties. These hospitals are controlled by five separate healthcare systems, as follows:

Adventist Health System
111 N. Orlando Ave.
Winter Park, Florida 32789
407-647-4400

Central Texas Medical Center
1301 Wonder World Drive
San Marcos 78666
512-353-8979

Ascension Health
PO Box 45998
St. Louis, Missouri 63145-5998
314-733-8000

Seton Healthcare Network
1201 W. 38th St.
Austin, Texas 78705
512-324-1000

Seton Healthcare Network manages:

Brackenridge Hospital, 601 E. 15th St., 512-324-7000
Children’s Hospital of Austin, 1400 N. I-35, 512-324-8000
Seton Edgar B. Davis, 130 Hays St., Luling 830-875-7000
Seton Highland Lakes, Highway 281 South, Burnet 512-715-3000
Seton Medical Center, 1201 W. 38th St. 512-324-1000
Seton Northwest Hospital, 11113 Research Blvd. 512-324-6000

Georgetown Healthcare System
2000 Scenic Drive, Georgetown 78626
512-943-3000

MedCath Corporation
10720 Sikes Place, Suite 300
Charlotte, North Carolina 28277
704-708-6600

Heart Hospital of Austin
3801 N. Lamar Blvd.
512-407-7000

St. David’s HealthCare Partnership
98 San Jacinto Blvd., Suite 1800
Austin, Texas 78701
512-708-9700

This partnership between the not-for-profit St. David’s HealthCare System and the Nashville, Tennessee-based Hospital Corporation of America manages:

North Austin Medical Center, 12221 N. MoPac 512-901-1000
Round Rock Medical Center, 2400 Round Rock Ave. 512-341-1000
St. David’s Medical Center, 919 E. 32nd St. 512-476-7111
South Austin Hospital, 901 W. Ben White Blvd. 512-447-2211

—Ken Martin

California’s Minimum Nurse-to-Patient Ratios

In 1999, California passed the nation’s first legislation to establish minimum registered nurse-to-patient staffing ratios for different types of care. Nearly four years later, after reviewing tens of thousands of comments, the California Department of Health Services has finally decided exactly what those ratios should be. The minimum ratios are the same for every shift, and create a minimum standard effective January 1, 2004. Additional registered nurses must be added if warranted by the severity of patients’ conditions.

The following is a list of the minimum California RN-to-patient ratios for some commonly used hospital units:
Critical care ICU, Neonatal ICU—1:2.
Continuing care nursery—1:4.
Labor and delivery—1:2 (active labor).
Antepartum—1:4 (no active labor).
Postpartum—1:6 (mothers).
Couplet care—4 couplets (mothers and babies staying together).
Well-baby nursery—1:8.
Postanesthesia—1:2.
Trauma—1:1.
Operating room—1:1.
Critical care—1:2.
Medical-surgical—1:6 (goes to 1:5 in 2005).
Pediatrics—1:4.
Specialty (e.g. oncology)—1:5 (goes to 1:4 in 2008).
Psychiatry—1:6.

—Kathy Mitchell

To Pick the Best Hospital Use Your Right to Know

There’s often no time to research the hospital before you need it. But for everything from a scheduled surgical procedure to childbirth, you may have some breathing room, and it’s worth investing a little time in research. Hospitals are not all the same, and some may be able to provide better care for your specific needs than others. Because some specialists only have privileges at selected hospitals, your choice of doctor and hospital may go together.

According to a recently released survey of 21,000 consumers by Consumer Reports magazine, the most important factors for good quality care include sufficient staff (especially registered nurses), good systems in place for organizing the care, and experience with your particular medical condition.

The Good Life compiled the following helpful tips based on things we learned researching this story and published advice from a number of different consumer and healthcare groups.

If you have insurance, does your health plan or employer provide a tool to compare the hospitals in your network with one another?

Like Aetna, a number of large national insurers now provide on-line tools for enrollees trying to select a hospital. The Texas Business Group on Health (TBGH) provides such a tool for the employees of its members. Dell Inc. and HEB are members, as well as a number of other area businesses. Ask if your employer is a member, or check for yourself at www.tbgh.org/members.htm. You can use these tools, or others listed below, to answer some of the following questions.

Does the hospital regularly treat your condition?

High-volume hospitals tend to have better outcomes, according to most research. You can ask the hospital how many procedures like yours they do every year, and compare that to other local hospitals. For many procedures, especially those that relate to heart care or childbirth, you can look up the procedure volume online, along with selected mortality rates. For the most recent available Texas state data, go directly to the hospital-by-hospital comparison tables for your procedure at www.thcic.state.tx.us/IQIReport2001/IQIReport2001.htm.

For an easier to use set of comparisons, there are some on-line “hospital report cards” that will provide a wide range of information. For free information about Austin area hospitals, try www.healthgrades.com.

Other free online report cards tested by The Good Life did not yet include Texas hospital data, which only became available last year.

How many patients are there for each registered nurse (RN) in the unit that you will need?

Recent studies indicate that each additional patient more than four in a nurse’s workload increases the risk that patients will die (see main article, “How Safe is Your Hospital?”). The National Nurses Alliance says there should be no more than four patients for every RN on general medical-surgical units. Proposed mandatory staffing laws in Congress and in several states provide guidelines for staff ratios advocated by nurses. Ask how the hospital’s staffing compares to these guidelines. Texas hospitals are not accustomed to giving out this information, so you may have to insist!

Are there doctors available in all the specialties you will need?

Ask your primary doctor what specialty doctors you are likely to require for your treatment, and what kind of specialists would you likely need if something goes wrong. Check to see if the hospital has a full range of these specialists available.

Will your care be coordinated by a single physician?

Depending on the complexity of your treatment, you may be visited by a number of different doctors, nurses and specialists. To reduce the chance of overlapping or conflicting orders, ask if your care can be coordinated by a single physician that you will see each day.

Is the hospital fully accredited?

All the hospitals in Austin covered in this report have received full accreditation by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) and are in good standing. As you narrow down your choice of hospitals, check the accreditation status at www.jcaho.org/qualitycheck/directry/directry.asp. Ask the hospital about any outstanding issues for improvement.

How do infection and error rates compare with national benchmarks?

Most hospitals will not tell you the infection rates or error rates associated with your procedure, although most track some or all of this information. But hospitals should be able to tell you how their infection rates compare with averages published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). If you are scheduling a surgery, ask whether the hospital’s post-surgical infection rates are better, worse, or comparable to CDC benchmarks. You can also ask if the hospital has had to report any “sentinel events” to an accreditation body related to the treatment you need. A “sentinel event” is a complication that results in death or serious injury to a patient.

What programs does the hospital have in place to reduce errors and improve patient safety?

The Leapfrog Group, a coalition of more than 140 public and private organizations that provide healthcare benefits, recommends that hospitals computerize physician orders to reduce medication errors. Other recommendations include incorporating a pharmacist into daily rounds. Adequate infection control staff is also important. Ask whether the hospital has one or more full-time infection control specialists coordinating infection-reduction programs, and ask about the hospital’s initiatives to reduce medical errors.

Is there a patient representative or ombudsman on staff?

If so, ask what services this person can provide during your hospital stay. If not, ask how complaints are handled.

What do other patients have to say about their treatment at the hospital?

Ask around. You may be surprised how many people you know who have recently visited a local hospital and have something to say about the experience. Ask them what they liked, and what they noticed about their hospital care. The federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality suggests you ask the hospital for a copy of its most recent patient satisfaction survey. Hospitals are not required to release patient satisfaction surveys, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Special questions parents should ask about their birthing hospital

New parents should ask the same questions about staffing, medical errors, infection and coordination of care that other patients ask, but there are a number of special questions you can ask to identify the best hospital to have your baby, as follows;

(1) Are nurses trained in neonatal resuscitation available at all times, and does the hospital have its own neonatal intensive care unit?

Hopefully very few parents will experience the tragedy that drove the Ogle family into court over the birth of their daughter (see main article, “How Safe is Your Hospital?”). Ask the hospital to specifically describe how they would handle a sudden emergency requiring skilled resuscitation of your newborn child.

(2) How does the hospital’s Caesarian-section rate compare to the state average?

This information is available at www.thcic.state.tx.us. You can also ask the hospital. A lower C-section rate may indicate better care.

(3) Will a nurse or midwife be available throughout labor at your request?

Adequate nursing attention during the whole course of labor reduces C-section rates and increases family satisfaction, according to Lourdes Hospital in New York.

(4) Does the hospital have an anesthesiologist on staff at all times?

Peg Moline, editor of Fit Pregnancy magazine, recommends that even if you don’t intend to use drugs during labor that you should ensure there is flexibility to change your mind.

(5) Does the hospital provide a place for the father to sleep, and how does it handle visitors?

Your comfort, and your ability to be together as a new family, is important too.

—Kathy Mitchell

Making the Best of Your Hospital Stay

Patients and their families can play a significant role in ensuring good quality care and preventing medical errors. Questions you ask and decisions you make can improve your medical outcome and your overall hospital experience. Even if you are rushed to the hospital, and thus cannot prepare for your stay in advance, many of these tips can help make your stay better and ensure a healthier outcome.

What medications will I need during my stay, and what rules apply?

Ask your doctor to make a list of the medications you are likely to need, with notations about the dosage, the color and shape of the pills, whether they should be taken with food, and what other restrictions may apply. Take your notes with you, so that you can make sure you get the medications you need at the doses prescribed. During your stay, if medications arrive that you don’t recognize—or you don’t get a medication when you expected—ask questions.

How will I access pain medication?

Plan your pain medication needs in advance. Talk to your doctor, and outline the process you will have for access to pain medication. Improperly managed pain can extend a patient’s recovery period, and certainly reduces patient satisfaction. Ask your doctor whether a regular schedule of pain medication or access to a self-administered system will be appropriate for your hospitalization.

Who will be in charge?

Arrange for a single doctor to be in charge of your care to minimize conflicting orders. If you have a long medical history, go over that medical history with the doctor and highlight the most important facts that you know. Ask that doctor to stop by your room once a day, and use that visit to ask any questions you have.

How can I ensure that a friend or family member can participate in my care?

Most of us are not at our level best when hospitalized for illness or injury. Several people told The Good Life that it was important to have someone else watching over their hospital care. But patient confidentiality rules, designed to protect your medical information from strangers, might limit what a friend can do. Decide who you want to have access to all your care information, and make sure you have signed any forms required by the hospital. If you don’t have a family member or a friend who can be with you twenty-four hours a day, you might consider hiring a private-duty nurse to fill the gaps. Your insurance may not cover the cost, but it could be worth the expense if it heads off problems.

How do I keep track of what’s going on?

It would be worthwhile to keep a written record of treatments you receive and significant changes in your condition. Note questions you have for nurses and physicians, and write down the gist of their answers. If you’re not up to this record-keeping, ask your family member, friend or private nurse to do it.

What are “clinical pathways” and how can they help?

For many procedures, hospitals have standard procedures in place from the time you enter the hospital till your discharge. Ask for a copy of the clinical pathway. You will have a clear idea what to expect from your treatment, and you can ask questions if your care seems to be wandering off the “path.”

Will you draw it on me?

Ask your doctor to mark the surgical site on your body before surgery. This is one tested way to make sure you don’t wake up, like Tammie Abrego, with a surgical scar in the wrong place. (See main article, “How Safe is Your Hospital?”)

Will I benefit from antibiotics an hour before surgery?

Ask your doctor whether your surgery can be complicated by infection, and if there’s a risk of infection, ask whether you should get antibiotics in the hour before surgery as recommended by a number of physician and quality-of-care organizations.

Are you controlling the spread of infection?

Don’t feel embarrassed to ask hospital staff whether they have washed their hands before they touch you or treat you. If you don’t see staff people wash their hands or don gloves before treating you, they may be carrying infection from another patient or part of the hospital. Studies show that handwashing is a good way to reduce hospital infection, but that compliance with procedures is sometimes low.

Do I still need this catheter or this IV fluid?

Devices like intravenous or urinary catheters provide a pathway for infection to invade the body. As you start to recover, ask whether you still need such devices and follow-up if they are not removed at the time you expect.

Should I read my chart?

If you are feeling up to it, read your chart or ask your friend or family member to read it for you. Your chart should contain full information about your medication, test results, and recovery. You may not understand all of it, but if anything seems unexpected, ask about it when the doctor visits.

Should I ask for a discharge planner?

Most hospital stays are shorter than they used to be, and this is not necessarily a bad thing. But if you are feeling rushed out before you are ready (you still can’t keep food down, you feel feverish or faint, you just took your first oral medication), ask your doctor if the discharge is premature. Ask to speak to a discharge planner and find out if your insurance plan has terminated approval for additional hospital time. You or a family member may have to call the insurance company.

—Kathy Mitchell

Power Shift

Energy

Editor Ken Martin

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October 1, 2003 6:00 AM

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About 11,800 words

We are approaching what’s shaping up to be a global crisis. The supplies of oil and natural gas are dwindling rapidly. What’s left will be of lower quality, harder to extract, and increasingly expensive. The higher cost will be reflected in every facet of our lives, including our utility bills, the price of gasoline, and the goods and services we buy. Meanwhile world population growth spirals upward unabated, creating demand for ever more energy. China, for example, has just come into the automobile age as cars replace bicycles in Beijing.

The general public is not aware of the impending crisis because it’s not well publicized. It’s not happy news. And the ugly reality of the situation is just far enough over the horizon that policymakers can pretend it’s nothing to worry about right now. It probably won’t be a big factor in the next presidential election.

One president told us the truth. In addressing the nation on April 18, 1977, President Jimmy Carter said, “The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly. It’s a problem that we will not be able to solve in the next few years, and it’s likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century. We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren. We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.”

Carter’s message came just three years after the Arab oil embargo ended. That disruption of our energy supplies shocked the world, caused President Richard Nixon to set the nation on a course of voluntary rationing, and triggered Congressional approval of the Trans-Alaskan oil pipeline. The US production of both oil and natural gas peaked in the early nineteen-seventies and has been falling ever since. Today we’re more than ever dependent on foreign oil.

But the American people are not paying attention. Consumers buy increasingly larger numbers of gas-guzzling SUVs and pickup trucks. Lawmakers refuse to require automakers to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles. We consume more and more energy. We are asleep at the wheel, headed ninety miles an hour down a dead-end street.

The documented research

In his book The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (New Society Publishers 2003) Richard Heinberg traces the arc of human civilization in terms of energy. He explores each fossil-fuel resource and cites scientific opinion about the supplies we have left and what that portends. He delves into each form of renewable energy and determines the odds that it, either alone or in combination with other renewable resources, might fill the gap. As the book’s title implies, his findings are not good news.

The big question is, “When will global oil extraction peak?” The simple answer is “fairly soon” according to Heinberg. He enumerates the variables and, on the basis of a range of scientific opinion, concludes: “The global peak of extraction for all fossil-fuel liquids is unlikely to occur earlier than 2006, or later than 2015.” Once past that peak, the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Production dwindles. Prices rise. The whole of industrial civilization begins to atrophy, suffering disruptions in food supplies, transportation, communications, and anything else dependent upon energy.

Even some in the oil industry are waking up to reality. In a speech given to oil industry executives at an energy conference in Houston on February 9, 1999, Mike Bowlin, Atlantic Richfield Company’s chief executive officer, said, “We’ve embarked on the beginning of the last days of the Age of Oil. Embrace the future and recognize the growing demand for a wide range of fuels or ignore reality and slowly—but surely—be left behind.” Atlantic Richfield later was bought out by BP, which today is a major player in developing solar energy technology. So is Royal Dutch/Shell. These are the world’s two largest and richest oil companies. They enjoyed combined sales of $358 billion in 2002. If BP and Shell are making significant investments in developing renewable energy products, that ought to tell us something about our future.

The move to increase the use of renewable energy is crucial for other reasons as well. There is growing recognition of the burden imposed by the “external costs” of carbon emissions, which result from generating electricity with coal and natural gas. These are costs to society and the environment that are not accounted for by the producers and consumers of energy and are not included in the market price. External costs include the effects of air pollution on health, buildings, crops, forests, and global warming; smog clean-up efforts; and occupational disease and accidents. The external costs of renewable energy are virtually nil.

Moving away from fossil-fuel generation of power doesn’t necessarily have to cost more. Even without considering external costs, wind energy is already cheaper in Central Texas than power generated by natural gas, the least polluting fossil fuel, said Mike Sloan, president of Virtus Energy Research Associates Inc. Sloan is also president of the Texas Solar Energy Society and executive director of the Texas Wind Coalition.

“It seems like a no-brainer that the more wind we work in and the less natural gas we buy, the customers are doing to save money,” he said. “And we’re taking pollutants out of the air, we’re saving water, and we’re creating more jobs.”

Other factors motivating the increased use of renewable energy include concerns over energy security and dependence on foreign oil that adds substantially to the US trade deficit. Our dependence on foreign oil was underscored as recently as September 24, when OPEC announced its intention to cut production, jolting the stock markets once again.

For all these reasons, our profligate consumption needs to wind down. We need to convert as rapidly as possible to sustainable, renewable forms of energy. Renewable energy produces electrical energy derived from the sun, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, oceanic waves and tides, and biomass-based waste products such as landfill gas. These alternatives to coal, natural gas, and nuclear power are nonpolluting and virtually unlimited, providing an inexhaustible resource for as long as the sun shines.

Austin charts a course

The Austin City Council has set us on the right course.

Will Wynn had only been mayor for a week when on June 23 he announced an ambitious goal. He spoke at the Solar Austin Town Hall Meeting, held in conjunction with the National Solar Energy Conference. In a room packed with local proponents, and as part of a panel sprinkled with local and national experts on renewable energy and energy conservation, Wynn said that the combination of Austin’s publicly owned utility, strong base of technology, and academic firepower give Austin a remarkable opportunity in renewable energy.

“The question is, how soon do we put a stake in the ground and declare ourselves the renewable energy capital of the world?” he said.

It can’t be soon enough so far as the mayor is concerned. Wynn even promised the crowd he would use funds from Austin Energy’s strategic reserve, a stash originally set up to reduce debt, if needed to accelerate the clean energy program. That pledge was all the more remarkable because Wynn has been the biggest budget hawk on the city council and at the time he spoke, the city council was wrestling with a massive budget shortfall for the coming fiscal year.

The mayor had no trouble in getting the other council members to support his goal. On August 28, the council unanimously voted for a resolution stating “Austin is extremely well positioned to become the future Clean Energy Capital of the World.”

Of course it wasn’t long before the hecklers began treating Austin’s ambitious new goal like a piñata. A Business Wire report out of Houston carried this item:

“What place or region would you bill as the current ‘Clean Energy Capital of the World?’ Would it be Germany with its installed base of 13,000 megawatts of wind power plus other renewable energy technologies or Denmark with a strong installed base and export trade in renewable supplies worth billions? Or could it be California with its leading-edge installations in a number of technologies and its claim for solar stardom? Maybe a South American country or China with massive ‘clean’ hydroelectric contributions to their national power outputs?

“Well the city which is positioning itself for the title is…Austin, Texas.”

That was the punch line, the end of what the Business Wire writer obviously viewed as some kind of cosmic joke-at Austin’s expense.

Who can blame the writer for poking fun?

The joke’s on Austin for the moment. But it may not be too many years before Austin’s commitment to renewable energy will seem like a stroke of genius.

Council issues marching orders

The August 28 council resolution directed Austin Energy, the city-owned electric utility, to plan for ambitious renewable energy and energy conservation programs, strive for the nation’s leading renewable energy goals, and emphasize development, recruitment, and retention of clean-energy business enterprises. The resolution also directs the utility to mitigate carbon emissions to reduce the negative effects of global warming.

Austin has a history of strong concern for the environment, but Wynn’s vision of making Austin the clean-energy capital is about more than reducing the pollution produced by coal, gas, and nuclear power plants. Besides the obvious environmental benefits of renewable energy, it holds the potential for new employment opportunities in research, manufacturing, services, installation and distribution.

The overriding objective is to build a clean-energy cluster that will boost the local economy. It’s an initiative that fits hand-in-glove with Wynn’s goal to create a net gain of 10,000 new jobs during his three-year term as mayor. That would reduce unemployment to about 3.5 percent, Wynn said, a level considered healthy for the economy.

Austin Energy Vice President Roger Duncan said expansion of renewable energy will spawn more local companies in the same way that the city’s programs for energy conservation triggered formation of new businesses starting two decades ago. Duncan ought to know. As a city council member, he was instrumental in starting the city’s energy conservation programs. Later, as a city employee, he has managed the evolution of those programs.

Duncan points to Strand Brothers as just one example of how well-designed energy-related programs can foster the growth of local businesses.

Chris Strand of Strand Brothers said, “When I started in 1978, it was based on an idea of doing energy-conservation improvements on people’s homes. In looking at stuff in the field I saw a big opportunity to make buildings more efficient. The city was going through the nuclear power debates. Was it better to build nuclear plants or conserve energy? Where is future energy going to come from? We argued that it was cheaper to conserve energy than build power plants. With the help of Roger Duncan and activists we got the city to start these programs.” Originally, the company concentrated on making a home’s envelope energy-efficient through the use of insulation, solar screens, caulking, and weather stripping. Later, Strand Brothers moved into heating and air conditioning and it’s now one of the largest companies of its kind in Central Texas.

Capitalizing on Austin’s assets

Mayor Wynn’s goal of using renewable energy to build a larger clean-energy cluster in Austin would supplement what’s already here. For example, Cielo Wind Power, the largest wind-power developer in the Southwest, is headquartered in Austin. So is Green Mountain Energy Company, which claims to be this country’s leading retail provider of less-polluting energy. Just up the road in Round Rock, two Silicon Valley corporations, Cypress Semiconductor and SunPower, are carrying out a joint pilot program to produce two megawatts of solar-cell-based power, enough electricity to supply about a thousand homes annually. If that goes well, they’ll boost production to twenty-five megawatts (although plans call for using manufacturing facilities offshore).

