Texas environmental regulators decide Oct. 21 whether to throw out a company’s application for a concrete plant on the edge of Burleson — and to throw it out for good, as the state’s own administrative law judges have recommended.
J7 Ready Mix wants a standard air permit for a concrete batch plant at 5428 East FM 1187 in Tarrant County, the kind of operation that mixes cement, sand and gravel on site and trucks the result to construction jobs. Batch plants are among the most-fought permits in Texas, because the dust and truck traffic land on whoever lives nearest. This one went to the State Office of Administrative Hearings, the independent agency that runs trial-like proceedings for state regulators, and the judges there came back recommending the commission dismiss the application with prejudice — a dismissal the company could not cure and refile.
The commissioners are not required to take that advice. The posted notice says they will also weigh the application itself, the public comments, the executive director’s written response to those comments, the hearing record and the parties’ exceptions and replies. The notice does not say why the judges recommended dismissal.
Four more permits come up on a narrower question: whether people who objected get a contested-case hearing at all. The City of Waco wants to add industrial, recreation and instream uses to its Brazos River water right and to be able to divert from anywhere around the rim of Lake Brazos. The West Travis County Public Utility Agency is seeking a renewal that would let it send up to 567,410 gallons a day of treated wastewater straight back into the drinking water supply. The other two are a 600,000-gallon-a-day discharge in Williamson County and a small evaporation permit in Gillespie County.
Behind the permits sits the enforcement docket: 56 agreed orders, among them air-quality cases against BASF, Valero, Phillips 66, Goodyear, Motiva, ONEOK, LyondellBasell Acetyls and two affiliated Lyondell companies, and a water-quality case against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Walker County. The penalty amounts are not in the notice; the agency posts a docket total after the vote. The commission takes all of it up still without a permanent executive director, nearly three weeks after Kelly Keel left for the Texas Association of Business.
Meeting at a glance
- When
- 9:30 AM, Wednesday, October 21, 2026. TRD 2026006048 was filed October 13 at 10:18 a.m.
- Where
- 12100 Park 35 Circle, Building E, Room 201S, Austin.
- Governing body & chair
- Texas Commission on Environmental Quality — three full-time commissioners appointed by the governor to staggered six-year terms. Chairwoman Brooke T. Paup. No seat is vacant.
- Format
- Open meeting, 67 listed items numbered 1 through 66 — the agenda numbers two different items “1” — comprising one district matter, one proposal for decision, four contested permits, 56 enforcement orders, a monthly enforcement report and four closed-session items.
- Live video
- Zoom webinar 811 3063 3089, access code 564943; by telephone (346) 248-7799. Agenda contact Georgia Carroll-Warren at the agency; see note 4.
- Full agenda
- Secretary of State Open Meeting Viewer · tceq.texas.gov
Commissioners
- Brooke T. Paup — chairwoman; Austin; named chair January 2025; term to 2027.
- Catarina R. Gonzales — Austin; former governor’s policy adviser; term to 2029.
- Tonya R. Miller — Austin; former state public utility counsel; term to 2031.
Roster rechecked October 14 against the agency’s commissioners page, which is unchanged from the Dispatch’s September 30 check and agrees with the governor’s appointment releases. The agency’s separate commission directory page is stale and was not used. No successor to Kelly Keel, executive director until October 2, has been announced, and none was found in a search of the agency’s newsroom and the governor’s releases through October 14.