About Project CASA Effort aimed at earning "Attainment" status with the Environmental Protection Agency Something has to be done and it has to be done immediately when speaking of the air quality in San Antonio. District 3 City Councilman Roland Gutierrez is continuing to take action. Having already championed the hybrid vehicle, free metered parking pilot program, Councilman Gutierrez recently unveiled a plan (Project CASA) for San Antonio to be more proactive in the City's fight to achieve the goal of "Attainment" with the Texas Commission on Environmental Equality (TCEQ). Currently, the City of San Antonio is in "Deferred Non-Attainment" status. A "Non-Attainment" area does not meet the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) standards for ozone pollution and air quality. A Region is placed in "Non-Attainment" when ozone levels are recorded above the concentration of air emissions allowed by the federal clean air standard set forth by the TCEQ and the EPA. The TCEQ is currently monitoring San Antonio for a three-year period ending in 2008 where at that point a re-evaluation will be done on the local air emissions situation. |
Project CASA is a comprehensive, multi-facet plan aimed
at lowering air emissions in an effort to earn "Attainment" status by 2008.
Through this plan, four different aspects have been highlighted to attack the
air emissions dilemma San Antonio faces. The four points outlined in the
Project CASA plan include: 1.Decreasing automobile emissions. 2.The implementation of a local regulatory board as a subsidiary of our current Planning Commission for pre-plan compliance opportunities. 3.Partner with as many governmental and quasi-governmental entities so as to capture as much grant and regulatory money for clean air programs. 4.Enhancing quality tree integration and preservation. The first and most obvious way to clean the air is to decrease automobile emissions. With the implementation of the hybrid free meter parking pilot program approved by City Council on May 4th, this initial phase of Project CASA is under way. In addition, Project CASA calls for increasing the number hybrid vehicles used by the City of San Antonio (according to the EPA, hybrid cars top the list of the least polluting and most fuel efficient vehicles on the road) and the transformation of diesel engine trash and public works trucks to Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) engine vehicles. Also included in the plan is the incentivising of waste hauler permits to companies like Waste Management for the implementation of LNG vehicles and offering incentives to taxi cab companies that switch to hybrid vehicles. Under Project CASA, phase four or enhancing quality tree integration and preservation has already started. On September 23, the District 3 office and CPS Energy partnered to give area residents 500 free trees as a part of the utility companies Green Shade Program. For more information on the other facets of Project CASA, please call the District
3 office at 210-534-1300. |