There are others. A study published last November by the Austin Clean Energy Initiative states that eighty enterprises engaged in clean energy are already established here in Central Texas, generating more than $250 million in annual revenue and employing some 2,600 people. The underlying message is, we’ve got something good going on here, so come on down and join the fun.

There are prospects for attracting new businesses. Roger Duncan said that Gamesa Eólica, a Spanish firm that’s one of the top five wind-turbine manufacturers in the world, is exploring opening a sales office here. Austin is also on Gamesa’s list of US cities where it may set up a manufacturing site, Duncan said. A one-megawatt wind turbine installed costs about $1 million, and wind power installations buy them by the scores, if not hundreds. Garnering a manufacturing site of this magnitude would be a big catch indeed.

GreenChoice—A big factor in Austin’s attraction to clean-energy enterprises is Austin Energy’s national reputation as the undisputed leader in marketing renewable energy to its customers, a claim verified by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado.

Some 7,000 residential and 200 business customers have signed up for the Green-Choice program. Since the inception of the program in 2000, Austin Energy has sold more than 500 million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy to its customers. In the year 2002 alone Austin Energy sold 251.5 million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy. That’s more than the next two top US marketers combined. It’s nearly four times the amount sold by the Los Angeles Department of Power and Water in a city of 3.7 million people.

Austin Energy’s success is all the more astounding when considering that Los Angeles has nearly 73,000 customers signed up for renewable energy. The success of GreenChoice lies not in raw numbers of participants. Barely two percent of Austin Energy’s 350,000 customers are enrolled. That’s not even in the top ten utilities for participation rates.

The overwhelming success of GreenChoice is due to the fact that some of Austin’s largest consumers of electric energy are signed up. These include, for example, high-tech firms Advanced Micro Devices, BAE Systems, IBM, Samsung Austin Semiconductor, and Tokyo Electron. Also the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Four Seasons and Hyatt Regency hotels. These are not touchy-feely organizations but hard-headed realists with a keen eye for the future. Large electric customers are signed up mainly for one reason: the program guarantees a fixed GreenChoice charge in lieu of a fuel charge for ten years.

No matter what happens to the price of fossil fuels, GreenChoice customers are locked into a price which may be slightly higher initially, depending on when they signed up and what the GreenChoice charge was at the time. But GreenChoice charges will likely be cheaper over the long haul. It’s an airtight hedge against inflation.

“My personal opinion is some of (these businesses) don’t care if it’s purple power,” said Roger Duncan. “They’re locking in a fuel charge for ten years.”

Green Building—Besides being a leader in the sales of clean energy, Austin Energy has a national reputation for leadership in Green Building, a method of designing and building with health, energy-efficiency, and the environment in mind. Lately, Austin Energy has turned this reputation into a profitable consulting business, including a $250,000 contract to establish a similar program in Memphis, Tennessee, and a $150,000 contract to educate developers in California, Duncan said, “and that’s just a small piece of what’s emerging.”

Energy conservation—Austin Energy’s conservation programs are highly regarded as well. “Last year, more than 13,000 residential customers and 290 businesses made energy-efficiency improvements using Austin Energy incentives,” said the EnergyPlus newsletter inserted into customer billings last month. These improvements saved customers about $2.7 million on their electric bills and reduced the electric load by an estimated 30 million kilowatt-hours a year.

National leadership—Due to the attention gained through the GreenChoice, Green Building, and energy conservation programs managed by Austin Energy, our capital city has been the de facto Clean Energy Capital of the United States. This year, the City of Austin played host to national conferences of the American Wind Energy Association, the American Solar Energy Society, and the National Association of State Energy Officials. The Texas Renewable Energy Roundup was held in nearby Fredericksburg. And the U.S.-Mexico Border Energy Forum X meets in Austin this month.

An imitation movie poster celebrating all this attention proclaims (imagine here the voice of God intoning) “Austin and the Texas Hill Country: Journey to the Center of the Sustainable Earth.”

Focus on economic development

A strong case for using renewable energy and energy conservation for economic development has been made by the Austin Clean Energy Initiative (ACEI), in what is thought to be a first-of-its-kind study, Enriching Economy and Environment: Making Central Texas the Center for Clean Energy. The study was produced by the University of Texas IC² Institute and published in November 2002. (This ninety-two page document is available on-line at www.austincleanenergy.org/ace.)

The study states that as world energy demands continue to rise dramatically, and as concerns for global climate change and environmental sustainability continue to grow, renewable energy is coming to the forefront as the best source to meet future demand.

Austin Energy’s strategy is aligned with this thinking.

The new 300 megawatt Sand Hill Power Plant, fueled by natural gas, is scheduled to come on-line this month and the utility hopes that will be the last fossil-fueled power plant it needs. Another 250 megawatts of capacity at the Sand Hill site is listed by the Texas Public Utility Commission as an “announced generation project” to be in service by the summer of 2007, however.

“Conservation will be our first priority to meet new load growth,” Duncan said. The next priority would be to support loads with renewable energy sources. The additional Sand Hill plant has been on the drawing board for some time. Austin Energy’s long-term strategic plan, which is being drafted for presentation to the city council in November, will determine what new fossil-fueled power plants are slated, if any.

Energy conservation programs

“Saving a watt is better than creating one,” said Gary Schmitz, a spokesman for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “It’s a major part of our overall research efforts here.”

But nobody needs to tell that to the City of Austin. At some point during the era of political battles over whether to build the South Texas Project, a nuclear power plant, someone came up with the concept of a “conservation power plant.” Austin Energy’s rebate programs for energy conservation projects are pegged to the amount of energy that doesn’t have to be generated as a result. It’s a terrific investment that defers construction of new power plants and results in more comfortable buildings that are cheaper to operate.

The tremendous success of these programs is evident in the results: “Since the inception of the city’s energy conservation programs in 1982, more than 776 million kilowatt-hours of electricity have been saved-enough electricity to annually power about 52,000 homes,” said Ed Clark, Austin Energy’s vice president for corporate communications.

The results of these conservation programs are commendable. But in some respects the city has been shoveling sand against the tide. Disturbing trends have been well documented over the years by a knowledgeable and persistent critic of the conservation programs. As a consultant, Paul Robbins helped to write Austin’s first energy-conservation plan in the early nineteen-eighties. In the mid-eighties he worked as a city employee for a few years to put energy conservation programs into practice. Now turning fifty, Robbins has devoted half his life to studying and writing about renewable energy, energy conservation, and environmental issues. Since 1995 he has published five volumes of The Austin Environmental Directory, each one crammed with pithy, well researched essays, some of them supplemented by more in-depth analyses on his web site (www.environmentaldirectory.info).

In the Directory for 2000, Robbins published “The Environmental Report Card,” a twenty-eight-page analysis that among other things evaluated the city’s performance in conserving energy. To be clear, this was a macro analysis judging the big picture of what everyone in Austin is doing, not just Austin Energy’s program management. The report showed that energy used per-square-foot of building space had fallen twenty-one percent between 1973-the year of the OPEC energy crisis-and 1997. So far, so good.

During the same period Austin’s population increased 104 percent while consumption of electricity increased 261 percent. The disproportionately large jump in consumption stemmed from a dramatic increase in square-feet-per-person’s living space. More space requires more energy consumption for heating and cooling.

In addition, the number of all-electric residential customers jumped from six percent in 1972 to thirty-nine percent in 1997. Commercial buildings increased electric heat from four percent of customers in 1979 to thirty-nine percent in 1997. “Electric heat is so draining that in 1989, the winter peak demand (the highest hour of usage in heating season) for Austin’s utility came within six percent of its summer peak. For a utility in the United States, this is uncommon,” Robbins stated dryly.

Increasing industrialization, more homes equipped with air conditioners, and a growing number of home computers added to the load as well.

The bottom line nets out to 172 percent worse.

Of course most of the trends Robbins traced are beyond the city’s control. If not for the success of the city’s conservation programs things would be far, far worse.

But Robbins argues that despite everything, the per-capita use of energy has risen while the level of funding for energy conservation programs has remained rather static.

Elaine Hart, Austin Energy’s senior vice president for finance and corporate services, provided budget figures for the most recent five years. The total funding for conservation rebates and incentives over that period have inched up and down. The actual spending rose eight percent from 2000 to 2003 (from $7.5 million to $8.1 million). The budget approved for fiscal year 2004 fell four percent to $7.8 million.

Unfortunately in the view of some, the 2004 budget sliced $300,000 from the duct diagnostic and sealing program, leaving just $200,000 in the fiscal year 2004 allotment. Chris Strand of Strand Brothers thinks that will result in missed opportunities to reduce the waste of energy.

“We’ve been testing duct systems in apartment buildings and we’re finding the worst scenarios because the tenants pay the bills and the quality of the infrastructure isn’t great,” Strand says. “The average home leaks twenty-seven percent of its energy in its ducts, and in a lot of these apartments we’re finding fifty- to eighty-percent leakage. It’s unbelievable. Some are fine, but there’s a huge opportunity out there.”

Goals for renewable energy

The city council’s August 28 resolution directed Austin Energy to develop, in the lingo of the electric industry, “the nation’s leading Renewable Portfolio Standard.” In plain English, that is a directive to set the nation’s most aggressive goals for utilizing renewable energy in lieu of other forms of generation.

The very idea of Austin trying to be the number-one utility in the nation for utilization of renewable energy is, even as an abstract concept, audacious. But even more so when considering that Austin Energy currently gets little more than three percent of its electric power from renewable energy sources. And even that number is somewhat inflated. Wind power is limited by the variable nature of wind and restrictions imposed by inadequate transmission capacity to deliver all the power that can be generated by West Texas wind farms.

Counting the contracts for additional wind power approved by the city council September 25, Austin Energy will have access to about 193 megawatts of renewable energy from all sources. This is enough to allow Austin Energy to supply five percent of its total electric load with renewables by 2005, Roger Duncan said.

Today some entire states already generate many times that amount of renewable energy. Maine, for example, gets about twenty-nine percent of it electric power from hydroelectric facilities, according to the US Department of Energy. For Austin to match that percentage of renewable energy might take decades.

Austin 20 by 2020—On September 25 the city council adopted a second resolution and established a goal for Austin Energy to achieve a minimum of twenty percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. This would make Austin Energy’s goal one of the most aggressive renewable energy programs in the country that does not include hydroelectric power.

Austin Energy is being pragmatic about that caveat regarding hydroelectric power for an important reason: Austin’s only source of hydroelectric power is generated by Small Hydro of Texas Inc., a privately-owned plant near Cuero on the Guadalupe River that can generate a maximum of 1.8 megawatts. The 281 megawatts of hydroelectric power the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) is capable of generating from its six dams is used solely to help supply the needs of the agency’s own wholesale customers, and none is made available to the City of Austin.

The city council on September 25 also authorized Austin Energy to enter a Memorandum of Understanding with the World Wildlife Fund, to partner with other utilities in taking a responsible approach to global warming by supporting essential reductions in CO₂ (carbon dioxide) emissions from the power sector. Roger Duncan said that Austin Energy “will be the first utility to sign up under the World Wildlife Fund initiative,” known as the “PowerSwitch! Challenge.” The World Wildlife Fund hopes to ensure that industrialized nations set in motion a permanent downward trend in domestic emissions of CO2 as a first step toward substantial reductions by 2010.

In keeping with the PowerSwitch! initiative, the City of Austin will publicly support binding, mandatory limits on CO₂ emissions, Duncan said. But the city will not support specific legislation being debated in Congress over whether to make emission reductions voluntary or mandatory.

The goal of meeting a minimum of twenty percent of the city’s energy needs with renewable sources by 2020 equates to adding about one percent each year, which is the pace the utility has set since it started the GreenChoice program in 2000.

California 20 by 2017—Achieving twenty percent by 2020 in Austin is an ambitious goal—but not quite number one, even after omitting hydroelectric power. The State of California adopted an Energy Action Plan last year that set a goal of reaching twenty percent renewables by 2017.

Laura Doll, who was chief administrative officer of Austin’s electric utility for fourteen years, is now chief executive officer of California’s Consumer Power and Conservation Financing Authority. Doll said California’s goal for renewables does not include hydroelectric power either. But she said that for Austin to set a goal of twenty percent by 2020 would be “very aggressive.”

“It’s one thing for a state like California to take this on. We have a lot of renewable potential with things like wind, geothermal and biomass,” Doll said. “For Austin to do it on its own is very, very significant and noteworthy.”

While Austin Energy’s goal of reaching a minimum of twenty percent renewables by 2020 is ambitious, it nevertheless falls short of the expectations of some people.

20 by 2010—The city’s Resource Management Commission recommended that twenty percent renewables be attained by 2010—a full decade earlier.

30 by 2010—Solar Austin, a coalition of citizens, businesses and organizations working to make Austin a leading solar city, wants thirty percent renewables by 2010.

30 by 2020—Council Member Brewster McCracken, speaking at the August 28 city council meeting, advocated setting renewable energy goals “of at least twenty percent by 2010 and thirty percent by 2020.”

Roger Duncan said none of the goals that exceed the council’s directive are attainable. “I don’t think these are realistic for a number of reasons. I don’t think it’s physically or financially possible to do these. Even achieving twenty percent by 2020 is ‘a real stretch goal,'” he said. “There’s certainly people who don’t think that’s achievable. I think we can.”

Solar advocates abound

Tom “Smitty” Smith is director of Public Citizen Texas. Public Citizen is a member of Solar Austin and is coordinating Solar Austin’s clean-energy campaign. Citing historical precedent, Smith said, “Alexander Wooldridge convinced the city to develop the dam that created Lake Austin (then called Lake McDonald). Even though the dam seemed by many ahead of its time, it led to prosperity and led to power and light for the city for a generation or more. It’s time for us to do the same thing in our generation.” The dam to which Smith refers was built with voter approval (by the lopsided margin of 1,354 to 50) of a construction bond for $1.4 million in 1890, when Wooldridge was president of the Austin Chamber of Commerce. When generation facilities were completed at the dam in 1895, the result was illumination of Austin’s thirty-one moonlight towers and electrification of the city’s streetcar system.

Smith’s focus today is not on hydroelectric power but other forms of renewable energy, particularly solar. The City of Austin has already constructed solar photovoltaic projects generating electricity at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Austin Convention Center, Palmer Events Center parking garage, Howson Branch Library, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Wild Basin Wilderness Preserve, and Hostelling International-Austin.

Solar Austin wants a lot more of these projects and is calling for two percent of Austin Energy’s annual budget to be dedicated to solar projects. For fiscal year 2004, which began October 1, Austin Energy’s total operating budget is $885 million, said Elaine Hart, vice president for finance and corporate services. Two percent of that amount earmarked for solar projects would be $17.7 million. Virtually no money was in the approved 2004 budget for solar projects.

Duncan said there are physical limitations on how many photovoltaic cells are being manufactured, and “the price is an order of magnitude higher than any other renewable.” This from a man who is unabashedly in favor of developing solar power. At the opening plenary session of the National Solar Energy Conference in late June, Duncan said, “Solar will become the dominant source of energy on the planet. Physics is on our side.” In another session at that conference he said that advances in nanotechnology manufacturing would be a key to developing low-cost solar power. “Nanotechnology” according to one definition, “offers the opportunity to build completely optimal systems, which utilize the smallest amount of matter and energy possible to perform a desired task.” Nanotechnology manufacturing for solar panels hasn’t arrived yet, however. The immediate problem is how to fund and complete solar projects that are not currently cost-competitive with other forms of energy.

Despite the obstacles, Austin Energy has started to work on a solar energy program as part of its strategic planning process, Duncan said. The objective is to figure out how to provide cost-effective incentives that would trigger high-profile solar photovoltaic projects in commercial and residential buildings. “We need to show people that photovoltaics are real and produce electricity,” he said.

Chip Wolfe, cofounder of the Austin Clean Energy Initiative, is confident that Duncan will be pushing hard for a solar program. “We expect Roger will be announcing a solar plan within weeks that is competitive with other cities in the United States,” Wolfe said.

Any program Austin Energy comes up with needs to work better than the Solar Loan Program launched in April for single-family homes. The program has had not one taker, said Mark Kapner, energy services manager for Austin Energy. The reason is the high price and low return for solar photovoltaic projects. A solar photovoltaic (PV) system that costs $6,000 to $8,000 would return a savings of only about $160 a year in electricity costs.

“There’s enough people out there to keep three (solar energy) companies in business installing PV systems,” Kapner said. “People are not doing that to save money, but because it’s part of their values to make their own electricity. That’s the market for solar today. It’s not a market driven by economics, but by a desire to turn sunlight into electricity and own it, and to sometimes see the meter turn backwards. It’s psychic, not dollars and cents.”

The high cost of solar photovoltaics is the very reason why solar advocates are recommending that Austin Energy make sizable investments in PV installations—to create a demand that will help drive down the price and make this technology competitive with other renewables. Recognizing the economic development potential of solar energy is crucial, Tom Smith said. “Those utilities who make commitment to purchasing solar in large quantities now will find themselves being the host to the solar manufacturing industry to provide jobs tomorrow. That’s our goal, to assure Austin will be host to those manufacturing facilities.”

Solar go-power

The importance of putting political muscle into shaping Austin’s solar future is paramount.

Daniel Shugar, president of California-based PowerLight Corporation, a leading designer, manufacturer and installer of grid-connected solar electric systems, was one of the speakers at the Solar Austin Town Hall Meeting here in June. “Japan has seventy-five percent of the sun we have (in this country) and their program is a hundred times bigger,” Shugar said. “Why? Because they have the will. They have limited resources and must make it happen.”

San Francisco voters have the will, too. In November 2001 they approved a $100 million revenue bond for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. The first solar project funded through this initiative was installation of a solar roof on San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center. The roof, composed of PowerLight, Sanyo and Shell solar equipment, will produce 675 kilowatts of electricity. Shugar said this one project generates more than twice the amount of solar power produced by all of Austin solar projects combined.

The Vote Solar Initiative (votesolar.org) that gained passage of San Francisco’s revenue bond hopes to replicate this program throughout the United States, to empower city governments to implement large-scale, cost-effective solar projects.

In addition to Mayor Wynn’s pledge to use funds from Austin Energy’s strategic reserve if need be, another untapped source of funds may be readily available to kick-start solar or other renewable energy initiatives. On March18, the city’s Resource Management Commission passed a resolution recommending a Clean Energy Fund be created. Money for the fund could come from $28.4 million in bonds authorized by voters in 1983 for the generation of electricity from renewable energy sources. These bonds were never issued, according to the resolution.

Some solar-power projects could conceivably pay for themselves. PowerLight’s Shugard recommended the installation of solar panels above parking spaces at locations such as the airport. He said that drivers would willingly pony up an extra fee to shade their cars from the hot Texas sun. And the cash flow from parking fees, plus the sale of the electricity generated by the solar panels, would pay for the investment.

An even bolder idea was voiced by Mayor Wynn. In an interview with The Good Life, he said there are fifty acres of flat roofs in downtown Austin, with no trees to get in the way. If the city adopted a policy to cover those rooftops with solar PV cells, he said, overnight there would be a demand created for “a million square feet of solar panels.”

“I’m told that solar panel technology is not that different from the silicon-wafer-chip process,” Wynn said, alluding to the idea that some of Austin’s vacant wafer fabrication plants could be converted to manufacture solar photovoltaic panels. “Perhaps specifications could be written in such a way that it makes sense to relocate or open a new facility here in Austin. Meanwhile there’s hundreds of local jobs created for products our customers will be buying anyway.”

Though not triggered by the mayor’s comments, a related project is underway to launch a Solar Photovoltaic Training Academy, said Austin Energy’s Michael McCluskey, senor vice president for wholesale and retail markets. If all goes as planned, classes will be starting in January at Hostelling International-Austin, one of the facilities in Austin that has a solar photovoltaic system in operation. Classes to be taught by consultant John Hoffner would focus on how to install grid-connected systems that will safely interconnect with Austin Energy’s distribution system.

Funding for this venture was provided by the State Energy Conservation Office, McCluskey said, and Austin Energy’s sponsorship will end after the successful launch. Fees should be adequate to sustain Academy operations after that, he said. All of which indicates that if the demand for solar PV systems should increase, skilled solar installers-one component of the hoped for clean-energy cluster-should be available.

But Austin Energy will not be able to gallop toward attaining a dominant percentage of its electric generation from renewable resources. The biggest obstacle is what the electric industry calls “stranded investment.” The city has billions of dollars invested in conventional power plants, much of it in the form of debt. Mayor Wynn, though strongly advocating renewable energy, said the utility faces a significant risk in how it times the decommissioning of coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants as renewable energy takes an increasing share of the load.

“How do you anticipate those trends that enable you to systematically and in a consistent way deconstruct what utilities spent a hundred years constructing? It’s very much an opportunity for Austin but for a time will be disruptive as hell from a business viewpoint,” Wynn said.

One advocate for renewable energy suggested that a way out of this financial bind would be to look at selling off some of Austin Energy’s existing generation facilities, noting that the city’s 580 megawatt ownership interest in the coal-fired Fayette Power Plant would bring top dollar into today’s market. Selling it also might forestall other utilities’ plans to build a coal-fired plant, which would tend to reduce overall regional emissions. San Antonio, for example, currently is planning to build a 750 megawatt coal plant.

Meanwhile, the decommissioning process has been set in motion, albeit slow motion. The city council has already directed that two units at the natural-gas-fired Holly Power Plant be shut down by the end of 2004. Austin Energy will be coming back to the council at some point for a decision as to when to take the other two units off-line, permitting the entire facility to be decommissioned by 2009.

New technology a key

New technologies for solar power were proudly exhibited at the National Solar Energy Conference held here in June. Among these was a display for a giant solar-power tower made by Boeing Energy that generates utility-scale volumes of power from molten salt. Uni-Solar showed off its line of solar shingles. Major industry players including Shell Solar and Sharp Electronics Corporation displayed photovoltaic modules. Solargenix Energy, formerly Duke Solar Energy, showcased its Power Roof Tracking System that offers absorption cooling, space heating, hot water and daylighting for commercial installations.

Just as these and other technology companies continue to find new ways to generate power from renewable sources, so do technological advances offer new ways to reduce energy consumption.

