If you live in Texas, you could wake up one day and see a new sign with a proposed permit for a gas plant across your street. That means you\u2019re in for a long fight, if you\u2019ve got it in you.<\/p>\n
A community group, Protect Hood County, in Granbury, Texas, has been fighting for over a year against the proposed expansion of the existing Wolf Hollow 2 gas plant. Over the last three years, this community has been hit with gas power plants, bitcoin mining operations, and data centers, all of which have been fought tooth and nail by community members simply asking these companies to be good neighbors.<\/p>\n
In December, against the popular will of the people of Hood County and Granbury, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) granted Constellation Energy the air permit needed to start construction and, eventually, begin operation. This will be the third gas plant in the Mitchell Bend area, an unincorporated community just south of Granbury, with two others proposed nearby.<\/p>\n
The pushback against this expansion began almost immediately after it was announced. At a TCEQ public meeting in September 2023, regarding this permit, residents gave public comments opposing this plant. While there, they also requested a contested case hearing, which is essentially an administrative court proceeding in which an independent judge evaluates the merits of the proposed air permit.<\/p>\n
Since that first hearing, residents of Granbury continued to fight. In a first for the Texas Energy Fund \u2013 created by the Texas Legislature and favoring methane gas-fired power generation \u2013 last February, the TCEQ granted these residents a contested case hearing, a months-long process during which residents can present their case against a proposed permit. After that, they got down to business. They began organizing themselves and their community to wage a campaign against the Constellation proposal.<\/p>\n
Not only did they prepare for their administrative hearing by gathering hundreds of pages of documents, handling depositions, strategizing, and participating in the hearing, but they also worked to activate community members through town halls, media appearances, and door-knocking. They even employed a novel way to challenge the plant\u2014incorporating their community. Mitchell Bend, their neighborhood, is in an unincorporated area outside of Granbury\u2019s city limits. If they were successful in incorporating their neighborhood, along with the industrial area housing Wolf Hollow, they could impose noise limits and fines without needing Wolf Hollow to come to the table and negotiate.<\/p>\n
This process didn\u2019t go without hiccups, though. After submitting the legally required number of signatures to place incorporation on the November 2025 ballot, the county judge initially approved the list. However, three months later, and a week after the owners of the neighboring bitcoin mine sent a letter to the county judge, he turned around and rejected the petition<\/a> for the ballot question, arguing that the county attorney had not reviewed the initial petition, prompting the residents to start over and resubmit even more names to the petition. This was subsequently approved.<\/p>\n During this fiasco with the county judge, mysterious mailers began appearing in the mailboxes of residents of Mitchell Bend, purportedly from the National Landowners Federation Action Fund, a 501(c)4. These mailers encouraged residents to vote no on incorporation.<\/p>\n Before the November election, the Granbury residents received the administrative law judge\u2019s decision. She argued that the plant\u2019s air permit should be granted and that \u201cthe draft permit complies with all applicable legal and technical requirements\u201d under state and federal law. This decision ended the contested case hearing, and the final decision on whether the air permit will be granted was made by the TCEQ executive directors on Dec. 17.<\/p>\n With that battle all but decided, the last shot these folks had to at least slow down the plant, enact some public health restrictions, and put pressure on the bitcoin mine was with the election. Despite their door-knocking and community rousing, they fell short and lost the incorporation referendum by only 21 votes. It was always a long shot, especially against an organization that spent over $100,000 to make the proposition fail.<\/a><\/p>\n This plant will release an additional 250 tons of nitrogen oxides and 395 tons of carbon monoxide\u2014both of which pose serious health effects for youth, the elderly, and people with preexisting health conditions. These emissions, into this community already dealing with existing industrial emissions, are the side of the \u201cTexas Miracle\u201d that state politicians don\u2019t want the people to see.<\/p>\n Even though this gas plant is moving forward, the folks in Granbury aren\u2019t done. They have teamed up with other community groups to mobilize their neighbors to slow down and stop all the buildout that\u2019s happening. Even if Wolf Hollow III is built, the lessons they learned from their fight will be put to use in all the other battles that are happening across their community.<\/p>\n
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