Some of the latest energy-saving technologies being used by Austin Energy include the Power Partners program, in which some 26,500 thermostats placed in customers’ homes allow the utility to send a radio signal that cycles off air conditioners for short periods during peak loads. In addition, the utility is installing thousands of energy-saving traffic lights, pedestrian-crossing signals, and building-exit signs that collectively will save about $1.6 million annually.

VendingMiser devices are being installed on 1,400 soda machines to power down the machine’s compressor, fan and lights when it senses the forty-foot area around the machine is unoccupied.

These technologies barely scratch the surface of what’s being worked on for the future. The US Department of Energy (DOE) has established a goal for achieving the technical capability by 2025 to construct Net Zero Energy Buildings at low incremental cost by combining conservation with renewable energy. Net Zero Energy Buildings would combine state-of-the-art, energy-efficient construction and appliances with renewable energy systems such as solar water heating and electricity. The combination could result in buildings that, while connected to the electric grid, would produce as much energy as they consume on an annual basis.

Buildings offer a mother lode of potential for saving energy. According to DOE, buildings account for one-third of the country’s total primary energy consumption (including two-thirds of the electricity consumption and one-third of the natural gas consumption) and buildings are responsible for thirty-five percent of carbon dioxide emissions.

“With our nation’s annual energy bill for residential and commercial buildings reaching $265 billion in 2000, the economic impacts of lowering energy use can be enormous,” states a DOE draft multi-year plan for emerging technologies. Once developed, technologies that allow construction of Net Zero Energy Buildings could also be retrofitted to existing buildings. The DOE’s emerging technologies initiative will address every aspect of buildings, including heating, cooling and ventilation; air infiltration, insulation and windows; lighting, water heating, controls and appliances.

As an operating utility, Austin Energy does not itself invest in research, but it does serve as an urban laboratory for the early pilot testing of new technologies in a real-world setting. One example of this is the 200 kilowatt fuel cell installed at the Rebekah Baines Johnson Health Center. Announced in September 2002, Austin Energy stated this was the first fuel cell installed in Texas that feeds power directly into the electric grid. Fuel cells produce electricity through an electro-chemical process, rather than through combustion of fuel, and are virtually pollution-free.

Will volunteers get us there?

A hidden factor looms large in determining how much renewable energy can be put into Austin Energy’s system. So far, the Green-Choice program has been entirely voluntary. The customers who signed up were enthusiastic about clean energy and savvy about the long-term savings potential. But with only two percent of Austin Energy’s customers enrolled in GreenChoice now, and with ambitious goals to reach a minimum of twenty percent renewables by 2020, voluntary participation by people willing to pay more for energy is probably not a big enough base. This could change if natural gas prices keep rising as they have been, pushing the fuel charge higher than the GreenChoice charge. But until that happens, we’re not likely to see a stampede, especially with the minimal marketing being done for GreenChoice.

Enter the critic. Paul Robbins is so passionate about energy and environmental issues that in 1990 he drafted five proposed amendments to the City Charter, then launched a petition drive to get them on the ballot. With help from Texas Citizen Action, 17,000 signatures were gathered, enough to force an election on May 4, 1991. Voters considered charter amendments that would have created dedicated funding sources to support programs for: energy efficiency, development of renewable energy resources, conservation of water and wastewater, recycling, and environmental protection to include air and water quality.

All five measures were soundly defeated. But in time the underlying ideas have worked their way into the fabric of Austin’s environmental ethic and into various programs sponsored by the City of Austin. These programs still don’t have dedicated funding sources and are thus not immune from city council tinkering, but they do enjoy popular support.

With regard to the GreenChoice program, Robbins said that with purely voluntary participation Austin Energy will never reach its aggressive goals for deploying renewable energy. “I think it should be rate-based,” Robbins says.

Robbins said that a GreenChoice program that requires voluntary participation to purchase renewable energy is shortsighted and self-defeating. By analogy he noted that motorists are not given the option to buy a car without a catalytic converter. “Voluntary environmentalism will only get you so far,” he said.

“The only reason we have renewables in Austin is because people are paying extra. They’re paying extra because society won’t take the responsibility for it. If the cost of renewables were put into the electric utility’s rate base, the effect on rates would be negligible,” Robbins said.

Austin Energy’s Roger Duncan responded: “We’ve started out like (other utilities) asking that the people who are the most interested (in renewable energy) to bear the cost and we’ve been extremely successful with that so far. I am not certain you can continue that without moving over and putting it into the rates, but that’s a policy decision for the city council.”

Mayor Wynn understands the situation perfectly. Addressing the challenges of outreach and education needed to get a quantum leap in the numbers of Austin Energy customers signed up for GreenChoice, he told the crowd at the Solar Austin Town Hall Meeting, “It will take true grass-roots demand. I’m proud of the 7,000 GreenChoice customers we have, but we need 250,000. For Austin to get ahead of the curve at the right time, the benefit is incalculable for the economy and the environment.” The question of putting renewable energy into the rate base did not come up at that session.

An even more pointed criticism that Robbins levels against the GreenChoice program is that the city government does not buy renewable energy for its own use. Robbins estimates that operations such as water and wastewater, street lights, traffic signals, and city offices add up to about three percent of Austin Energy’s electric load.

Duncan conceded it’s true the city doesn’t buy its own product “because of the problems we’re having getting enough green power supplied to meet our GreenChoice customers’ demand right now. As we get more supply on hand and the price comes in closer to what the (conventional) fuel charge is, then we’ll look at adding city facilities…It’s a question of price and supply right now.”

Because of delays in constructing wind projects in West Texas and delays in upgrading the transmission lines to funnel the power here, Austin Energy has been buying renewable energy on the open market from time to time to fulfill its commitment to GreenChoice subscribers, said Mark Kapner. He said this is likely to continue into next year, until more of the contracted wind projects come on-line.

The rise of wind power

Texas utilities were ordered to get serious about renewable energy as a result of Senate Bill (SB) 7, the electric industry restructuring bill that became law in 1999. SB 7 recognized that Texas electric utilities already had 880 megawatts of renewable energy generators on-line in 1999, and ordered that number be increased to 2,880 megawatts by 2009. That goal applies only to investor-owned utilities. “What electric co-ops and municipally-owned utilities do doesn’t count toward that number,” said Terry Hadley, spokesman for the Texas Public Utility Commission.

The Commission, following the intent of the legislation, wrote rules that would ensure that the 2,000 megawatts of new renewable energy would be achieved, Mike Sloan said. The mechanism was to create valuable financial incentives called Renewable Energy Credits, which would create a market demand for renewable energy. “Renewable Energy Credits were envisioned to validate compliance” in reaching the goal, Sloan said. “The obligation is on the retail electric providers in the retail market.”

Austin Energy and the Lower Colorado River Authority were interested in renewable energy long before the passage of SB 7. In 1995, the LCRA invested in the first commercial-scale wind project in Texas. That was the 35 megawatt Texas Wind Power Project near the town of Van Horn, in Culberson County. Austin Energy buys 10 megawatts of wind power from that project. The LCRA also buys 81 megawatts from two other wind projects in West Texas.

SB 7 restructured the wholesale electric market and triggered a torrent of wind projects. Three utility-scale wind projects were completed in 1999 totaling 139 megawatts.

In 2001, five more wind projects were added totaling 827 megawatts. What’s remarkable is these five installations accounted for nearly twenty-two percent of all wind power projects installed in the world in 2001, based on DOE figures of 3,800 megawatts installed worldwide that year.

A power plant fueled by natural gas takes about two years to build, a coal plant about five years. Wind projects can go up practically overnight. The King Mountain Wind Ranch in West Texas has a capacity of 278.2 megawatts and was the largest wind-power project in the United States when built in 2001, according to the Austin-based consulting firm Virtus Energy Research Associates Inc. Yet this project developed by Cielo Wind Power took just a year to construct. That was slow by Cielo’s standards, said company President Walter Hornaday.

The King Mountain Wind Ranch consists of 214 Bonus Energy turbines perched atop bluffs that rise 3,100 feet above sea level. Each turbine is capable of generating 1.3 megawatts of electric energy. The turbine’s three blades sweep through an arc that reaches 299 feet above ground level, knifing through the skies of West Texas. (The University of Texas tower is 307 feet tall; the statue atop the State Capitol reaches 311 feet above ground level.)

Hornaday said it costs about three times more to build a wind power facility than a gas-fired power plant because of the cost of turbines. The higher capital cost means higher taxes, too, unless the counties provide tax breaks (a common practice).

Cielo Wind Power is a privately-owned company that has developed more than $600 million in projects in the last four years, partnering with oil companies and utility affiliates to capitalize construction. The only cost of fuel, so to speak, for a wind project is the landowners’ royalties, he said. “Wind is as conservative a generation investment as you can make.”

Not enough wires

Mike Sloan of Virtus Energy Research Associates said that the installation of wind power surged so much as a result of SB 7 that by the end of 2001 there were wind farms capable of generating a total of 760 megawatts of electricity in the vicinity of McCamey, in Upton County. The wind projects were built there because of the high quality of the wind resources. But transmission lines in that area were originally built to serve a small population (the entire county had just 4,030 people according to the 2000 census) and power the oil rigs that dot the landscape. The wires could carry only about 300 megawatts.

The last West Texas wind project came on-line in December 2001. Now nearly two years later, not one new project has been added in that area. Wind developers would have installed far more wind turbines there if they hadn’t spotted the transmission problems, Sloan said.

It should be noted that power plants, renewable or not, are often sited in rural areas where transmission facilities are not equipped to handle the new generation. Utility companies routinely make requests for transmission upgrades to accommodate the new plants. But gas- and coal-fired plants take so long to build there’s a built-in, long lead time that allows timely transmission work to proceed. Also, plans for fossil-fueled plants often get cancelled due to rapidly changing market conditions.

The rapid-fire construction of wind projects offers virtually no lag time and historically these projects are rarely cancelled. The old timeline for building new wires is not well suited to the new demands. In response to the problem, the Lower Colorado River Authority has jumped in to accelerate construction of transmission-line improvements. But it’s going to take time.

Stuart Nelson, manager of asset development for the LCRA’s Transmission Services Corporation, said the transmission capacity in those lines around McCamey currently is about 400 megawatts. The capacity should reach 550 megawatts by the end of this year, he said, but the lines won’t be able to handle the peak generating capacity of 760 megawatts of wind power that’s already installed before the spring of 2005. By the time all transmission upgrades are completed by mid-2005, Nelson said, the lines will be able to carry about 900 megawatts. He noted, however, that on any given day the capacity of transmission lines vary with the ambient temperature and wind. Cool or windy days make it possible to carry more juice, while hot, still days cause lines to heat up and sag, and reduce how much power can be carried.

The delay in beefing up the wiring is downright sinful to anyone interested in quickly jacking up the amount of renewable energy that can be fed into the electric grid to replace power generated by pollution-spewing fossil-fueled plants.

Texas is lousy with winds that could generate electricity. Indeed, the potential capacity for wind power in Texas has been estimated by the Texas State Energy Conservation Office at 525,000 megawatts of electricity-nearly five times the amount of electricity consumed in the state. The agency states that the Panhandle, mountainous parts of West Texas, and perhaps even the lower Gulf Coast contain areas with winds suitable for electric power generation.

“Why aren’t we adding more wind power?” said Mike Sloan. “Because of the transmission system. We don’t have a good system going forward to get transmission in the ground, so wind developers are not willing to take the risk in building these projects.”

This limitation exists in spite of the $1.3 billion invested in transmission and distribution lines over the past five years, according to testimony of the Public Utility Commission of Texas before the House Regulated Industries Committee on August 22.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the agency managing the grid that carries eighty-five percent of Texas’ electric load, nevertheless recognizes there are “significant transmission constraints.” These constraints are being addressed, says a September 2 legislative advertisement sponsored by the Association of Electric Companies of Texas Inc., a trade association representing all investor-owned electric utilities in Texas.

Federal lawmakers hesitating

Another major hold-up for wind power is the legislative delays in renewing the federal Production Tax Credits, which are currently worth approximately 1.9 cents per kilowatt-hour. The tax credits were intended to enable wind energy to compete with conventional energy sources. Any turbine that’s installed and generating electricity in 2003 will qualify for the tax credit for ten years, Cielo’s Hornaday said. But the tax credits are scheduled to expire at the end of this year.

No one knows for sure whether Congress is going to act to renew the tax credits. On September 17, the National Journal’s CongressDaily reported that House leaders are considering waiting until next year to tackle the tax credits, but if they do so the credits may be made retroactive in 2004 to cover the gap.

What happens to Cielo Wind Power’s contracts, approved by the Austin City Council on September 25, if the tax credits aren’t renewed? Construction stops cold.

As long as tax credits must be fought over in every session of Congress instead of being given a long-term guarantee, wind power construction will wax and wane with the whims of lawmakers.Meanwhile Hornaday tries to remain optimistic. “Long-term, I’m confident that Congress will understand the value of wind power,” he said.

US Representative Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, agrees. “The financial and environmental benefits gained through harnessing wind power cannot—and should not—be overlooked,” he said.

While the Congress works its way toward an end-of-year adjournment, wind developers and renewable energy advocates in Texas can only wait and hope. But it’s not only Texans who are keeping their fingers crossed.

The United States has a vast potential for both solar and wind power, as well as geothermal and biomass sources. North Dakota, as well as Midwestern states including Texas, have been called the “Saudi Arabia of wind power,” although that same phrase has been used to refer to other regions of the world, from Cape Cod to New Zealand to Inner Mongolia.

It’s a scientific fact that the United States has the natural resources to be entirely self-sufficient utilizing only renewable energy and energy conservation. But the power shift from the conventional plants that use coal, natural gas and nuclear fuels will entail a slow and financially difficult transition.

In The Party’s Over, author Richard Heinberg’s exhaustive analysis indicates that a fundamental and monumental reordering of national priorities is needed to put massive resources into developing renewable energy before existing fossil fuels are exhausted. Even if that happened, Heinberg and many others cited in his book are doubtful there’s enough time to make the transition without suffering major disruptions to our economy and way of life. The longer we wait, the more certain we’ll suffer consequences of disastrous proportions. We’re facing the question of whether earth can sustain the global population. We’re facing the potential collapse of governments, if not civilization itself.

The future awaits

Can Austin achieve the distinction of being the Clean Energy Capital of the World, given that other regions are so far ahead in terms of renewable energy? The Austin Clean Energy Initiative’s study would answer yes. This study quantifies markets, identifies the numbers of potential jobs that could be created, and identifies the need for incentives tailored to the industry. Based on eighty responses to a survey conducted in connection with the study, the clean energy sector appears to be mainly an industry of startups.

The study suggests that communities should create a profile of a clean energy company, identify all applicable incentives, and then market them to attract these businesses. Incentives are so vitally important that the IC² Institute prepared a separate twenty-five-page draft report for the Austin Clean Energy Initiative. Clean Energy: Opportunities for Local Government in Central Texas, dated May 13, states that Texas now derives very little revenue from the related manufacturing segment. This can be changed.

As an example of what might be done, the report outlines a brief case history of the Danish company Vestas, which develops, manufactures, and installs wind turbines. Vestas American Wind Technology Inc. decided to locate a new plant in Portland, Oregon, because of the promise of long-term wind development in that region and because of incentives offered by state and local governments. The company’s largest worldwide plant should open there with 1,200 new jobs, the report states.

The Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce has weighed in recently with a major economic development initiative if its own. “Opportunity Austin: A Five-Year Economic Development Strategy,” was unveiled September 16. The study by Market Street Services Inc. of Atlanta sets a five-year goal of creating 72,000 jobs and a $2.9 billion aggregate increase in payroll.

To accomplish these goals, the report focuses on a dozen specific areas of opportunity. One of these is to “stimulate entrepreneurship and new enterprises in ‘next wave’ sectors, including nanotech, biotech, and clean energy.” Mayor Wynn was dismayed over how the Chamber’s report categorized clean energy.

“I was frankly a little disappointed to see (clean energy) labeled as an emerging sector,” Wynn told The Good Life. “It seems in hindsight to be appropriate that we in city government, and me as mayor and a citizen, put more emphasis on clean energy than the chamber, which has a broader field they are working in. I was pleased to see (clean energy) in the report but I tend to see it as more than an emerging market. (That designation) won’t keep me from working hard on clean energy.”

Chip Wolfe of the Austin Clean Energy Initiative also thought the Chamber’s report slighted clean energy. “We think it provides a more viable opportunity for Austin, a greater potential for jobs in the near term, and a better branding for Austin than the Chamber report would indicate,” Wolfe said.

As to the need for incentives for clean energy companies, as advocated by the Austin Clean Energy Initiative, Wynn said the framework approved by the city council in June could accommodate incentives, “not cash out of pocket but a return on demonstrable value.”

“What excites me on the clean energy front is it’s already a sizable cluster across the nation but there’s no center for that cluster,” Wynn said. “There’s no (equivalent to) Detroit for the auto industry or a Silicon Valley (for clean energy enterprises). It won’t remain that way. Some clustering of companies is how the American economy tends to work on a macro scale. Shame on us if we don’t capitalize on it.”

History in the making

This is one of those rare moments in history in which local leaders have had the uncommon foresight to latch onto a problem of immense importance, outline a sensible course of action, and initiate the first steps to pull us back from the brink of disaster. But we’ve only taken baby steps so far.

Yes, a power shift to renewable energy is about cleaning up air pollution. Yes, it is about jobs. But these objectives, worthy as they may be, pale in comparison to the approaching end of the fossil fuel era. New technologies and new discoveries may add to the known reserves but are unlikely to make much of a difference, Heinberg states.

It must be emphasized that Heinberg is not a scientist but a journalist and educator. His conclusions are based on a wide array of informed scientific opinion. The most glaringly pessimistic views are drawn from geologists who have spent their lives in the oil business. I.F. Ivanhoe, who himself has fifty years of experience in petroleum exploration, calls this group Cassandras, after the mythological Trojan princess who could foretell the future but was doomed never to be believed. Many of the eighteen scientists listed in this group are academics, policy analysts, and retired geologists no longer constrained by company policies.

Heinberg notes that those who are optimistic that new technologies or new discoveries will save the day (he calls this group Cornucopians) are economists and lobbyists who argue that price signals will push capitalists to find profitable and workable solutions. This group also includes our own government experts in the US Geological Survey, Energy Information Agency, and DOE, which post forecasts far more optimistic than Cassandras believe to be true. The Cassandras view these official government figures as “essentially political statements designed to convey the message that there is no foreseeable problem with petroleum supply and that the American people should continue buying and consuming with no care for the future.”

In a presentation at the National Solar Energy Conference in Austin, Heinberg outlined three possible plans, here highly abbreviated:

(1) Be the last one standing—Use our military and economic might to seize control of the world’s petroleum. This is the path we’re following. Is it a coincidence that Iraq has the world’s second largest oil reserves?

(2) Power down—Devote our remaining resources to maximize renewable energy. Restrict competition and share resources between consuming and producing nations.

(3) Wait for the silver bullet—Since there is none, to choose this path is to guarantee plan one.

The choice of which path to follow is up to each of us. The sensible thing is for everyone to bone up on the issues and decide. But do it quickly. Once we’ve passed peak production, the cost of everything begins to rise inexorably as we wring the last drop out of the drying rag of resources.

We need to heed the wisdom of a Saudi saying: “My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet airplane. His son will ride a camel.” Saudi Arabia contains the world’s largest oil reserves. If the Saudi’s can sit on all those resources and clearly see the bottom of the oil barrel, what of America, whose oil and natural gas extraction peaked thirty years ago?

We need to be moving like Paul Bunyan and swinging our biggest ax to clear any obstacle in our path to a sustainable energy economy. The stranded costs in our existing power plants can be amortized over time. Our transmission system can be upgraded to accommodate renewable sources of power where needed. Our renewable energy programs must be plugged into the utility’s rate base to benefit all customers and spread the extra marginal cost, if any. And our lawmakers in Washington must be persuaded to guarantee production tax credits permanently.

Ken Martin was among the first Solar Explorer subscribers. He signed up for GreenChoice as soon as the program was announced. His GreenChoice charge is 1.7 cents per kilowatt-hour. The current GreenChoice charge for new customers is 2.85 cents per kilowatt-hour. Austin Energy is in the midst of a three-step increase in the fuel charge that applies to customers not signed up for GreenChoice. That fuel charge is projected to hit 2.79 cents per kilowatt-hour in January, depending on the market conditions. Austin Energy has not yet decided whether the GreenChoice charge for the latest batch of renewable energy will remain at 2.85 cents per kilowatt-hour. You may e-mail Ken at editor@goodlife mag.com.

Find out more about Richard Heinberg’s work at www.richardheinberg.com.

How Green’s Your Building?

The US Department of Energy has set a goal of having the technology in hand by 2025 to construct a Net Zero Energy Building, a building that while connected to the electric grid would produce as much energy as it consumes on an annual basis. Pliny Fisk and Gail Vittori, co-directors of the Austin-based Center for Maximum Building Potential Systems (Max’s Pot for short) have already spent more than twenty-five years doing research and hands-on projects in the field. While they may not have achieved Net Zero yet, they’ve sure learned a thing or two about building with a view to sustainability.

As the originator of the concept and principal consultants, they laid the groundwork for what became the City of Austin’s nationally recognized Green Building program, which brought recognition to both the city and Max’s Pot at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. That stirred interest to the point that now there are dozens of cities using the Green Building program, many of which have never heard of Max’s Pot. Which is sort of how Fisk and Vittori see their jobs. They’re the catalyst for good things to happen, spreading the seeds of innovation to take root and grow far and wide.

Today Vittori is a board member of the US Green Building Council, a coalition of leaders from across the building industry working to promote buildings that are environmentally responsible, profitable, and healthy places to live and work. In a sense, Green Building is another facet of all programs that involve energy efficiency. But it goes beyond mere efficiency in how buildings operate to address the types of materials used to construct the building and to account for complexities such as the energy costs of transporting and constructing the building. This is a huge consideration that may be overlooked by even some of the people who are designing and building structures that are highly energy-efficient to operate.

It is in a sense shortsighted, Fisk says, to put so much thought into wringing all the efficiency you can out of a structure without considering how much energy was gobbled up in merely extracting, transporting, and manufacturing the materials. Think of, for example, a house built with framing lumber from Canada, metal roofing from West Virginia, marble countertops from Italy, floor tiles from Saltillo, Mexico, and koa wood furniture from Hawaiian acacia trees and you begin to get the idea.

It was this kind of realization that motivated Max’s Pot to seek a grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency some eight years ago to develop a complex analytic tool called BaselineGreen™, which indicates what a planner or architect needs to zero in on to identify the aspects of a construction project that “offer the greatest potential for environmental improvement of the project’s total life-cycle impact.” That’s how BaselineGreen™ was described by one of Max’s Pot’s co-developers of the project, Gregory A. Norris of Sylvatica, an environmental consulting firm based in North Berwick, Maine. Fisk said BaselineGreen™ has been used for high-profile projects at the Pentagon and the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston, and in the City of Seattle.

A project currently being explored at Max’s Pot is called GroHome Systems, a construction method that holds promise as a quick, cheap and easy way to put up a structure in a short order with minimal impact on the building site. “We’re trying to cut through the assumption that you need a thirty-year mortgage and must spend most of your money on money (for interest charges in financing),” Fisk said.

Typical Max’s Pot. Keep it simple, keep it cheap, make it do the most with the least.

—Ken Martin

Renewable Energy in Central Texas

Over the last decade the Lower Colorado River Authority and the City of Austin have been putting increased emphasis on obtaining sources of renewable energy to augment their conventional power plants. These agencies currently own or have contracts to purchase renewable energy as shown below.

It should be noted that the megawattage of renewables shown is the amount that could be fed into the electric grid only if all nonrenewable generating sources were operating at full capacity and transmission facilities were capable of delivering that power to the desired end users. Except for the power generated by landfill gas facilities, however, the electric power from renewable sources are never generated at the full capacity listed. The power from wind farms is constrained by the variable nature of the winds, the lack of storage, and a lack of sufficient transmission capacity to deliver all the power generated by West Texas wind facilities. The generation of hydroelectric power is limited by factors such as the amount of rainfall, flood control, and downstream demands for water.

City of Austin
•    Wind: 179 MW.*
•    Landfill gas: 11 MW.
•    Hydroelectric: 1.8 MW.
•    Solar: less than 1 MW.
•    Subtotal renewables: 192.8 MW
•    Gas: 1,868 MW.
•    Coal: 580 MW.
•    Nuclear: 400 MW.
•    Subtotal nonrenewables: 2,848 MW.
•    Total capacity: 3,041.8 MW.
•    Renewables: 6.33 percent*

Lower Colorado River Authority
•    Hydroelectric: 281 MW.
•    Wind: 106 MW.
•    Subtotal renewables: 387 megawatts.
•    Gas: 1,308 MW.
•    Coal: 1,025 MW.
•    Subtotal nonrenewables: 2,333 MW.
•    Total capacity: 2,720 MW.
•    Renewables: 14.22 percent

—Ken Martin

* Includes 93 MW approved by city council September 25, 2003, the contracts for which must still be negotiated.

These articles were originally published in The Good Life magazine in October 2003

The Men Who Would be Mayor

Politics

Editor Ken Martin

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March 1, 2003 6:00 AM

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About 11,100 words

The men who would be mayor deserve close public scrutiny

By the time this edition of The Good Life was going to press February 23, 2003, eight men (and no women) had declared their intentions to compete for the honor of succeeding Gus Garcia as mayor of Austin. Not all of them had actually filed a formal application for a place on the general election ballot, but we felt confident enough of their intentions to spend time interviewing the best and brightest among them. It’s likely that before the filing period closes March 19, others will venture into the arena to offer their services. If so, we will examine their qualifications and if any latecomers seem worthy, we will publish their profiles in the April edition.

Under the Austin City Charter, to run for office, candidates shall be eighteen years of age or older on the commencement of their term, shall have resided within the city for at least six months and within the State of Texas for at least twelve months, and shall be a qualified voter of the State of Texas. That’s it. Those are the minimum qualifications. Obviously the city needs someone who has considerably more than that to offer as mayor, the point person for city policy and the de facto leader of the Austin City Council, despite the fact that the mayor has no more voting power than the six other members of the council. We need to elect someone who not only envisions what needs to be done but also possesses the political skill to persuade the other city council members and garner their support.

These are tough times. The economy is lagging. Sales taxes are down. And next year promises to be worse for city revenue because commercial property values are expected to fall. Austin needs a decisive leader. Do we have a candidate who can pull us together like Churchill during the blitz? Who can challenge and inspire us to compete like Kennedy during the race for outer space? Someone with a cool head and a clear mind who will stand up not to the ravages of war (though a war may soon be raging on foreign soil) but a ravaged economy? These are high standards, indeed, but from among those willing to try we need to discern who best measures up.

While anyone who meets the minimum qualifications can get on the ballot, we are exercising our right under the First Amendment to focus primarily on those who have something substantial to offer. Which is why we direct your attention to the four candidates profiled in our cover story: Marc Katz, Brad Meltzer, Max Nofziger, and Will Wynn.

For the record, four other people have stated their intention to run for mayor. These are Leslie Cochran and Jennifer Gale, both of whom have filed for a place on the ballot; William Dyson, who has appointed a campaign treasurer; and Dale Reed, who published a campaign ad in the Valentine’s Day edition of The Austin Chronicle.

Both Cochran and Gale are homeless persons with whom the public is already well acquainted, as they are perennial candidates who have added nothing substantive to the public discourse.

Dyson is a new face in local politics. He is forty years old and says he was born in Norfolk, Virginia, is the son of an African-American minister, and has a degree in political science from Norfolk State University. He has lived in Austin since 1993, he says. After being laid off for eight months, he says he recently got a job at a software company in Round Rock, but couldn’t provide the company’s address. He says he has never been to a city council meeting or watched one on television. When interviewed, he exhibited no grasp of local political issues and was hesitant to provide the names of anyone who could be asked about his qualifications. Hence, he was not profiled.

Reed, along with Cochran and Gale, ran against Mayor Kirk Watson when the incumbent sought reelection in 2000. Watson got 84.03 percent of the vote, Cochran got 7.77 percent, Reed got 4.69 percent, and Gale got 3.51 percent. The telephone number Reed provided to the city clerk’s office has been disconnected and he could not be reached for interview, but we noticed that his campaign ad in the Chronicle solicits donations in various categories ranging from $100 to $10,000, despite the fact that donations of more than $100 are prohibited. Mike Clark-Madison reported in the Chronicle last month that Reed is a cab driver who in the 2000 election called “for more, not less, development in western Travis County and for building a water treatment plant to purify Barton Springs.”

Getting to the meat of the matter, as the field now stands, voters may choose the next mayor from among four men who will undoubtedly run strong campaigns. Two of these have council experience (Nofziger, a veteran of nine years on the council, and Wynn, who is finishing his first term). The other two, Marc Katz and Brad Meltzer, have strong business backgrounds and have never before run for office.

That’s the introduction. To get a good sense of the candidates, check out the profiles.

And don’t forget to vote. The early voting period runs from April 16 to April 29. May 3 is the general election day. You must be registered to vote at least thirty days before casting your ballot.

Wynn poised to jump from council seat to mayor

William Patrick Wynn was born in Beaumont on September 10, 1961, while just down the Texas coast Hurricane Carla was battering the shoreline with winds gusting to one hundred seventy miles per hour. Now Wynn faces the whirlwind of Austin politics as he seeks to become Austin’s next mayor.

“I have this significant itch that I want to scratch,” says the Austin City Council member. He holds up a thumb and forefinger separated by an inch of air, and says, “I happen to think this is going to be a very defined period of my life. I would be very surprised if I’m in public office or attempting to be in public office in my fifties.”

Professing no ambition to rise politically beyond the office of mayor, Wynn says, “This really does come down to my self-serving goal of my kids having the option to come back to their hometown as young adults.”

Wynn felt he didn’t have that option in Beaumont, a city of slightly more than 100,000 people that hasn’t grown much, if at all, since his childhood. Even as a boy he knew he would leave and never come back to live in what some folks think of as the armpit of Texas. “It’s not a coincidence that my children were born in Austin,” Wynn says.

Like all candidates, Wynn faces significant financial obstacles in trying to get his message to the public. Austin’s restrictive campaign-finance rules—which were approved by seventy-two percent of voters in November 1997, and which narrowly survived repeal by voters in May 2002—limit a candidate’s acceptance of contributions to $100 per donor. That the contribution limits are overly restrictive is illustrated by the fact that it would cost about $110,000 to send a single postcard to each of Austin’s 425,000 registered voters, according to Wynn’s figures. Hence Wynn’s vocal disdain for the contribution limits, which he more than once referred to as “anti-democratic” and “unconstitutional.”

“Two classes of people benefit from the $100 limits,” Wynn says, “incumbents and the people who have access to money, and I happen to be both.” Yet Wynn points out that he led the charge to get repeal of the donation limits on the ballot. While voters chose to retain the limits, if elected mayor, Wynn says he will try again. “Every time there is a charter election, I will be challenging my colleagues and the citizens to once and for all, let’s correct the problem we have.”

“I spent all day, every day for seven weeks on the phone,” Wynn says of the 2000 council campaign. His effort netted more than seven hundred contributions totaling $70,000, a fair sum, but still not enough. Which is why he ponied up more than $90,000 of his own money in running for the council position he now occupies. (It was only last year that he finally settled a $91,400 loan outstanding from that campaign.)

For the mayoral campaign now underway, Wynn hopes to raise about $175,000. That’s a mere fraction of the $750,000 that Kirk Watson raised for his 1997 campaign against Council Member Ronney Reynolds, before donation limits were imposed. Wynn had raised just $8,750 through the reporting period ending December 31, but he did not formally kick off the campaign until February 4. For that event, Miguel’s La Bodega downtown was crowded with more than two hundred supporters, many of whom presented checks.

Wynn will use part of his campaign budget for consultants David Butts and Pat Crow, and campaign managers Mark Nathan and Christian Archer. Nathan and Archer worked in the ill-fated 2002 Texas gubernatorial campaign of Democrat Tony Sanchez.

While Wynn seems genuinely outraged by the current campaign finance laws that govern Austin elections, these rules undeniably give wealthy individuals like him a big advantage over less affluent candidates. His wealth allows Wynn to live in a West Austin home valued at more than $1.3 million, while giving his council duties full-time attention and earning little or nothing from business endeavors.

“I like to say that I made my money the old-fashioned way—I married it,” says Wynn. Wife Anne Elizabeth Wynn is the daughter of Melbern G. and Susanne M. Glasscock, who endowed the Center for Humanities Research and a number of other academic activities at Texas A&M University. Her father is president and chief executive officer of Houston-based Texas Aromatics LP, a firm that markets byproducts from refineries and petrochemical operations. Anne Elizabeth Wynn is part owner of that company, says Will Wynn.

To avoid a conflict of interest while on the city council, within six months of taking office Wynn had sold his interest in Block 42 Congress Partners Ltd., the entity under which Wynn and partner Tom Stacy assembled the land in the 400 block of Congress Avenue, and where a thirty-three-story office building is now under construction. That transaction netted Wynn capital gains of $500,000, according to his financial disclosure statement filed with the city. Wynn is still involved in two other partnerships, both involving ownership of buildings in East Sixth Street’s entertainment district.

Wynn left Beaumont at the age of eighteen and never looked back. He lived with an older brother in northeast Austin and earned a degree in environmental design from Texas A&M University’s College of Architecture on a work-study program, in which he alternated between classes in College Station and interning with Austin-based Shefelman & Nix Architects. While at Shefelman & Nix, located at Eighth and Congress, he often observed the construction of the twenty-story office building at Ninth and Congress. As it turned out, a decade later he would come back as project manager to rehabilitate that structure’s crumbling façade.

In the interim, he spent three years in Chicago with a commercial real estate firm, enjoyed a short stint as a graduate student at Harvard University, and even spent a summer working in Governor Bill Clements’ budget office. In 1988, he moved to Dallas to work for R.D. Stone Interests (later Faison-Stone Inc.). In 1991, he became project manager for the renovation of what would become Frost Bank Plaza, and moved to Austin in 1994. In 1997 he left Faison-Stone to form his own company, Civitas Investments (civitas being Latin for citizenship), and restored two historic buildings on East Sixth Street.

While serving as chair of the Downtown Austin Alliance, Wynn launched his campaign for Place 5 on the city council, and nudged out four competitors to win the May 6, 2000, election with 50.53 percent of the votes, narrowly avoiding a runoff.

Now a council member for just shy of three years, Wynn has punched practically every possible ticket en route to the city’s top elected post. Much of his energy goes into finding regional solutions to Austin’s problems. Wynn currently chairs the Greater Austin-San Antonio Corridor Council, a private, nonprofit corporation that seeks to manage growth from a regional perspective. Wynn helped to found Envision Central Texas, a body that seeks to build a public consensus for regional planning in Central Texas; he now sits on the organization’s sixty-six member executive committee. He is a member of CAMPO’s (Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization) Policy Advisory Committee of twenty-one members; CAMPO coordinates regional transportation planning and approves the use of federal transportation funds within the Austin metropolitan area. Wynn also chairs the Coordinating Committee for the Balcones Canyonlands Conservation Plan, whose mission is to complete and manage the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve, more than thirty thousand acres of habitat for endangered species.

A more recent initiative that Wynn chairs is the Mayor’s Task Force on the Economy, whose recommendations for re-booting business activity in the wake of the dot-com bust are scheduled to be presented to the city council this month. For Wynn, the bottom line, is “We have to make Austin a business-friendly environment. That scares people, but it shouldn’t.”

One way to make the climate for business better is to ease the red tape that businesses encounter, Wynn says. He ran the city’s gauntlet himself in rehabilitating properties on East Sixth Street. Now he’s involved in helping to facilitate the reopening of The Tavern at Twelfth and Lamar. Rather than trying to revise the city’s massive development regulations—an effort that foundered under its own weight the last time around—Wynn says the city staff must change its mind-set. Mike Heitz, director of the Watershed Protection and Development Review Department, is personally overseeing The Tavern project to boil down the complexities to a few manageable variances, Wynn says. That project could provide a template for other projects to follow through the regulatory maze.

A friendly business environment must be balanced with protecting the natural environment, Wynn says. This would be done by stopping development where it is inappropriate. He says his message to land developers in environmentally sensitive areas is, “How can I help you be successful someplace else?” He wants to continue offering incentives to build downtown to balance the differential of what it costs to build elsewhere.

As a city council member, Wynn has been vocal about cutting expenses in the face of revenue shortfalls caused by shrinking sales taxes and declining commercial property values. He cut his council staff in half (from two positions to one) and tried to stave off an additional $500,000 allocation for the Austin Music Network. None of the other council members followed his lead. No one else reduced their staff. No one else opposed the funding.

While cutting his staff saved a few bucks it also cut Wynn’s responsiveness to constituents. E-mails have at times stacked up, unanswered, especially when hot-button issues hit the council agenda, such as the anti-war resolution the council passed (with Wynn and Betty Dunkerley abstaining). Those who try to reach his office by telephone are sometimes frustrated because Wynn’s voice-mailbox is full and can’t accept a message.

Regarding the Austin Music Network, Wynn made no effort to visit with other council members in advance. He instead used the council dais as a soapbox to argue that with the city facing a $60 million budget shortfall, it was time to pull the plug. While his cause was just—the Austin Music Network was supposed to have become self-sufficient long ago, and despite getting $4 million in city funding over the years hasn’t even come close—his tactics were an abject failure. “Privately, I believe all my colleagues knew what my position was going to be. I didn’t try to persuade them…My colleagues had made up their minds long before my argument.”

Wynn points to other instances in which he has exercised what he views as fiscal prudence, despite lack of support from his colleagues. He came out on the short end of the vote in March 2001 when the council voted 5-2 to pay Browning-Ferris Industries (BFI) about $600,000 for property it had purchased in South Austin for a new recycling facility. The motion also granted BFI $200,000 in credit to use the city’s recycling center. The council majority’s position was to support neighborhood opposition to that site. Ironically, BFI had purchased the South Austin site only after the city forced it to abandon a recycling center in East Austin, and had paid the company $3.9 million for the East Austin site. Ultimately, BFI wound up putting its recycling facility in Manor. Wynn says the city still owns the South Austin site and it’s worth about a third of what the city paid for it. “We need that $800,000 now,” Wynn says.

Wynn says the city must do more to save funds by cooperating with other governmental entities, such as it did recently by agreeing to let Travis County run city elections. If elected mayor, Wynn promises to reduce the mayoral staff, as he did his council staff.

While he laments the lost opportunities to save taxpayers money, Wynn also thinks the council has fallen short in other areas. Noting that he is including himself in this criticism, Wynn says, “We all give lip service that we want to fight suburban sprawl, yet the council is pretty damned consistent at fighting density. Sprawl has one enemy and one enemy only, and that’s density. We say we’re out to fight suburban sprawl yet we tend to fight density even where in my opinion density is appropriate…I looked it up, density is a seven-letter word, not a four-letter word.”

A trait that Wynn readily acknowledges is that he sometimes loses his temper. “I react stronger than the situation calls for occasionally. I won’t try to make excuses for that for anybody, but I think there’s always going to be some of that when you’re out trying to accomplish a lot and you get frustrated, whether it be with a bureaucracy or a rule or constraint that you think shouldn’t be there.”

The overriding issue in this campaign, Wynn says, is the city’s budget deficit. “We have to work on the budget and that will be painful,” he says. The budget ax may chop city jobs that are currently occupied. “It would not surprise me to see true layoffs,” Wynn says.

Wynn and his wife chaired the 2002 fund-raising campaign for Planned Parenthood, and he supports city funding for women’s reproductive healthcare.

Once past the budget crisis, Wynn wants to work on long-term goals including a new downtown library and converting the defunct Seaholm Power Plant to civic use. He wants to complete a number of transportation initiatives including a commuter rail district, regional mobility authority, and construction of State Highway 130 to include rail freight. To ease traffic congestion and reduce air pollution, Wynn advocates installing high-occupancy vehicle lanes on both I-35 and MoPac Expressway and promoting an aggressive campaign to encourage carpooling.

Wynn, who endorsed the light-rail proposition that was narrowly defeated in 2000, says he still supports it, along every other form of mass transportation possible.

Wynn says he supports the concept of a hospital district that would make funding of healthcare more equitable within Travis County. “We have a very inequitable public healthcare financing system and we’ve got to begin to fix it. I think the first rational step is a countywide system,” he says.

Regarding Mayor Gus Garcia’s proposal to stiffen the city’s no-smoking rules, Wynn says he has not seen the details but has two concerns. First, it would be inequitable to treat bars differently from bars and grills, he says. “It seems to me that if it’s a health issue, it should be a health issue whether you’re a bar or a restaurant.” Secondly, he says, many restaurants have opened recently and followed the city’s existing ordinance, “spending tens of thousands of dollars” on ventilation systems. “If we change the ordinance, the recent additional investment would be made worthless. Fair play tells me that we should have an objective analysis and discussion about that.”

At root, Council Member Will Wynn is well connected to a number of heavyweight organizations and wealthy enough to run a strong campaign, but seems to have more going for him than the typical candidate from the business sector. He says he moved to Austin permanently because of singer-songwriter Guy Clark—even claims he knows the lyrics to all of Clark’s songs—and was a “quiet, dues-paying member” of the Save Our Springs Alliance before joining the council. We will find out May 3 whether Wynn’s healthy dose of self-effacing Aggie charm laced with a penchant for fiscal discipline will play well with voters who pick Austin’s next mayor.

Nofziger confronts ninth gate in eternal quest to become Austin’s mayor

Political warhorse Michael Eddie “Max” Nofziger, a fifty-five-year-old (this month) former Austin City Council member, has heard the bugler’s call to the starting gate and he is once again charging after the votes needed to become Austin’s mayor. This is Nofziger’s ninth run for a seat on the council dais—and his fourth bid to be mayor—since he began running for political office in 1979.

In each of his three previous mayoral campaigns (1983, 1985 and 1997) Nofziger garnered enough votes to force a runoff between two other candidates. “This time, of course, the goal is to get in a runoff, not just create one,” he says.

After finishing far behind Kirk Watson and Ronney Reynolds in the 1997 mayoral election, Nofziger chose not to run for mayor in 2000, when Kirk Watson was reelected in a landslide against feeble competition, or in 2001, when former Council Member Gus Garcia won the special election to succeed Watson. By June when the new mayor is sworn in, Nofziger will have been out of elective office seven years. During that time, he made a television commercial for Chevrolet trucks and helped to find a buyer for the Cinema West porn theater on South Congress, which led to the building’s renovation as an office building. From April 1998 through December 1999, Nofziger was employed by the Austin Police Department to help stop prostitution on South Congress Avenue, earning $20,425 per year in a job funded by a U.S. Department of Justice grant for community policing.

Despite his years away from the council dais, Nofziger can claim far more experience in governing than other candidates in this race; he spent nine years on the council before stepping down in 1996. Nofziger says the city’s current fiscal crisis and downbeat local economy are similar to conditions when he first took office in 1987. “I have the experience to do this. I’ve done it before,” he says. “I’m willing to offer my knowledge and my experience to the citizens of Austin and tell them that I’m the best one to help us get through these difficult times.”

Nofziger’s credibility as a political strategist got a boost from his role in defeating the light-rail initiative in November 2000, a campaign in which he acted as a consultant to longtime rail foe Gerald Daugherty and retired high-tech executive Jim Skaggs. Although vastly outspent by rail advocates, their slogan, “No Rail: Costs Too Much, Does Too Little,” proved unbeatable. The proposition failed by fewer than two thousand votes out of more than a quarter-million cast. Daugherty used that victory as a springboard to win the Precinct 3 seat on the Travis County Commissioners Court last November, despite bad press over numerous tax liens.

Nofziger continues to consult for those who oppose light rail. His new client is the Save South Congress Association. The group formed a year after the light-rail referendum failed, voicing concerns that Capital Metro has continued planning for a Rapid Transit System that members view as potentially detrimental.

In the mayoral campaign, Nofziger knows he will be outspent by several other candidates and hopes to pull off the same sort of upset that defeated the light-rail measure. Noting that Council Member Will Wynn is the most formidable opponent he faces in this campaign, Nofziger says, “If this race is about who has the most money, then Will is going to win, no doubt. On the other hand, if it’s about who has the best and most experience, I obviously have the most experience. So it’s going to be a contest as to which criteria is most pressing for the citizens and voters.”

Nofziger says he hopes to raise between $50,000 and $100,000 for this election, far less than viable mayoral candidates typically spend. His relatively cheap campaign may be effective because he’s already well known, eschews spending money on consultants, and runs a mostly do-it-yourself operation. His campaign manager, Christine Buendel, is a paralegal who’s never before run a campaign, but Nofziger says she’s detail-oriented and organized, which is all he needs.

Nofziger says his roots run six generations deep in the tiny town of Archbold, Ohio, a Mennonite community where his ancestors arrived as early settlers in 1834. But like many a young man who came of age during the Vietnam War, he had a yen to wander. He moved around the country, living briefly in Florida, Denver, and Houston. He first hit Austin when he was hitchhiking through in 1973 and moved here permanently the next year, supporting himself by peddling flowers at South Congress and Oltorf.

“I was looking for my place, and as soon as I got to Austin I knew this was it…For me it was the music—the first night was unbelievable—and then we went out on Barton Creek skinny-dipping and Lone Star sipping, and I recognized immediately, this is paradise…It’s interesting how my first two influences, music and the water, Barton Creek in particular, have informed my politics over the years and have been a key part of what I’m trying to do here in Austin, preserve the water and preserve the music.”

By 1979, Nofziger had joined the movement to oppose voter approval for the South Texas Nuclear Project—a power plant that got built anyway, suffering enormous cost overruns in the process—and began campaigning for city council. It would be eight long years and five tries on the ballot before he finally got elected in 1987, upsetting business candidate Gilbert Martinez in a runoff. That a flower salesman could get elected to our governing body is part of Austin’s “weird” past. (Actually for years we had two flower peddlers as perennial candidates for city council. What differentiated Nofziger from “Crazy” Carl Hickerson-Bull is that Nofziger had a degree in political science from Adrian College in Adrian, Michigan, and spoke to the issues.)

As a council member, Nofziger claims credit for a long list of environmental accomplishments. Among these are introducing the first nondegradation water-quality ordinance, backing the defense of the Save Our Springs Ordinance all the way to the Supreme Court, appointing Earth First! activist Tim Jones to the city’s Environmental Board (he’s still there, by the way), and creating the city staff position of pedestrian coordinator.

While hoping that voters will recall his own contributions to environmental protection, Nofziger says, “A disadvantage that Will has is, I think, Austinites want an environmentalist to be leading the city at this time. I think that people realize that after six years of the ‘green’ council, our air quality is worse than ever and Barton Springs is in grave jeopardy.”

Nofziger says, “The council didn’t do enough to protect the environment and Barton Springs, and this latest round of publicity about the threat to Barton Springs illustrates that.” He contends that the city council made a “huge mistake” in not strengthening the Save Our Springs Ordinance after the Supreme Court ruled the city had the right to protect the people’s water.

Despite Nofziger’s record on environmental issues, environmental activists abandoned him in the 1997 campaign in favor of Kirk Watson, a situation Nofziger attributes to entering the race late. This time, Nofziger hopes for more loyalty from his former allies, and challenges them not to be complacent.

“This election is going to separate the real environmentalists from the lip-service environmentalists,” Nofziger says. “The environmentalists who have been content to sit back the last six years and watch the air get dirtier and watch Barton Springs become more and more threatened, they’re going to support Will Wynn. The real environmentalists who realize that we better do something or it’s going to be gone, those are the ones who are going to support me, because I’ve done something…Every big environmental issue over the last twenty-five years, I’ve been involved with.”

Nofziger claims to have played a key role in getting voter approval for building the Austin Convention Center, a move spearheaded by then-mayor Lee Cooke, and notes that the Convention Center makes money and boosts the economy. Nofziger wants some of the credit for getting the city’s airport moved to the former Bergstrom Air Force Base. He also notes that both the convention center and new airport were well managed projects that came in at or near the approved budget—in contrast to some of the current city construction projects like the new city hall, which is neither on time nor on budget.

In support of the music business, Nofziger says he played a role in forming the Austin Music Commission, starting the music industry loan program, and branding Austin as the live music capital of the world. Had he been on the current council, Nofziger says would have voted to continue funding for the Austin Music Network, although he faults the council for awarding contracts to operate the network without taking bids.

“If I’m the mayor I will wean the Austin Music Network within three years,” Nofziger says. First, it would be put out for bids, he said, and then other funding sources would be developed. Noting that music is a big attraction for Austin’s tourism industry, Nofziger says, “I’m going to make music a priority.”

Nofziger says if he was on the current council he would have voted for the resolution opposing war in Iraq.

Noting that Council Member Will Wynn cast the only vote to stop funding the Austin Music Network and abstained from voting on the anti-war resolution, Nofziger stretches the point, saying, “He’s against music and for war.” (For the record, Wynn says he abstained on the Iraq resolution because it’s a matter outside the council’s jurisdiction.) Don’t be surprised if you hear Nofziger on the campaign trail accusing Wynn of wanting to “Make War, Not Music.”

Like Wynn, Nofziger believes that Austin’s rules for financing council and mayoral campaigns are unsatisfactory. Nofziger advocates raising the $100 contribution limit to $500.

“My campaign is geared to increase voter turnout,” Nofziger says. He says the meaty issues facing the city ought to generate more interest, including the cost of living, the city’s spending, and the need to revitalize the economy, protect the environment, improve transportation, and keep Austin weird.

Nofziger criticizes the current council for giving the Convention Center Hotel project $15 million after the project’s backers had already agreed to build it without city assistance.

“Smart Growth was a disaster,” Nofziger says, noting the loss of such icons as Liberty Lunch, Ruta Maya, Steamboat, and Waterloo Brewery, not to mention the looming skeleton of the Intel building. If elected, Nofziger says he will move to stop giving incentives for development. “My approach will be on small business…the backbone of the Austin economy.”

If elected, Nofziger says he will seek to sit on Capital Metro’s board of directors, on which two council members now sit. “The twin issues of transportation and air quality are at such a crisis point in Austin that it demands the time and attention of the mayor.” He says that Capital Metro’s sales tax of one-percent should not be reduced but the money should not be stockpiled. Instead, it should be used to improve the mass transit system, reduce traffic congestion and improve air quality.

Regarding other transportation issues, Nofziger says that Governor Rick Perry’s strong support of State Highway 130 will move its construction forward. Nofziger thinks commuter rail makes more sense than light rail.

Nofziger’s own ideas for transportation are in a package called Affordable Clean Air Transit, improvements that would be cost-effective, minimize street interruptions for construction, and can happen quickly, he says. This would involve replacing “Capital Metro’s diesel fleet with smaller, cleaner, quieter buses, some battery powered, some turbine powered.” (Capital Metro is already pilot testing turbine-powered buses.)

“My approach to make Austin the center for clean vehicles…is for Capital Metro to offer a rebate of $5,000 to people who buy one of those (Toyota) Prius or Honda (Insight) vehicles that get better mileage. That would be a substantial enough amount of money to spark some interest…We should introduce to Austin clean vehicles and educate our populace that you can have a clean vehicle—you’re not limited to these gas-guzzling, exhaust-belching polluters.” Nofziger says he drives a small Chevrolet pickup truck.

On the subject of regional planning, Nofziger says, “We need to talk to our neighbors, obviously, and pursue a hospital district.” But he is wary of Envision Central Texas, a regional planning organization that Will Wynn helped to form. “Envision Central Texas is basically Phase One of the next light-rail campaign…I’m sure the result is going to be, ‘we need to build light rail.'” Nofziger says as mayor he wants to be part of the regional planning effort that Council Member Daryl Slusher has initiated with Hays County, which could lead to a blueprint on how to develop the Barton Creek watershed.

Nofziger plays up the fact he has lived in South Austin for nearly thirty years. “In trying to keep Austin, Austin, and recognizing that the true Austin is slipping away, we need a true Austin mayor. I embody that. What’s more ‘Austin’ than having a former flower seller who is a musician be the mayor of the Live Music Capital of the World, who also happens to have the most experience? That’s what keeps Austin weird—the weirdest guy has the most experience.”

Regarding Mayor Gus Garcia’s intention to further restrict smoking in public places, Nofziger says that while he does not smoke, “That’s not something I’m really going to push…I think the current situation is pretty good.”

To address the revenue shortfall in the city budget, Nofziger says, “There’s no escaping layoffs this time around. The city hired a lot of people the last several years, during the boom, and the city pegged its spending and hiring to the boom economy. And of course we have to adjust back as we’re in a bust now. We have to lay people off and there’s a substantial savings in that. And we have to stop hiring all these consultants…We’re going to have to get down to all the things we did in 1987 and 1988, which is (to cut) travel, magazine subscriptions, all those things. It’s going to be a real belt-tightening time.”

Because the city has incurred so much debt, Nofziger says it may not be possible to balance the budget without a tax increase, but that’s something he would study after taking office. If elected mayor, Nofziger says, “I am going to take a voluntary pay cut and reduce the mayor’s staff.”

On the subject of funding for women’s reproductive healthcare, Nofziger says he does not foresee reductions, “but we’ll look at all the funding that we do. We won’t start with a zero-based budget like the state is doing, but we’ve got to look at every place we can save some money.”

Nofziger thinks that the financial problems caused by the city paying for healthcare of people from surrounding counties is an issue that the federal government should help with. The city should continue to work with the Legislature to create a hospital district as well. “We have to have a regional approach to healthcare.”

In this election, we can count on Max Nofziger, who still sports the trademark “Buffalo Bill” facial hair that makes him instantly recognizable, to offer us a blast from the past about why he’s the best person for the job.

I gotta tell ya, Marc Katz wants to be Austin’s mayor

The man who carved a good life out of pastrami now wants to get a new life—as Austin’s top elected official.

While Marc Katz’s unmistakable New York accent will be with him always, he has been an Austin resident for more than a quarter-century. He was born in Far Rockaway in the borough of Queens, and graduated from Manhattan’s rigorous Stuyvesant High School. His formal education ended when he dropped out of the University of Oklahoma. Back in New York, Katz grew unhappy with the expensive, crime-ridden city that had a sub-par educational system and incredibly high taxes. He says the crowning blow came when the New York Daily News headline blared, “New York Drop Dead,” which had been President Gerald Ford’s initial answer to the Big Apple’s request for a financial bailout. After the city itself raised taxes and cut spending, Ford relented, signing legislation extending $2.3 billion in short-term loans, enabling the city to avoid default. Katz nevertheless decided that Austin would be a far better place to raise his two children, daughter Andrea born 1969, and son Barry born 1971. He sold his eatery, Meyer’s Restaurant in Jackson Heights, and moved here in 1977. He was thirty years old.

Having been in the restaurant business all his life—indeed he was the fourth generation in a family of kosher butchers and deli owners—Katz nevertheless tried a new career in Austin, selling Ford automobiles for Bill McMorris. But when the restaurant property just down the street from the car dealership became available, he pounced on it, and In 1979 opened Katz’s Deli and Bar. Since then he’s made a name for himself running the place and advertising “Katz’s never kloses.” In time, he would add a nightclub upstairs and buy a couple of properties adjacent to the Sixth Street eatery. Together these three properties are now on the tax rolls for $2.3 million. Katz also has an ad agency, Synergy Associates, that handles advertising for the deli, other restaurants and a few other clients. His son Barry cloned the deli with a second restaurant in Houston.

The family’s business squabbles made newspaper headlines in late 2001, when Marc Katz sued, alleging his son was siphoning money out of the Austin eatery for the Houston operation. The legal wrangling ended last summer, leaving Barry with full ownership of the Houston operation and Marc likewise in possession of the Austin original, which he says today is grossing more than $4 million annually.

It was during this father-son dustup that Marc Katz’s former narcotics addiction came to light. Not that it was exactly a secret. Katz had already made a full confession, so to speak, on national television. In 1999 he was profiled on the PBS program Small Business School. In that interview, Katz said, “I was in rehabilitation for fourteen straight months, and it took every minute of it. And I think my life is going to be spent in rehabilitation now.” Katz says he completed rehabilitation programs in Maryland and Florida about a decade ago.

His “dark past” made running for public office a hard sell for Melanie, his fourth wife, Katz says. He claims that kind of past is shared by many others who are prominent in the community. “I am surrounded with people you know very, very well, you will recognize very, very well, who are also in recovery.” He says these supporters gave him the courage and the insight to admit his defect. “I have a tremendous opportunity here to set an example.”

One thing going for Katz in the mayoral contest is huge name recognition reaped from decades of heavy advertising, for which he says he spends about seven percent of gross revenue. Hence his claim that polls in recent years show he has “the most recognizable voice and face in Austin.”

That presents a challenge in its own right. “People say to me, ‘Are you really going to do this?’ That’s what we have to overcome…I’m really doing this not as a restaurant owner, I’m doing this as a citizen of Austin…I’m identified strongly with the restaurant, as it should be. However as mayor, I’m not the pastrami king.”

Katz says he has built a brand that people recognize and he believes that the City of Austin has done the same, but the city’s image has lost some of its luster.

“Since the high-tech bust, the Austin brand is hurting,” he says. “We need to raise the bar on the Austin brand. The people that live here need to have a better city to live in, so other people want to live here—that’s controlled growth—not incentives to corporations to move here. If your product is good enough, you don’t have to give incentives.”

Carrying the analogy between running a deli and running a city a step further, Katz says, “It’s simple enough to know what makes the product good enough; ask the taxpayer what do they want, rather than telling them what’s good for them. I don’t think the City of Austin has it’s ear to the people.”

Katz says the city is in financial trouble and he can help. “The way business handles debt and the way politicians handle debt are two different ways…We cut costs. We have urgency. The buck stops at us.” With the city, he says, “I believe the buck stops at the taxpayer,” thumping the table with a finger. “I don’t think the taxpayer, the citizen of Austin, is being represented properly from a financial standpoint.”

He claims he’s never laid off an employee due to hard times, and he doesn’t think that the city needs to, either, despite the budget crunch. But vacancies should not be filled and attrition should be used to trim expenses.

“Really the only thing we have to do right now is address the financial position of the city. We can’t afford the luxury of entertaining performing arts centers that say they’re going to come up with the money after we gave them the land, and then come up short and ask for bond money from elsewhere. We can’t afford consultants to tell us whether or not streets need to be two-ways…Although probably one of the three top issues we have is transportation and traffic, there’s nothing we can do about it right now anyway, until we get our money settled.

“We need to be pulling back and addressing the debt…If I had (the city’s) debt ratio, I’d be getting a letter from Visa that said, ‘Don’t leave home with it.'”

For Katz it’s a matter of priorities.

“We are addressing things that don’t matter, and it’s ironic to me that the city council has a stance on Iraq, while there’s potholes. And as (Statesman columnist John) Kelso said the other day, we broke the Guinness Book of Records for red cones on Barton Springs Road, not only the number but the length of time that they’ve been up. I don’t feel like I’m qualified or that I’m talking to the people of Austin about (Secretary of State) Colin Powell’s job. I’m talking about running the city…Our problem as a municipality is not Iraq.”

While acknowledging that the possible war with Iraq is hampering the local economy, Katz says, “We need to face our very specific, solvable problems and do nothing else. It’s going to be painful. We have to be dogmatic. And we have to use a tremendous amount of expertise that’s available to us.”

Underlining his intent to actually run for the mayor’s job—and not just treat the race as a way to further boost his restaurant’s visibility—Katz has hired veteran political consultant Peck Young of Emory Young & Associates. While the firm has in recent years focused on helping candidates elsewhere, it played a key role in local elections for many years. Katz’s campaign manager is James Cardona.

Claiming to have no original thoughts of his own, Katz says he would do for Austin what former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani did for Katz’s old home town. “He made New York an attractive place to be. He dressed it up. He raised the brand.” Katz says Giuliani created a strong, positive environment. “Right now, that’s the job that Austin needs, and I have the roadmap from Mayor Giuliani.”

Katz was not familiar with the Austin Fair Campaign Ordinance, which sets limits on contributions and expenditures for candidates who voluntarily abide by it, and would be deciding whether to comply. He said the decision would be based on how much money it will take to win the election and how his personal funds may be used to achieve that. He says he plans to run campaign ads on television.

Asked what issues he will stress in this campaign, Katz says, “We need to make Austin a better place to live, to make Austin viable, to make Austin grow, to make Austin progressive. We need to cut what Austin does to the essentials.” While he thinks that police, firefighters and EMS are already performing at a “very high level,” he wants to raise performance higher still.

“What does it take to make a better police department? I think the police know that. I need to talk to the police…I need to talk to the top brass. I need to talk to the guys on the street. I need to talk to the firefighters…I do know a better job could be done if those departments were given more of a say in how to run this thing. I’m not a cop. Neither was Giuliani, and he created the greatest police force New York’s ever seen.”

Katz is on record opposing Mayor Gus Garcia’s proposed ordinance to further restrict smoking in public places. “I don’t smoke,” Katz says. But in his own restaurant, he allows smoking when the law allows it, and has separate ventilation systems as required. “It’s really a much bigger issue to me than the smoking…The city does not need to get into supply-and-demand in a business. We need to set up a business environment that makes it attractive to do business…The market will bear what the people want.”

Katz agrees with the Tobacco-Free Austin Coalition, made up of organizations concerned with health matters, that second-hand smoke is harmful, but adds, “My job is not surgeon general of Austin…I have the right to run my business. You have the right to come in or not come in.”

He says he operates Katz’s Deli however need be to attract the most customers. “I have my life tied up on Sixth and Rio Grande,” he says, “the city council does not.” Katz says he employs one hundred twenty people in good times and eighty in bad times, using attrition to shrink the numbers when necessary. Small businesses, collectively, are the city’s largest employer, he says. “We don’t get tax incentives. We don’t want tax incentives. We want an environment where we can do business…The more money I take in, the more people I employ, the more taxes I pay, the better off the city is.”

Despite the city’s reported $60 million budget shortfall, Katz says, “I don’t think we need city layoffs.” He says that a temporary freeze on hiring should suffice if the business environment is enhanced.

“For example, we’re the ‘live music capital of the world,’ and now we have a sound ordinance about the amount of noise that can come out of a club. If you have a music district, you need to play music…If someone moves in downtown next to a nightclub, that’s what they’re going to expect.”

Katz praises the city’s building inspectors, yet calls the regulatory system a disaster. “It is so counterproductive that it hinders growth.” His argument is not with the inspectors but with a code that he feels is overly restrictive, beyond what’s needed for public safety.

“I think keeping Austin weird is great,” Katz says. “I think legislating to keep Austin weird is a contradiction in terms.” He says the way to do it is to strengthen existing businesses, not legislate to keep other businesses out.

“I could take the Austin Music Network off the air tomorrow, and the only people who would be affected are the talented people who work there,” Katz says. “The city keeps coming up with more and more money and throwing it into a well that has nothing to do with being the live music capital of the world.” Katz says this is symptomatic of what’s wrong. “Austin Music Network is a great luxury for Austin—not now. The council did nothing that I know of to promote Austin City Limits and it’s an international brand.”

Will a tax increase be necessary to balance the budget? No, says Katz. “I think we would be chasing more and more people out of Austin and hurting the economy for the people who stayed in.”

Katz voices perhaps the bluntest idea any politician has ever espoused to address traffic congestion: “Nothing. Nothing. The problem is so huge and so pressing and we don’t have a solution…Just to do something for the sake of doing it is not the answer,” he says, thumping the table again. “What’s needed is a comprehensive plan,” he says, “and on top of that, even if we had a solution today, we don’t have the money.”

Carpooling should be increased, Katz says. “(The) one man, one horse day has got to end.” Mass transportation is the solution to clean air in the long run, he says, and that should involve getting more people to ride the buses.

Katz says the city shouldn’t have paid $15 million to help build the Convention Center Hotel when it was not part of the original agreement. “A deal is a deal is a deal,” he says.

Katz opposes cutting Capital Metro’s sales taxes, but he says the agency should be run in a more businesslike manner. He said he was glad that light rail failed in the November 2000 referendum and conditions are not right to go forward with the project now.

The mayoral candidate says he has been to council meetings “embarrassingly infrequently; maybe I’ve been to five.” One that he recalls was a zoning case many years ago involving land he owned in South Austin. Nor does he watch council meetings on television. “They’re too long and they’re frustrating,” he says. So why would he want to preside over that? “I see a lot on the agenda that’s unnecessary,” he says. Pounding the table lightly, Katz says, “I think meetings like that need to be sharp and to the point.” He would eliminate “fanfare” such as music and proclamations. “We would just sit down and meet…If a council member wants to give someone recognition, he should do it on the council member’s time, not on council meeting time…I would cut the agenda and limit the amount of time we talk on each issue.”

Public forums where anybody and everybody is allowed to speak, Katz says, should not be held at council meetings. Instead a city council member or two can hold separate meetings on the issues and then brief fellow council members. “We’ve put together council meetings and town meetings under one roof. It makes (meetings) so long it’s counterproductive.”

Regarding protection of water quality, Katz says, “There may be issues as important, but I don’t know that there’s anything more important.”

He was not familiar with Smart Growth incentives the city has used to promote certain types of development. “I don’t know enough about it” he says, “but the general concept is not one which is attractive to me. If this is smart growth—what we’ve experienced in Austin the last few years—I need another label, ’cause I’m unimpressed with how smart we’re looking right now. I see half-finished buildings. I see farm land on Sixth and Lamar.”

Katz says municipal government overreaches. “I maintain as a general rule if you create the right environment—that’s smart growth. People will want to be here. When we’re ‘buying’ people to be here, that’s a whole ‘nother deal…If I make a better city for the people living here now…other people will come and go, ‘God, I want to live here,’ and that will be growth.”

He opposes incentives for development in general and particularly for development at Sixth and Lamar that might hurt existing businesses. But he adds that the city should not legislate against any particular business locating there. “The free market must prevail,” he says. “We are in a capitalistic system.”

Regarding women’s reproductive healthcare at Brackenridge Hospital, Katz says, “I don’t have enough information.” Nor does he know whether city funding for such healthcare might need to be reduced due to the city’s financial crunch.

In view of his past problems, is Katz up to the pressure that an Austin mayor faces? “I can’t imagine anybody being more capable to stand up to economic and political pressure. I’ve been trained for this my entire life. The restaurant industry is closer to WW II on a daily basis than anything else…I don’t see the city’s problems that different than any businesses’ problems.”

“Whoever is elected mayor on May 3,” Katz adds, “the primary goal needs to be ‘Austin never forecloses’—and we’re close.”

Brad Meltzer touts experience in business as asset in mayor’s job

Brad Meltzer wants to be your next mayor, but don’t confuse this Brad Meltzer with the best-selling young novelist of the same name.

Bradley Charles Meltzer says he was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, and graduated from nearby Needham High School before earning a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts. Citing Austin’s quality of life as the main attraction, Meltzer says he left a management position with theatres and an ad agency in Boston and moved to Austin in 1987. From 1987 to 1992 he was executive vice president of Lexus Laboratories in Austin, a company that produced generic birth-control pills and a number of other pharmaceuticals. Today he owns and manages fifteen northeast Austin apartment complexes totaling more than six hundred fifty units, which he collectively calls Westheimer Apartments, plus Benihana Restaurant franchises in both Austin and San Antonio.

Although the forty-eight-year-old Meltzer has never before run for public office, he is serious about this campaign. That’s signified in part by the fact that he has established a campaign budget estimated at $150,000, he is willing to spend his own money in the campaign, and he has hired Ron Dusek, who for thirteen years was a spokesman for attorneys general of Texas, most recently for Democrat Dan Morales. The campaign manager is Carlos Espinoza. Meltzer’s daughter Lauren, twenty-two, and son David, eighteen, are both active in the campaign.

Meltzer was the first candidate to launch television commercials in this campaign. He has been running spots several times a day on KTBC Fox 7 since mid-February. But don’t expect to see him attacking his opponents.

“I’m sick and tired of seeing all this negative campaigning and how people are trying to destroy other people’s reputation,” he tells The Good Life. “I think it’s about time that we stopped, and I want to take a leadership role in that. I want to stop this negative campaigning and people-bashing…I want to show the nation that we don’t have to be bashing this candidate…and looking for their Achilles’ heel, hurting them, hurting their families, hurting their friends.”

No council-meeting junkie, Meltzer estimates that he has attended perhaps fifteen city council meetings in as many years, drawn by issues such as education and affordable housing.

In explaining why he thinks he’s best qualified to lead city government, Meltzer touts his diversified business experience and says the mayor’s job is analogous to the chief executive officer of a business.

“What I can offer is to take the lead as a successful businessman in very difficult businesses…I know how to put a budget together. I know how to negotiate. I know how to lead. And we’re now in a very tough fiscal time and I feel that with those kind of qualities I can do a success for the City of Austin.”

The city’s financial crunch is Meltzer’s foremost concern.

“My message is we’ve been taxed and taxed and taxed. I’ve never seen it since 1987 go down…What I’ve heard is that we’ve got an $80 million shortfall as far as taxes are concerned, so some difficult decisions are going to be made, and…I’d like to bring forth my leadership to take care of it.”

As an example of his leadership skills, Meltzer claims he was the first person to develop a direct-to-consumer marketing plan for a prescription drug (a generic birth-control pill, N.E.E. 1/35). With no previous experience in the pharmaceutical industry, he says, he won approval for the plan from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and convinced the American Medical Association. He says the program established a new paradigm for directly educating consumers, instead of the marketing drugs through doctors and pharmacists. Meltzer says his experience in marketing would work to the city’s advantage.

“The City of Austin is the best place to live in the United States,” Meltzer says, “and part of my campaign is to market the city more, to give more budget to the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau.” As a private citizen, Meltzer says he has participated in a panel discussion with the Bureau regarding the Greater Austin Tourist and Entertainment Guide, a magazine that Meltzer supports by purchasing paid advertising for his Benihana Restaurant.

Meltzer is a member of the Mayor’s Affordable Housing Committee established after Gus Garcia was elected mayor. The group is chaired by Mayor Pro Tem Jackie Goodman, and operates less formally than the city’s boards and commissions. Meltzer defines affordable housing as a good, safe place for low-income people to live. To increase availability, Meltzer says he wants the city to provide affordable loans to support profit-making companies that provide affordable housing, so they can keep their properties in good shape. The overriding goal is for low-income people to be able to afford to stay in Austin and not move outside the city. At present, Meltzer says, “We have plenty of affordable housing as far as apartments are concerned, because we have overbuilt.”

Two of Meltzer’s own apartment complexes, totaling one hundred sixty units, were rehabilitated with money from a city loan. He says he borrowed $500,000 in 1991 on a fifteen-year note and repaid it in only five years, a claim substantiated by Paul Hilgers, the city’s Community Development Officer.

Meltzer opposes any change to the city’s no-smoking ordinance. “I’m opposed to it because I want Austin to be a successful city for business. What this ordinance is trying to do is control and inhibit its businesses…I don’t think we need to burden the consumer. I don’t think we need to burden the businessman by hurting him, because of the fact he can’t have in his bar someone who wants to smoke and drink.” Meltzer says his own restaurants in Austin and San Antonio are non-smoking facilities, but adds, “I want as an entrepreneur to be able to make the decision, not as the mayor to make that decision.” He says if the people of Austin want smoking to be further restricted, then citizens should be bring a petition to be put on the ballot; it should not be put on the ballot by the city council.

In a similar vein, Meltzer says, “If we show people outside the community that the City of Austin is very business-friendly, I think that would attract other businesses to come into Austin to fill up this gap of all these empty apartments, empty office buildings, empty industrial buildings, and increase our tax base.”

As a current member of the Lieutenant Governor’s Business Advisory Board, Meltzer says he will learn from the state’s recent initiative with zero-based budgeting, and use that knowledge to improve the city’s budgeting methods.

A photograph of Meltzer and his campaign treasurer, Frank Ivy Jr., appeared in the Austin American-Statesman‘s coverage of Governor Rick Perry’s inaugural ball. Both men were courting support among the revelers by wearing “Meltzer for Mayor” buttons. It was no accident that Meltzer was celebrating the Republican Party’s second straight sweep for statewide offices, as he has been a steady contributor to GOP causes. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, between August 1999 and February 2003, Meltzer donated more than $8,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee, a figure that Meltzer confirms.

Meltzer says he is also on the Citizens Task Force of U.S. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois) which advises the speaker on entrepreneurial and tax issues. He says he received the National Leadership Award last October from the Republican National Committee for suggestions he has made on a wide range of tax issues, and for traveling to Washington to participate in meetings several times a year since 1998.

On the local political scene, Meltzer says he has contributed to Mayor Gus Garcia and Council Members Betty Dunkerley and Raul Alvarez. “I believe in the political processes and I believe that (candidates) need to be funded,” he says.

Meltzer opposes a tax increase to balance the city’s budget. “I believe that we should not be able to tax the citizens, particularly when we’re in a recession. When everyone is tightening their belts, the city should be tightening its belt. I think we need to start off with no new taxes and see where we go from there.” Asked if jobs might be cut from the budget, not just vacant positions, Meltzer replies, “Everything is on the table.”

One of Meltzer’s more controversial ideas is to give a property tax break of “ten-to-fifteen percent” to city employees, as an incentive for them to live in Austin. “While they live in the city they would be going to the grocery stores…churches…schools (and) restaurants.” Asked why other property taxpayers should carry the burden of paying higher taxes to make up the revenue lost through this benefit for city employees, Meltzer says the loss would be offset by the higher sales taxes the employees would pay shopping in Austin. “I think we’ll get more than the money back,” he says.

On the topic of traffic congestion, Meltzer says the city needs to better coordinate road and lane closures necessitated by construction projects, such as sewer repairs and cable installation, and to better synchronize traffic lights in areas such as Congress Avenue downtown.

On the community service front, since 1997 Meltzer has been a member of the American Red Cross board of directors for the Austin area, and he currently chairs the committee on disaster fund-raising. In that role he has responded to fires to assist displaced residents, using Red Cross funds to pay for such things as clothing, furniture and deposits. He has housed dozens of disaster victims in his own apartments, he says.

Meltzer says he opposed the light-rail initiative that voters narrowly rejected in 2000 and would need to hear “convincing arguments” to support it in the future. He says he would like to explore the possibility of monorail, such as the project being built in Las Vegas. (That project is scheduled to start carrying passengers over a four-mile route adjacent to the Las Vegas strip in 2004; it is privately funded, with revenue bonds tied to farebox and advertising revenue, according to www.lvmonorail.com.)

Regarding air quality, Meltzer says, “I encourage people to use smaller vehicles and I’ve taken a leadership role and started using cars that (give) more miles per gallon.” Asked to amplify, Meltzer adds, “Instead of buying the big Cadillac Escalade, which is beautiful, I bought a car that has high mileage, a Chrysler Concorde.” (For the record, the Chrysler Concorde is rated at nineteen miles per gallon city, twenty-seven mpg highway, according to www.autobytel.com. While not exactly miserly, the Concorde’s not quite as thirsty as the Cadillac Escalade, a sports utility vehicle rated at fourteen mpg city, eighteen mpg highway. For comparison, Mayor Gus Garcia purchased a Toyota Prius rated at fifty-two mpg city, forty-five mpg highway.) Meltzer supports Ozone Action Days and would like to see heavier promotion of the free bus fares on those days.

Meltzer was not aware of the Smart Growth incentives that have been given primarily for downtown development projects. “I have to get educated,” he says.

Regarding the Austin Music Network, Meltzer says it should be marketed to make money instead of losing it.

Asked if he would seek support of environmental groups, Meltzer says, “I’m looking to seek the support of everybody who has the same mission I have, which is to make the government run like a successful business, but I’m not looking to hurt our environment. I want our environment to be here for our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren.” And as for courting environmentalists? “I’m going to discuss my issues and discuss their issues and see if we have common ground for them to support me.”

Asked for his views on women’s reproductive healthcare at Brackenridge Hospital, Meltzer says, “I have no comment about it, because I really haven’t thought about it.” In view of the city’s budget crunch, does he foresee any reduction in city funding for women’s reproductive healthcare? “I have to look at every line item and discuss them with my fellow council people…

“I don’t know all the issues,” Meltzer adds. “I know what the major issue is right now and that is budget deficit. We cannot print money here and we can’t magically get it from the state because they have a huge budget deficit.”

Summing up the key issues that he will campaign on, Meltzer named ensuring no new taxes, reducing traffic congestion, supporting public safety, making Austin business-friendly, and providing affordable housing.

Ken Martin is editor of The Good Life. He has been covering politics locally since 1981. He wrote the cover story for Third Coast magazine’s March 1983 edition about Ron Mullen’s first campaign for mayor.

These articles were originally published in The Good Life magazine in March 2003

Historical footnote: The detailed results of the May 3, 2003, mayoral election are posted on the City of Austin’s election history web page. The four candidates profiled here netted:

Will Wynn: Won the election with 58.26% of the votes

Max Nofziger: Placed second with 15.97%

Mark Katz: Placed third with 13.16%

Brad Meltzer: Placed fourth with 8.26%

Waiting to Inhale

Environment

Editor Ken Martin

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October 1, 2002 6:00 AM

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About 11,200 words

“There ought to be a natural coalition between environmentalists and defense groups. Environmentalists want to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Defense groups want to limit our vulnerability to oil cutoffs or blackmail. A common denominator is the need to control cars’ gasoline use.”

-Robert J. Samuelson, Washington Post columnist, October 11, 2001

A man deprived of sustenance will die of thirst long before he will succumb to starvation, notes author Desmond Morris. But, we ask, how long can a human being survive without air? Only moments, to be sure, for air is the essence of life. What concerns us here is not how long we can hold our breath, but how long can we live, and what suffering we must endure, if forced to breathe polluted air? Not that we want to be human guinea pigs to find out, but given the increasingly marginal nature of air quality, what choice do we have?

Central Texas has very few smokestack industries but our air is far from clean. Much of our air pollution blows in on the prevailing winds from the Houston area, which recently attained the dubious distinction of having the worst air quality in the nation. Our own area’s single largest contribution to air pollution, say local experts, is what comes out of the tailpipes of our motor vehicles which, according to the Texas Department of Transportation, number 1.3 million within the five-county area. Nearly 900,000 of those are registered in Travis County, while Williamson County adds 237,000 and Hays County another 88,000.

Central Texas residents not only own a lot of vehicles but they want to use them every time they step out the door. Given the way that our communities are designed, particularly the suburbs, many people have little choice but to drive for the necessities of life. Austin-based NuStats Market Research in July 2001 surveyed some 200 respondents in five Central Texas counties, and found that, “Central Texans love their cars. In fact, nearly two-thirds (sixty-two percent) of respondents drive to work or school alone.”

Austin Mayor Gus Garcia says commuters are contributing to our air pollution but most don’t realize it. “People still think they can drive a hundred miles into town and back in their Suburbans or one-and-a-half-ton trucks and they’re not affecting air quality,” Garcia says. “I’ve got news for them—they are affecting air quality.”

Whether imported or homegrown, the air-quality monitors in the Austin area measure pollution without regard to point of origin. When the readings are too high, that’s bad news.

Bad news is what we got September 14, 2002. That was a bad-air day. That was when, for the fourth time this year, the air quality in Central Texas exceeded the amount of ground-level ozone pollution allowed by the federal Clean Air Act. That event, when combined with monitored levels of ozone pollution for 2000 and 2001, put this area in violation of the Clean Air Act. In fact, the Austin area has been in violation of the ozone standard every year since 1999 (see above chart, “Central Texas Violates Federal Ozone Standard”). If we had enjoyed a better year in 2002, ozone-wise, the Austin area might have limboed under the regulatory bar and no longer have been in violation. No such luck.

This is bad news for public health, because it means that all of us—healthy adults, susceptible young children, and people with chronic respiratory problems—are breathing air that is unhealthy and can make us sick. (See accompanying story, below, “Ozone and Your Health.”)

Violating the Clean Air Act is also bad news for our already slumping economy, because it means that, sooner or later, we will be forced by federal and state regulators to clean up the sources of emissions that contribute to ground-level ozone. The uncertainty as to when such action will be mandated—and the reasons why the problem is not being addressed adequately by the federal government—stem from an ongoing lack of support from Congress, active opposition by the Bush administration, and litigation.

The Congress—The lack of support from Congress is typified by the absolute ban that federal lawmakers have imposed for the last six years on the US Department of Transportation, preventing regulators from requiring automakers to make cars that get better gas mileage and produce fewer tailpipe emissions. This is not only bad for the environment but bad for our nation, which is far too dependent upon imported oil. US Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-Austin) says, “As current events in the Middle East remind us, the creation of more fuel-efficient cars is not just a matter of securing a healthy environment, it is a matter of national security. Unfortunately, our current leadership has provided nothing but excuses and showed that it is unwilling to hold the industry accountable.” Or, as Senior Editor Gregg Easterbrook put it in a June 2001 editorial in The New Republic, “The worst thing about the Bush plan is its silence on the primary energy-efficiency question of the moment: the need for higher gasoline mileage across the board—not in a few hybrids but in the cars, SUVs, and light trucks everyone drives.”

The President—The Bush administration’s disdain for air quality is exemplified by its plan to roll back the “New Source Review” process for power plants, oil refineries. and other industrial facilities in a way that environmental groups and others contend would result in higher emissions. “Pollution from refineries and power plants threatens our environment and the health of every Central Texan,” Representative Doggett says. “Weakening the Clean Air Act would reverse the progress made over the last thirty years against air pollution and global warming.” The American Lung Association, it its report titled State of the Air: 2002, declares, “Rolling back the New Source Review protections would be the greatest attempt to weaken the Clean Air Act since its inception.”

The Litigation—A lawsuit brought by the American Trucking Associations Inc. and others attempted to prevent the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from implementing new standards for ground-level ozone (smog) and particulate matter (soot)—standards that would better protect the public health, as required by the Clean Air Act. In February 2001, the US Supreme Court upheld the new standards but ordered the EPA to develop a reasonable approach to implementing the new ozone standard. The EPA was devising a final rule on the implementation strategy before it designates areas that are in violation of the ozone standard. To that end, the EPA had been holding public hearings around the country when in June 2002, the American Lung Association, Environmental Defense, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, and five other environmental groups filed notice of intent to sue the EPA unless the agency designated the Austin area and 107 other metropolitan areas in violation of the ozone standards.

Negotiations are underway at the national level to resolve the issues before the lawsuit is filed, says Janice Nolen, national policy director for the American Lung Association. What’s being sought, she says, are “enforceable dates for the EPA to actually designate nonattainment areas as required under the Clean Air Act.”

Jim Marston of Austin, director of the Texas regional office of Environmental Defense (formerly Environmental Defense Fund), has been involved in the negotiations as well. “I think it’s likely we’ll have an agreement to have designations (of nonattainment areas) sometime in 2004,” Marston says.

Organizing to clean our air

Austin leaders long ago recognized the hardships we would face if declared a nonattainment area. All they had to do was observe what was happening in the air-quality regions of Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston-Galveston-Brazoria, Beaumont-Port Arthur, and El Paso, which were long ago declared by the EPA to be in nonattainment. Nonattainment puts a severe hamper on economic activity, as in Houston, for example, by lowering speed limits, requiring the testing of motor vehicles for tailpipe emissions, and requiring petrochemical plants to vastly reduce emissions. New industries tend to steer clear of nonattainment areas because these kinds of mandates make it harder to do business and add extra expense.

The Austin area, along with four other air-quality regions in the state, is classified as a “near-nonattainment area,” indicating that while Austin had not been officially designated as being in violation of the Clean Air Act, it is very close.

It is against the backdrop of impending federal mandates that the Austin area has been working to improve air quality. The effort began at the urging of Kirk Watson while he still chaired the Texas Air Control Board (an agency that was later folded into the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, which recently changed its name to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality). Representatives from several area organizations formed Clean Air Metro Austin in 1993. In 1995, that group became the Clean Air Force and incorporated as a 501(3)(c) nonprofit organization. In 1996, the organization was renamed the Clean Air Force of Central Texas to reflect the regional nature of air-quality issues.

In August 2000, as chair of the Clean Air Force, Austin Mayor Kirk Watson assembled a committee of elected officials, including the county judges of Travis, Williamson, Hays, Bastrop and Caldwell counties, and mayors of Round Rock and San Marcos. These officials began meeting as the Clean Air Coalition of Central Texas. By 2002, the group had expanded to include the mayors of Bastrop, Elgin, Lockhart and Luling, as well as State Senator Gonzalo Barrientos (D-Austin). Watson’s tour ended when he resigned as mayor of Austin to run for state attorney general.

The roles of the Clean Air Force and Clean Air Coalition overlap to some degree, even to the extent that both groups are chaired by Williamson County Commissioner Mike Heiligenstein. Some time ago, during Mayor Watson’s tenure, the two employees who staff the Clean Air Force were put under the wing of the Capital Area Planning Council (CAPCO), and Clean Air Force Executive Director Wade Thomason was required to report to the CAPCO’s executive director, despite the fact that he was supposed to be working directly for the Clean Air Force board of directors. Thomason was terminated August 1 by CAPCO’s executive director, and without a meeting of the Clean Air Force board of directors, according to Thomason. Jim Marston of Environmental Defense—who is on the Clean Air Force board’s executive committee—sent an e-mail to other Clean Air Force board members over the matter, pointing out that Thomason was fired without warning, without a meaningful evaluation process, and in violation of the Clean Air Force by-laws, which indicate that no one board member—including the chair—has the power to act on matters without the involvement and approval of the rest of the board. Marston’s e-mail indicates that he and some other board members “were not consulted about such a decision.”

Thomason says he’s not bitter about the way things ended but says that he was never given clear direction about what he should be doing to earn his salary of $58,000 a year. Thomason and others say that the role of the Clean Air Force began to blur when the Clean Air Coalition was formed, and the power naturally gravitated toward the Coalition, which is made up entirely of elected officials. Heiligenstein says action is underway to “define the roles of the Clean Air Force and the Clean Air Coalition so there’s no confusion anymore.” The Clean Air Coalition will deal with public policy, and the Clean Air Force will focus on public education, he says.

While the fate of one employee does not generally make or break the success of an organization, the way in which Thomason’s termination was carried out does raise a red flag about the way the Clean Air Force and Clean Air Coalition are managed, and particularly calls into question the idea of whether the next executive director should be forced to operate under CAPCO’s supervision.

Regional cooperation achieved

The Clean Air Force has done much to educate the public about air quality issues, but ultimately it is our elected officials who must make the decisions that will bring action. To that end, on March 28, 2002, the Clean Air Coalition, the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, and EPA signed off on the O3 Flex Agreement for the Austin-San Marcos Metropolitan Statistical Area (O3 being the chemical symbol for ozone). The O3 Flex Agreement is a voluntary local approach to encourage emission reductions that will keep an area in attainment of the one-hour ozone standard (under which ozone may not exceed 0.125 parts per billion, or PPB, more than three times in three consecutive years at the same monitoring site), while also working toward the health benefits envisioned under the eight-hour standard (under which the average of the annual fourth-highest daily maximum eight-hour average reading over a three-year period must be less than 85 PPB). An area may be in violation for either one or both standards, depending on its air quality. (For more on the ozone standards, see accompanying story, below, “Ozone and the Law.”)

In one sense, the O3 Flex Agreement is nearly meaningless, as it only protects the area from being designated for exceeding the one-hour ozone standard; the voluntary actions it promises to undertake will achieve only a small fraction of the emission-reductions needed to comply with the eight-hour standard. Austin has never exceeded the one-hour standard, although it could do so at some point. The overriding value of the O3 Flex Agreement is that it marks the first time that Central Texas governments have cooperated on such a wide scale concerning an environmental issue. That’s in marked contrast to the lack of regional cooperation that has for so long hindered protection of water quality in the Barton Springs segment of the Edwards Aquifer, as reported in The Good Life‘s cover story of July 2002 (“The Life and Death of Barton Springs.”)

The Texas Legislature has been of enormous help in addressing air quality issues by providing $10.3 million in funding since 1996, spread among Austin and the four other near-nonattainment areas (Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Tyler-Longview-Marshall, and Victoria). Nearly half of the total funding was provided in the budget biennium for 2002-2003. The Austin area was allocated $979,000 for 2002-2003 for planning and public outreach. “Without that money, this voluntary planning would not have been possible,” says Kate Williams, coordinator for the State Implementation Plan, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (formerly the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission).

Businesses backing clean air

The Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce has been a key player in trying to improve air quality by spearheading Clean Air Partners, an initiative to get businesses to voluntarily reduce emissions—especially emissions related to employee commuting. The Clean Air Partners program is especially notable when considering that in other Texas air-quality regions, business groups are usually in the forefront of the fight against efforts to improve air quality.

The Greater Austin Chamber’s work draws praise from Kate Williams, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. “They have been extraordinarily proactive for a chamber of commerce group in facilitating voluntary reductions,” Williams says. “That’s not normally what you’ll see from a chamber of commerce; you usually see the opposite—resisting.” In Houston, no fewer than eleven lawsuits have been filed to challenge the cleanup rules, ten of them by businesses or business groups, according to GHASP, the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention. Such lawsuits are common not just in Houston, Williams says. “Many areas react with fear instead of being proactive.”

In the fall of 2000, six major Austin employers—Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Intel Corporation, Motorola Inc., Samsung Austin Semiconductor, Solectron Corporation, and Vignette Corporation—agreed to become charter members of the Clean Air Partners program. These companies developed strategies and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Clean Air Force to reduce, over a three-year period, employee vehicle-miles traveled by ten percent, or make equivalent emission reductions.

Not many other partners signed up until early this year, when on-line tools were established to provide information and a way to enroll. To date, twenty-four additional companies have joined the original half-dozen charter members as Clean Air Partners.

Rob D’Amico of Transportation Management Group, coordinator for Clean Air Partners, estimates that the thirty businesses now enrolled employ about 23,000 people. Other major companies, he says, “are right on the cusp of signing up,” and are inventorying their emissions and deciding how best to reduce emissions.

While it is certainly commendable that thirty companies are participating, that’s just fifteen percent of the 200 companies that the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce committed to get signed up from among its own members.

David Balfour, senior vice president of URS Corporation (formerly Radian International) is the volunteer who heads up the Clean Air Partners program for the Greater Austin Chamber. He says hard times are hampering progress. “With the economy like it is, businesses are hunkered down and trying to keep the business on track. It’s hard to take time to do something that has nothing in the world to do with their company.”

Jim Marston of Environmental Defense says the Clean Air Partners program, which his organization helped to start, is “going okay, but not great.” He says, “In economic tough times, things like air pollution are put on the back burner. It’s hard to get in to see business executives.”

Balfour says businesses tend not to understand the important role they play in air pollution: “They say, ‘I don’t have a smokestack; I’m not contributing to the problem.” But, he notes, “Austin’s problem stems from employees who get in their cars and drive to work. Although that’s not the only problem, that’s how most Austin businesses contribute to air quality problems.”

Once employers grasp this fact, Balfour says, they can usually find avenues to do things differently and address the problem of air pollution in a way that makes sense for their business. (See accompanying story, below, “We Can Reduce Ozone Pollution.”)

The extent to which emissions have been reduced by Clean Air Partners is being compiled for the first semi-annual report, which is due to be published this month. Balfour will be looking for ways to recognize achievements by Clean Air Partners, and to identify and help any companies who signed up but have not reduced emissions. “We want to recognize participation,” he says, “not who signed up.”

Being careful to reward only valid achievements is also the goal of Environmental Defense. “Companies are trying to get vindication or praise as part of their program and if that doesn’t happen, some companies are not excited,” Marston says. “Some companies want to be able to advertise that they are being noted by environmental groups as a leader. Groups like Environmental Defense give out praise when we’re certain they are doing something we can praise.”

In fairness, Marston points out that the Clean Air Partners program is the “first of its kind” and, for a program without a successful model to follow, it is understandably slow in building momentum. Which is why efforts are going to be redoubled.

Clean Air Partners has been assisted by the Austin Idea Network, a group of high-tech entrepreneurs who have raised money, developed the web site, and furnished volunteers to help recruit other businesses to join Clean Air Partners.

Capital Metro leads the way

Capital Metro has done a tremendous amount to improve air quality in the Austin area. First and foremost, it provides a proven means of reducing pollution by getting people out of automobiles. For the year ending September 30, 2002, the agency estimated it had transported riders for a total of 32.2 million trips. Of that number, 24.6 million trips involved regular bus service over fixed routes and another 6.7 million trips were aboard the university shuttle. Capital Metro’s paratransit service carried passengers for 500,000 trips, and its vanpool service accounted for another 300,000 trips.

On Ozone Action Days, those days for which the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality forecasts weather conditions and traffic are likely to generate too-high amounts of ozone, Capital Metro provides free bus rides all day, which typically increases ridership about ten percent.

Capital Metro’s buses run on diesel fuel, the standard varieties of which produce high emissions of sulfur, particulate matter (soot), and nitrogen oxides, the latter being a contributor to formation of ground-level ozone. But Capital Metro’s entire fleet is powered by Koch Performance Gold Diesel. This cleaner-burning fuel reduces particulate matter and ozone-forming emissions by fifteen percent to twenty percent, compared to standard diesel fuel. Capital Metro estimates that if every diesel truck in Texas burned Performance Gold Diesel, from a pollution standpoint it would be the equivalent of removing 20,000 trucks from the road. In addition, Capital Metro is working with counterparts in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio to obtain Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel fuel that would produce emissions, according to Capital Metro President and Chief Executive Officer Fred Gilliam, “almost equivalent to natural gas.”

Capital Metro will soon take delivery of six new hybrid buses manufactured by Advanced Vehicle Systems and plans to put them in operation before the end of the year. These twenty-two-foot buses are powered by a turbine diesel engine that provides power to electric batteries that propel the vehicle. Emissions are about a tenth of the 2003 standard allowed for diesel bus engines. In addition, Gilliam says Capital Metro expects to take delivery of a couple of forty-foot hybrid buses in the spring. And the agency is working with a bus manufacturer to explore the feasibility of retrofitting existing buses.

The light rail plan that Capital Metro had devised was narrowly defeated by voters in November 2000. From an air-quality perspective, that was a major blow to long-term plans for reducing dependence upon emission-spewing automobiles. Gilliam, who was named president and chief executive officer April 29, 2002, says the board of directors decided not to hold another referendum on light rail this year. Work is currently underway to develop a more comprehensive plan that also examines bus rapid transit, park-and-ride locations, neighborhood centers and more bus service. “We are certainly going to involve the community in the process and be sure we have support,” Gilliam says. “We’re trying to make sure we get everyone involved.” He says the new comprehensive plan should be completed “no later than early 2004.” That would provide plenty of time to hold a referendum in November 2004, should the Capital Metro board vote to do so.

While light rail is on the back burner and a new comprehensive plan is in the making, Capital Metro is allocating twenty-five percent of the sales taxes it collects to local governments. Most of that money is being spent for roads, Gilliam says. He hopes the next session of the Texas Legislature, which starts in January 2003, will not derail plans by coming after Capital Metro’s sales tax. “We’re continuing to work with everyone in office and aspire to be given their trust and respect,” Gilliam says. “This would be the wrong time to change the structure. Air-quality problems and congestion will not go away.”

The bottom line for Capital Metro, Gilliam says, is “We’re committed to do everything we can to produce pollution-free service.”

City of Austin sets example

The City of Austin has been a leader in implementing ways to reduce ozone pollution. The Ozone Reduction Strategies Status Report published in February 2002 details a wide array of actions the city has taken to reduce emissions that contribute to ground-level ozone. The city’s overarching goal is to lower emissions of nitrogen oxide (NOx), one of the two primary precursors of ozone. (For more about ozone and precursors, see accompanying story, below, “Ozone and the Law.”)
The report notes that to bring the Austin area’s air quality into compliance with the eight-hour standard for ozone, “…many area organizations—particularly large employers—will need to adopt these strategies. It is the cumulative impact that will return ground-level ozone to healthful concentrations in this region.” Fred Blood, the city’s sustainability officer and primary author of the Status Report, says, “We have made baby steps in that direction, mostly through the Clean Air Partners.”

It will take a great deal more action than was committed to in the O3 Flex Agreement to comply with the eight-hour standard. The Austin area must reduce emissions by twenty to thirty tons, Blood says, and the O3 Flex Agreement-if carried out-will reduce emissions only by three to four tons. “The fact that we’re doing anything when not required by law is great, but we need to do ten times more.”

The actions carried out by the City of Austin are far too voluminous to list here, as there are ten strategies and within each strategy there are multiple initiatives under way, but a sample indicates what’s possible: One strategy is to voluntarily reduce vehicle trips taken by employees through telecommuting, compressed work weeks, promoting the use of carpools and vanpools, improving facilities for bicyclists and walkers, and providing incentives for employees willing to forgo a parking space. These measures are estimated to have saved five million vehicle miles annually.

Another strategy is to reduce emissions from fleet vehicles. The city operates four city-owned propane stations and has almost a thousand vehicles equipped to run on propane—which they do about eighty percent of the time, Blood says. That’s particularly noteworthy, he says, when considering that some fleet operators have skirted the intent of EPA standards by equipping vehicles to run on alternate fuels but not actually using alternate fuels.

Because of the particularly high emissions spewed out by diesel trucks, Blood says they are his “number-one enemy,” but private businesses using those vehicles can do better. “H.E.B. Grocery Company is one of my heroes,” Blood says, noting the work that our area’s dominant grocery chain is doing to improve its fleet.

Kate Brown, H.E.B.’s public affairs director for the Austin area, says twenty-two of the company’s seventy diesels operating in the Houston area run on liquefied natural gas (LNG) about ninety percent of the time, and on diesel the rest of the time. Houston was picked for this experiment because it has the worst air quality in any of the grocer’s Texas markets, and because it has sufficient LNG refueling stations. “It cost $32,000 per vehicle to make the conversion,” Brown says. So far, she says, “LNG vehicles have not been as good as the rest of the fleet,” but H.E.B. mechanics are working through the issues and improvements have been made. “It’s definitely the right thing to do for the environment,” Brown says. To expand the program into other markets, she adds, “It must also be good for the business.”

One simple measure that can go a long way to reduce tailpipe emissions is to cut the amount of time vehicles spend idling. This may be achieved by keeping traffic moving, which is top priority for the city’s program for synchronizing traffic lights, and by discouraging idling at places like drive-through restaurants. The city prohibits idling for more than five minutes at its own loading docks, Blood says, and there is a “high probability the city could pass a citywide ordinance” to address this opportunity for reducing emissions.

As the owner of power plants, the City of Austin has done much to reduce emissions from power generation. The Holly Power Plant and Decker Power Plant are older plants within the city limits, and Holly, located in the East Austin barrio, has drawn ongoing criticism from nearby residents concerned about safety and noise. When it comes to emissions, however, a report prepared in 1999 by John Villanacci, co-director of the Environmental Epidemiology and Environmental Division for the Texas Department of Health, stated that “when natural gas is used as fuel, the predicted ambient air quality impacts are such that they would not pose a threat to public health.”

Ed Clark, communications director for Austin Energy, says, “Holly and Decker are two of the cleanest plants in Texas for their age.” Clark says these plants produce about 1,700 tons of nitrogen oxide per year, compared to about 33,000 tons a year produced by on-road and off-road vehicles. The Holly plant has not used fuel oil for about a decade, he says, and Decker used it only for a couple of weeks when natural gas prices spiked.

The South Texas Project, a nuclear facility in Bay City, Matagorda County, produces few if any emissions that contribute to ozone pollution.

The city’s new Sand Hill Power Plant, which came on line last year in Del Valle, is a natural gas plant with low emissions that only runs during periods of peak demand.

The City of Austin and the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), deserve considerable recognition as co-owners of Fayette Power Plant, located in Fayette County, and managed by the LCRA. Although the Fayette generators burn coal, a leading source of air pollution, Ken Manning, the LCRA’s manager of environmental policy, says, “We will spend a total of $130 million to reduce emissions at this facility.” Only $30 million of that was mandated by a Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (now Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) under a rule that requires all old plants to cut nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions by half, Manning says. The extra $100 million investment to equip Units 1 and 2 with sulfur dioxide scrubbers is strictly voluntary. “Ultimately this flies in the face of the Bush administration efforts to back off on New Source Review,” Manning says.

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport was designed to reduce emissions associated with commercial aircraft operations. High-speed exits move aircraft swiftly from runway to gate, burning less fuel. All passenger-loading bridges at the airport terminal supply power, potable water, and air conditioning to docked airplanes. This eliminates supply vehicles and two large diesel engines that would otherwise be needed for power and air conditioning at each gate, and prevents an estimated 200 tons a year of emissions. In addition, the airport utilizes propane-powered buses to shuttle travelers and employees from the parking lot to the terminal.

How to clean our air

The good news is that all these actions have already been taken to reduce the pollution that plagues our skies. The bad news is we have so very far to go before Central Texas meets the eight-hour standard for ozone, and area residents can breathe healthier air. We can’t really clean our air but can only act to pollute less.

Our options are pretty straightforward, actually:

We could pray that good weather in future years will magically reduce ozone concentrations so that we don’t continue to violate the standards. In other words, we hope for a deus ex machina solution, for the hand of God to intervene and resolve our problems. Fat chance.

We could hope that the Bush administration succeeds in rolling back environmental protection so we’re not forced to clean up the air. That would call off the regulatory dogs—but it would not keep us from sucking up unhealthy air that is ruining our health and the health of our children, and prematurely killing people with chronic breathing problems.

Or we can realize that after four straight years of violating the eight-hour ozone standard, we must take action to drastically reduce the pollution we have been so blithely spewing skyward. Under this scenario, we can either wait until the litigation is resolved, the EPA issues its final rule, and officially designates the Austin region as a nonattainment area—probably sometime in 2004—or we can join a brand-new program called the “Early Action Compact.”

The Early Action Compact is a program under which voluntary Early Action Plans can be developed through an agreement between local, state, and EPA officials for areas that are in attainment for the one-hour ozone standard but approach or monitor exceedances of the eight-hour standard. The Austin area meets those prerequisites. Early Action Plans must include all necessary elements of a comprehensive air-quality plan, but will be tailored to local needs and are driven by local decisions.

The Early Action Compact offers some big carrots for participation: As long as the milestones are being met, then the area will not be designated as a non-attainment area for the eight-hour ozone standard. That’s especially important when you realize that the federal government can withhold funds for road improvements in nonattainment areas.

The Early Action Compact allows a locally designed plan that fits the area’s needs to go forward, once approved by the state and EPA, and not force the area into the cookie-cutter approach that would otherwise be mandated. Hence, local officials retain great flexibility as long as the Early Action Plan is being properly implemented. “Instead of ‘Thou Shalt Do This,’ local people get to choose,” says Kate Williams of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. “Being able to retain control at the local level is an extraordinary amount of power never seen in a State Implementation Plan process.”

San Antonio, which like Austin is a near-nonattainment area for violation of the eight-hour ozone standard, has already drafted a Clean Air Plan that incorporates the Early Action Compact.

Elected officials in the Clean Air Coalition of Central Texas are scheduled to consider a first-draft document that could lead to development of an Early Action Compact on Wednesday, October 9. The meeting is scheduled noon to 1pm in the board room of the Capital Area Planning Council, 2512 S. I-35, Suite 220. The Clean Air Coalition can’t delay the decision for long, however. An Early Action Compact must be completed and signed by local officials, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and EPA by December 31.

The protocol for the Early Action Compact has already been approved by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the EPA, but Kate Williams says the Early Action Compact was a direct result of the advocacy of the Alamo Area Council of Governments in San Antonio and the Clean Air Coalition leaders in Central Texas led by then-Mayor Kirk Watson. That advocacy led to the O3 Flex Agreement to address the one-hour ozone standard and it laid the groundwork for the Early Action Compact. Williams says the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality worked with the EPA and Environmental Defense in drafting the protocol.

An Early Action Compact must meet rigid milestones: By December 31, 2002, the compact, detailing the milestones for how the area will create its Early Action Plan, must be finished and signed. In 2003, technical work must be completed and control measures developed. In 2004, the Early Action Plan must be completed and integrated into the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s State Implementation Plan for submission to the EPA. In 2005, all control strategies must be implemented. In 2006, the local area reviews progress, makes reports, and updates the plan as needed. In 2007, the area must reach attainment of the eight-hour ozone standard. In 2008, the EPA designates the area as being in attainment, with no further requirements.

In a sense the Early Action Compact provides political cover for elected officials who would like to improve air quality but face possible opposition from a populace that is not necessarily aware of what’s at stake for public health and the economy. “It will take serious, hard-core measures to clean up the air in the Austin area, and it’s hard for elected officials to make those decisions if they don’t have support from the state and federal levels,” Kate Williams says. “That’s what the Early Action Compact does-provide support.”

Mayor Garcia, who is a board member of the Clean Air Coalition, says the need to educate the public has already been recognized, but beyond the efforts made by the Clean Air Force and the work done to recruit Clean Air Partners, not much has been done to reach the larger population. “We need to have a campaign that really gets the message to the people,” he says. “People don’t believe we have air-quality problems.” Garcia says that consultant EnviroMedia Inc. had proposed a public campaign comparable to the venerable “Don’t Mess With Texas” program, but when it became necessary to fund the campaign, “nobody came to the table.”

“We need that campaign,” the mayor says. “There are still too many (Chevrolet) Suburbans. There are still too many (Ford) Excursions. There are still too many people driving all the way from Luling, Bastrop, Dripping Springs, and Lakeway in their SUVs and their one-and-a-half ton trucks. These people don’t believe there are any air-quality problems.” (Garcia, by the way, is doing his share to lower emissions; he recently bought a Toyota Prius, a hybrid vehicle that gets about twice the mileage of similar sized cars and produces eighty percent fewer emissions.)

Williamson County Commissioner Mike Heiligenstein chairs the Clean Air Coalition. Does he support the idea of entering an Early Action Compact? “Absolutely—I think it’s worth a shot,” he says. “Whether it solves the problems or not, I don’t know. There has to be quantifiable goals and we have to meet them…We hope to get the support of industry.” Heiligenstein says he thinks that the other elected officials in the Clean Air Coalition will choose to support the Early Action Compact, just as they supported the O3 Flex Agreement.

What control measures?

Deciding what specific actions will be included in an Early Action Plan to reduce ozone pollution is something that will come later. All we know at this point is that the measures must not only reduce existing sources of ozone pollution drastically, but must do so despite growth in the population and industrial expansion.

Fortunately, we have a national expert in our midst to help determine what steps will be appropriate. Dr. David T. Allen is Reese Professor of Chemical Engineering and director of the University of Texas Center for Energy and Environmental Resources. He served as vice chair of the Committee on Vehicle Emission Inspection and Maintenance Programs for the National Research Council.

Allen has been studying Austin’s air quality for about five years. Some basic principals of his research are rooted in the concept that we have many of the same events happen most every day, such as industrial emissions and vehicular traffic, and weather is the main variable. The research involves studying representative historical episodes and developing a photochemical model to see if the model could have predicted what was observed in the historical episode. Once workable models are developed, they could be used to project into the future what emission control measures would be most effective in reducing ozone pollution. One type of model would be used, for example, to describe vehicle emissions and what emission reductions you might expect to achieve with specific actions, such as implementing a vehicle Inspection and Maintenance (I&M) Program or changing the speed limits.

A Texas I&M Program was legislated in the mid-nineties and was actually implemented under Governor Ann Richards’ administration. By January 1995, fifty-five testing stations were in operation to test vehicle emissions in Dallas-Tarrant County, Houston-Galveston, and Beaumont areas, but the Republican sweep of state offices in November 1994 brought cancellation of the program under newly elected Texas Governor George W. Bush. The Texas Legislature repealed the program in 1995, a decision that eventually resulted in a $200 million judgment against the State of Texas, in favor of contractors Tejas Testing I and II, says attorney Steve Bickerstaff, who led the team of Austin lawyers that represented the plaintiffs. Now in 2002, Texas is implementing a plan for mandatory emissions testing and repair of motor vehicles in certain parts of the state, a move that Bickerstaff calls “too little, too late.” Nevertheless, an I&M program may well be part of the Central Texas solution for reducing ozone levels, says Commissioner Heiligenstein. The Texas Vehicle Emissions Testing Program, also known as AirCheck Texas (“So we can breathe it. Not see it.”) currently applies to vehicle owners in Dallas, Tarrant, Harris, El Paso, Collin and Denton counties.

One consequence of an I&M Program is that its whole purpose is to find those vehicles that are polluting too much and either get them fixed or retire them. That might mean that low-income people, driving old cars they can’t afford to get fixed, would be hit hardest. Fortunately, the state has a program to assist low-income vehicle owners with repair, retrofit, and accelerated vehicle retirement.

It would seem that people might not be too crazy about the idea of being forced to get their vehicle emissions tested annually, pay an extra fee to do so, and be required to make vehicle repairs if necessary to limit emissions to acceptable levels. But a survey conducted by NuStats Market Research for the Clean Air Force of Central Texas indicated that the idea of tailpipe testing might be acceptable. The survey, conducted July 10-17, 2001, involved 199 residents selected at random from Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis and Williamson counties. Even when informed that a mandatory inspection program would cost them money, seventy-three percent of respondents reported being very likely or somewhat likely to support the fee. “It seems the majority of the population is willing to take responsibility for the maintenance of their vehicles in order to reduce ozone concentrations and improve air quality,” the report states. This sentiment seemed to hold true across the entire income spectrum.

But when it comes to speed limits, fuhgedaboudit. The NuStats survey didn’t even ask about the acceptability of lowering speed limits. When Houston was forced to cut the speed limit to fifty-five mph, people were outraged.

Broad public support needed

For now, the possible control measures needed to clean our air are being modeled, and it will be many months before elected officials are ready to propose specific actions. Further, the Protocol for Early Action Compacts requires broad-based local public input. Which is a good thing, because as a practical matter, it will do elected officials no good to promise control measures in the Early Action Plan that the public will not support. So don’t expect to see them floating the idea of reducing the speed limit.

The need to win public backing for the Early Action Plan is going to require an extraordinary amount of regional cooperation, first from the public officials who must sign the Early Action Compact, and then from the general public, upon whom achieving the necessary emission reductions depends. This will place unprecedented demands upon all citizens.

In a sense, the demands are analogous to the City of Austin’s recycling programs; the city can pick up recyclable glass, aluminum and paper products only if residents will sort their trash and put recyclables on the curb. This is indeed a minor imposition on ordinary citizens when compared to actions such as: keeping their vehicles tuned up; not driving to work or school alone; considering at least some of the time—and especially on Ozone Action Days—participating in carpooling or vanpooling, walking, or riding a bus or bicycle; participating in compressed work weeks and telecommuting to cut the number of days spent driving back and forth to work; getting out of the car and going inside to fetch hamburgers instead of idling in the drive-through lane; not filling the gas tank until after 6pm; and not using gasoline-powered lawnmowers, weed eaters, and leaf blowers until after 6pm.

In the end, the onus is on the individual who, once made aware of how each of us is dirtying the air, will see the wisdom of being part of the solution and not just part of the problem.

This story has focused upon the air quality in Central Texas and specifically on ozone. Ultimately, reducing emissions concerns matters of even greater importance, including global warming and dependence on foreign oil that has at times caused major disruptions to the American economy. Yet our gluttony for oil grows ever more insatiable.

Today, light trucks—which were allowed to meet a lower fuel economy standard when Congress established Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards in 1975—accounted for nearly fifty percent of the new vehicle market as of September 2001. In a report titled Increasing America’s Fuel Economy (see accompanying article, below, “Air Quality Resources”) “In 2001, the average fuel economy of new vehicles sold was at its lowest point since 1980. The proliferation of SUVs takes advantage of a loophole that allows what are essentially passenger cars to comply with the lower light truck standards, driving up the use of oil.”

What price must be paid to get that precious fuel into our gas tanks? Under the first President Bush, oil was the root cause of the Gulf War. Now another President Bush is rattling the saber and threatening another war against his father’s nemesis. Another war in the Middle East will not only destabilize the region politically but threatens to disrupt oil supplies or oil send prices skittering to who knows where.

As Rob Nixon wrote in an op-ed piece for the New York Times October 29, 2001, “For seventy years, oil has been responsible for more of America’s entanglements and anxieties than any other industry…The most decisive war we can wage on behalf of national security and America’s global image is the war against our own oil gluttony.”

Save fuel, save the country, and save our air. It’s up to each of us.

Ken Martin, editor of The Good Life, is busy making an appointment to get his car tuned up and reporting smoke belching vehicles.

Ozone and Your Health

Three-year-old Jesse Saucedo has made several trips to the emergency room in his young life. He was a premature baby, and he still experiences breathing difficulties, with episodes of a “terrible cough” that come on every two or three months. Jesse’s mother, Carol Saucedo, says, “I told the doctor that on days when he’s having trouble breathing, I’ve noticed these are also bad air-quality days.” As a result, Saucedo says, “When this happens, I have him play inside instead of outside.”

Jesse has not been hospitalized for the ailment, and since his parents obtained a nebulizer to administer medications when his asthma flares up, he hasn’t had to go back to the emergency room.

Jesse Saucedo is just one example of a growing incidence of asthma. In fact, asthma is so prevalent that it’s even showing up in major Hollywood motion pictures: In Signs, the latest supernatural thriller from director M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable), the character played by Mel Gibson has a son whose asthma affliction plays a key role in the plot.

But asthma and other breathing difficulties are anything but fictional. From 1994 to 1998, the last five years for which local statistics are available, eighty-one people died of asthma within the five-county area centered on Austin, according to the Texas Department of Health. Forty-eight of those deaths occurred in Travis County. Statewide, the rate of deaths from asthma has increased appreciably from 1980 through 1998, and more than 4,800 people were felled by the disease.

A study released last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that decreased citywide use of automobiles in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics led to improved air quality and a large decrease in childhood emergency room visits and hospitalizations for asthma. “Our study is important because it provides evidence that decreasing automobile use can reduce the burden of asthma in our cities and that citywide efforts to reduce rush-hour traffic through the use of public transportation and altered work schedules is possible in America,” said Michael Friedman, MD, epidemiologist in CDC’s environmental health program and lead author of the study published in the February 21, 2001, edition of Journal of the American Medical Association.

While many factors other than poor air quality can trigger an asthma attack, children, along with elders and others with breathing problems, are particularly susceptible to a witches brew of air pollution that results in high levels of ground-level ozone.

Bennie McWilliams, MD, is director of Pulmonary Pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Austin. He sees many children who, like Jesse Saucedo, suffer with breathing difficulties, some of which are exacerbated by high levels of ozone. Pound for pound, young children breathe more air than adults, and their lungs are in the early stages of development, McWilliams says. “The highest susceptibility is when kids are old enough to go outside and play outside,” he says. “Children should be limited in outside activities on Ozone Action Days.”

McWilliams sees such a strong correlation between air quality and children’s health that he serves on the board of the Clean Air Force of Central Texas, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving air quality.

Ozone can harm human health

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), roughly one of every three people in the United States is at a higher risk of experiencing ozone-related health effects.

Active children are at risk because they often spend a large part of the summer playing outdoors.

People of all ages who are active outdoors are at risk because during physical activity, ozone penetrates deeper into the parts of the lungs more vulnerable to injury.

People with respiratory diseases such as asthma may experience effects earlier, and at lower ozone levels, than less sensitive individuals.

Ozone can irritate the respiratory system and cause coughing, throat irritation, and uncomfortable sensations in the chest. Ozone can reduce lung function and make it more difficult to breathe deeply and vigorously. Breathing may become more rapid and shallow than normal. This reduction in lung function may limit a person’s ability to engage in vigorous outdoor activities.

Ozone can aggravate asthma. When ozone levels are high, more people with asthma have attacks that require a doctor’s attention or the use of additional medication. One reason this happens is that ozone makes people more sensitive to allergens, the most common triggers of asthma attacks.

Ozone can increase susceptibility to respiratory infections. Ozone can inflame and damage the linings of the lungs. Within a few days, the damaged cells are shed and replaced, much like the skin peels after a sunburn. Animal studies suggest that if this type of inflammation happens repeatedly over a long time period (months, years, a lifetime), lung tissue may become permanently scarred, resulting in less lung elasticity, permanent loss of lung function, and a lower quality of life.

Air Quality Index

To help protect human health, nine Texas communities, including Austin, are participating in the Ozone Forecast Program conducted by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (formerly Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission). The forecasted peak ozone concentrations are published on-line each day at Today’s Ozone Forecasts. The forecast is updated by roughly three o’clock each afternoon.

The forecasted ozone levels are classified within an Air Quality Index (AQI) that may be used as a guide to protect human health. The AQI is depicted on a scale from zero to 500; the lower the number, the better for health. The AQI is also published daily in the Austin American-Statesman.

The AQI ratings and attendant health concerns are as follows:

Zero to 50—The air quality forecast is good and there are no precautions for health.

51 to 100—The air quality forecast is moderate. Unusually sensitive people should consider limiting prolonged outdoor exertion.

101 to 150—The air quality forecast is unhealthy for sensitive groups. Active children and adults and people with respiratory disease such as asthma should limit prolonged outdoor exertion.

151 to 200—The air quality forecast is unhealthy. Active children and adults and people with respiratory disease such as asthma should avoid prolonged outdoor exertion.

201-300—The air quality forecast is very unhealthy. Active children and adults and people with respiratory disease such as asthma should avoid all outdoor exertion; everyone else, especially children, should limit outdoor exertion.

301 to 500—The air quality forecast is hazardous and everyone should avoid all outdoor exertion.

—Ken Martin

Ozone and the Law

There is “good ozone” and “bad ozone.”

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the good kind occurs naturally in the earth’s upper atmosphere, ten to thirty miles above the earth’s surface, where it forms a shield that protects us from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays. This beneficial ozone, however, is being destroyed by manmade chemicals. An area where atmospheric ozone has been significantly depleted, for example over the North Pole or South Pole, is called a “hole in the ozone.”

The bad ozone is formed in the earth’s lower atmosphere when pollutants react chemically in the presence of sunlight. Ozone at ground level is a harmful pollutant, and is of concern during summer months, when the weather conditions needed to form it occur.

Ground-level ozone is one of six contaminants the EPA has designated as a “criteria air pollutant.” (The others are carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, and lead.) The EPA limits such pollutants by setting a “primary standard,” based on scientific information about what is needed to protect the public health. The standard is formally known as the National Ambient Air Quality Standard.

A geographic area in which the air quality does not exceed the primary standards is called an “attainment area.” An area that does not meet the primary standards is called a “nonattainment area.” The EPA is responsible to designate nonattainment areas when any of the criteria air pollutants exceed the permitted levels.

Unlike other criteria air pollutants, ozone is not emitted directly into the air by specific sources. Ground-level ozone is created by sunlight acting on nitrogen oxide (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are known as “precursor emissions.” There are thousands of sources of NOx and VOCs. Common sources of NOx include automobiles, trucks, construction equipment, power plants, industrial processes and household products such as hair sprays, paints, and foam plastic items. VOCs include many organic chemicals that vaporize easily, such as those found in gasoline and solvents. VOCs are emitted from many sources, including gasoline stations, motor vehicles, airplanes, trains, boats, petroleum storage tanks and oil refineries. In addition, biogenic (natural) emissions from trees and plants are a major source of VOCs. NOx and VOC emissions can be carried by winds for hundreds of miles from their origins and result in high ozone concentrations over very large regions.

The concentration of ozone in the air is determined not only by the amounts of ozone precursor chemicals, but also by weather and climate factors. Intense sunlight, warm temperatures, stagnant high-pressure weather systems, and low wind speeds cause ozone to accumulate in harmful amounts.

The EPA revised the primary standard for ground-level ozone in 1997. Until then, the “one-hour standard” was that ozone concentrations of 0.125 PPB (parts per billion) or above exceeded the standard. The standard is not to be exceeded in an area more than three times in three consecutive years at the same monitoring site. If the standard is exceeded four times in three years at one monitoring site, then the area is in violation of the standard and no longer in “attainment.” Four areas in Texas-Houston-Galveston-Brazoria, Beaumont-Port Arthur, Dallas-Fort Worth, and El Paso-are in nonattainment for the one-hour standard. The one-hour standard continues to apply to those communities which were not in attainment of that standard in July 1997.

The EPA announced an “eight-hour standard” in July 1997 and uses it to judge the air quality of all other communities. The standard is that the average of the annual fourth-highest daily maximum eight-hour average reading over a three-year period must be less than 85 PPB.

For the Central Texas air-quality region (which includes Travis, Williamson, Hays, Bastrop and Caldwell counties), ozone concentrations are continually monitored at two sites: Murchison Junior High School, 3724 North Hills Drive, and the Audubon site at 12200 Lime Creek Road.

A third monitoring site that is listed on the TCEQ web site for the Austin area is located in Fayette County. Since that site is not within the five-county metro area, however, its readings are not counted against the Austin area for the purposes of compliance. To date, the fourth-highest ozone reading at the Fayette site has not exceeded 80 PPB.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (formerly the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission) publishes on its web site the details aboutNational Ambient Air Quality Standards.

The Four Highest Eight-Hour Ozone Concentrations for the years 1997 through 2009 for all Texas air-quality regionsare also available on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality web site.

—Ken Martin

Air Quality Resources

There is a mountain of information and numerous organizations available for anyone interested in learning more about how to clean up air pollution. What follows is a sample of resources reviewed in preparation of the accompanying story, “Waiting to Inhale,” along with a brief description of each:

Organizations
Capital Metro—The only provider of public transportation serving the Greater Austin area is actively pursuing emissions reduction measures while maintaining its commitment to reliable service that gets people where they need to go. Capital Metro also provides a matching service to help people find vanpools and carpools to reduce the need to drive. Apply for these services on-line at www.capmetro.austin.tx.us/fbridepro.html or call 477-RIDE. For bus routes and schedules, call Capital Metro’s Go Line at 512-474-1200.

City of Austin Air Quality Program—Information is available on-line at www.ci.austin.tx.us/airquality. (This link is no longer functional.)

Clean Air Coalition of Central Texas—This is a coalition of county judges and mayors of cities from Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis and Williamson counties that are setting policy for air quality measures in this region. For more information, call the Clean Air Force at 512-916-6047.

Clean Air Force of Central Texas—This is a nonprofit organization working to reduce air pollution in Central Texas. For details, visit www.cleanairforce.org or call 512-916-6047.

Clean Air Partners—The program’s purpose is to enlist the help of businesses and their employees in the effort to keep our city livable, healthy, and prosperous. For details, visit www.cleanairpartnerstx.org or call Transportation Management Group, program coordinator, at 512-350-6581.

Center for Air Quality Studies—A division of the Texas Transportation Institute, Texas A&M University. Its mission is to help Texas and national agencies find ways to improve air quality to meet federal standards. See http://tti.tamu.edu/inside/centers/cfaqs or call Brian Bocher, director, at 979-458-3516.

Drive Clean Across Texas—This program is touted as the nation’s first statewide public outreach and education campaign designed to improve air quality. The goal is to boost awareness and change attitudes about air pollution, and to ultimately inspire changes in driving behavior that will help clean up the air in Texas. The campaign is jointly sponsored by the Texas Department of Transportation, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and Federal Highway Administration. For details, visit www.drivecleanacrosstexas.org.

Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention—This is a community-based environmental organization dedicated to improving the quality of the region’s hazardous air through public education, participation in the state and federal planning process, and active advocacy in appropriate venues. For details, visit www.ghasp.org or call 713-528-3779.

Safe Routes Texas—This is a construction program administered by the Texas Department of Transportation. Its goal is to provide school children with a safe route to walk or bike to school, thus reducing motor vehicle trips. For details, visit www.saferoutestx.org.

Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition—This Austin-based nonprofit organization advocates for clean air and clean energy. For details visit www.seedcoalition.org or call 512-637-9481 or 512-797-8481.

Texas Bicycle Coalition—This Austin-based nonprofit advocacy organization works to advance bicycle access, safety and education. For details, visit www.biketexas.org or call 512-476-RIDE.

Reports
2009 Annual Urban Mobility Report, published by the Texas Transportation Institute, Texas A&M University. The report identifies trends and examine issues related to urban congestion, and is available on-line at http://mobility.tamu.edu. [Note: Date of report updated 10-14-09.]

City of Austin Ozone Strategies, a guide to the strategies and initiatives undertaken by the city to vastly reduce its emissions of ozone precursor emissions. The information in this report provides a wealth of ideas that could be adopted by private businesses and other organizations.

Clean Air Plan for the San Antonio Metropolitan Statistical Area. This draft is designed to enable a local approach to ozone attainment and to encourage early emission reductions that will help keep the area in attainment of both the one-hour and eight-hour ozone standard, and so protect human health. The plan is available on-line at www.aacog.dst.tx.us/cap/CAP2002.html#1. The report provides a model with which to compare the similar plan being drafted by the Clean Air Coalition of Central Texas for the Austin region.

Do Something: City of Austin Air Quality Program, provides a variety of information about how we can help make air cleaner, available on-line at www.ci.austin.tx.us/airquality.

Impact of Changes in Transportation and Commuting Behaviors During the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta on Air Quality and Childhood Asthma. An ecological study prepared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which shows that limiting commuter trips improves air quality and reduces emergency room visits and hospitalizations for children with asthma. Available on-line at jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/285/7/897.

Increasing America’s Fuel Economy: The Fastest, Cheapest, Cleanest Way to Reduce Oil Dependence, published in February 2002 by the Alliance to Save Energy, American Council for Energy-Efficient Economy, Natural Resources Defense Council, US Public Interest Research Group, Sierra Club, and Union of Concerned Scientists. The report is no longer available on-line but other information about increasing fuel economy can be found online at ase.org/content/article/detail/6062.

Latest Findings on National Air Quality: Air Trends, published by the US Environmental Protection Agency, is available at www.epa.gov/airtrends/index.html.

New Source Review, the official version of recommendations prepared for President Bush by the US Environmental Protection Agency concerning the impact of the regulations on investment in new utility and refinery generation capacity, energy efficiency, and environmental protection. For another viewpoint, read State of the Air: 2002 (see below).

O3 Flex Agreement, a voluntary local approach to encourage emission reductions that will keep Central Texas in attainment of the one-hour ozone standard, while also working toward the health benefits envisioned in the eight-hour ozone standard.

Protocol for Early Action Compacts Designed to Achieve and Maintain the 8-Hour Ozone Standard, published by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (formerly Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission). The protocol is available on-line at www.tceq.state.tx.us/implementation/air/sip/eac.html.

State of the Air: 2009, published by the American Lung Association, a group that insists that all of the provisions of the nation’s Clean Air Act be enforced. The report is available at www.stateoftheair.org.

Surviving and Thriving Without Driving: A Field Guide to Goods and Services in Downtown Austin, published by the City of Austin to promote the use of public transit and human-powered transportation in downtown Austin. [Note: As of 10-14-09 this report was no longer accessible online.]

The Plain English Guide to the Clean Air Act, published by the US Environmental Protection Agency, is available on-line at www.epa.gov/air/caa/peg.

The Plain English Guide to Tailpipe Standards, published by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The report is available on-line at www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/vehicle_impacts/cars_pickups_and_suvs/the-plain-english-guide-to.html.

Vehicle Emissions Testing in Texas, also known as AirCheck Texas (“So we can breathe it. Not see it.”) currently applies to Dallas, Tarrant, Harris, El Paso, Collin and Denton counties. Information about the program is available on-line at www.tceq.state.tx.us/implementation/air/mobilesource/vim/overview.html. This is a resource for comparing any future vehicle emissions testing program that may be advocated for use in Central Texas.

—Ken Martin

We Can Reduce Ozone Pollution

In the Austin area, the ozone season for 2002 runs from April 1 through October 31. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) designates an Ozone Action Day for the Austin area for each day in which ozone concentrations are forecasted to reach 85 PPB (parts per billion) averaged over an eight-hour period. Ozone Action Days are announced by all major media outlets to alert the public to take voluntary actions to help reduce the formation of ground-level ozone.

The TCEQ provided the following ten tips that citizens can use to help prevent ground-level ozone: Share a ride to work or school. Avoid morning rush-hour traffic. Walk or ride a bicycle. To avoid the need for extra travel, take your lunch. Combine errands to reduce trips. Avoid drive-through lanes, where automobiles must idle for extended periods. Postpone refueling until after 6pm. Don’t top off your gas tank when refueling. Postpone using gasoline engines such as lawnmowers until after 6pm. Keep your vehicle properly tuned to reduce emissions.

One way to avoid driving is to ride the bus. Capital Metro makes it easy by making the ride free on Ozone Action Days. Capital Metro also offers a vanpool program and will facilitate finding people to carpool with through its matchmaking service. You can apply for these services on-line at www.capmetro.austin.tx.us/fbridepro.html. Or call 477-RIDE to get matching information about carpools and vanpools. For bus routes and schedules, call Capital Metro’s Go Line, 474-1200.

We can also help by reporting vehicles that appear to be spewing out extraordinary amounts of smoke from their tailpipes. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality provides a “Smoking Vehicle Program” through which anyone caught in traffic behind a car, truck or bus that is emitting smoke can take action. If that smoke is billowing out for more than ten consecutive seconds, write down the license number, date, time, and location you saw the smoking vehicle. Within thirty days, call 1-800-453-SMOG or go on-line and make the report at www.tceq.state.tx.us/implementation/air/mobilesource/vetech/smokingvehicles.html. You do not have to identify yourself and the report is free. The state agency will get word to the vehicle owner. Although fixing the car is voluntary, thousands of vehicle owners have replied saying they have done so. Experts on tailpipe emissions say that about ten percent of the vehicles on the road account for about fifty percent of the emissions, so waking up these heavy polluters is definitely worth the effort.

How employers can help

Employers can play a big part of solving area air pollution problems. They can: Shift work schedules to allow employees to avoid morning rush-hour traffic. Allow employees to work at home through telecommuting. Offer bus passes. For employees who rideshare or use public transportation, provide a guaranteed emergency ride home. (Capital Metro offers a guaranteed ride program only to vanpool, express, and flyer service riders operating exclusively within the Capital Metro service area.) Carpool to lunch and meetings. Schedule meetings that don’t require driving, either by meeting on site or by making conference calls. Offer free drinks to encourage employees to eat at work. Postpone fueling company vehicles until after 6pm. Postpone working with mowers, bulldozers, backhoes, tractors and any two-cycle engine activities. Delay painting, degreasing, tank cleaning, ground maintenance and road repair. Postpone routine flaring or venting of hydrocarbons. Postpone the loading and hauling of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Postpone VOC-producing activities such as chemical treatment and catalyst preparation. Switch loads to fired heaters or boilers with low nitrogen oxide burners.

These suggestions are only the beginning of what can be done to make Austin’s air quality a whole lot better. For more ideas, explore the reports and contact the organizations listed in the accompanying article, “Air Quality Resources.”

—Ken Martin

This was originally published in The Good Life magazine in October, 2002