SOS suing state agency over failure to provide information on MoPac expansion

The Save our Springs Alliance has filed suit against the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority because of the agency’s failure to release information about the proposed 8-mile expansion of MoPac Expressway South. SOS says that expansion is “one of the greatest threats we’ve seen to Barton Springs, Barton Creek, and the Edwards Aquifer in recent years. Its years-long construction and expanded footprint will harm our air and water quality, the health of the students at Austin High School, and critical habitat for the endangered Barton Springs and Austin Blind Salamanders.”

CTRMA has long been planning to add two toll lanes in each direction and two auxiliary lanes on MoPac from downtown at Lady Bird Lake to Slaughter Lane in Southwest Austin, and recently asked for community input. In addition, the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO), a regional body that decides how federal and state dollars are spent on local transportation projects, is taking comments on the 2050 Regional Transportation Plan until April 15.

Environmentalists have fought the highway plan for years. Any construction over the Edwards Aquifer is risky, noted Bobby Levinski, an attorney with the SOS Alliance. He said excavation in the recharge zone would contaminate Barton Springs Pool and get into the habitat of the Barton Springs salamander and the Austin blind salamander. The sedimentation would damage the gills of the endangered salamanders and fill in their breeding habitat, he added.

“As of right now, I don’t see any demonstrative effort to work with the environmental community to work on solutions,” Levinski concluded.

City Council has also expressed concerns about the environmental impacts.

Representatives of SOS have attempted to get factual data from CTRMA since last summer, but important information and observations of technical experts have been withheld, according to SOS. The state attorney general’s office has sided with the agency.

SOS Executive Director Bill Bunch said in a news release about the lawsuit, “This is about accountability. The public has a right to know the basis for a massive, proposed toll road expansion located directly on top of multiple and highly vulnerable public trust resources. By state law and basic principles of good government, the CTRMA can’t pretend they want help from the public in evaluating the proposed project and potential alternatives but then keep secret almost all of the information they are relying on.”

According to the lawsuit, although CTRMA has relied on the information it has not made public, the agency makes public assertions about the project and its public engagement process.

“Keeping this information secret at this time renders the Defendant’s legally required public engagement process a farce,” the lawsuit reads. “Its actions and legal position can be summed up as follows: ‘We want your input, but only your uninformed input. Only we get to see and evaluate the technical information that taxpayers and toll-payers paid for and that we are relying on to tell you how great the project really is. Trust us until we tell you our final decision.’ This position violates the Texas Public Information Act and all of the relevant case law applying (the act) to similar facts.”

SOS is requesting a Travis County District Court to issue a writ of mandamus requiring the agency to “promptly provide all copies” of the requested records to SOS under the terms of the Texas Public Information Act.

SOS notes that “if the defendant continues to assert that the requested documents should be withheld, SOS further requests pursuant to the (Public Information Act) that those documents be made available” to attorneys for SOS and for a review by the court in private.

Jori Liu, director of communications for the CTRMA, told the Austin Monitor via email, “While we typically don’t comment on pending litigation, we assure you that CTRMA follows all of the requirements of the Texas Public Information Act, including seeking a ruling from the Texas Office of the Attorney General when appropriate, and we are complying with the Attorney General’s ruling with regard to Mr. Levinski’s and Mr. Bunch’s requests.”

In 2016, the SOS Alliance was one of a group of plaintiffs – including former mayors Carole Keeton and Frank Cooksey, longtime Austin environmentalist Shudde Fath, Save Barton Creek, and Susan and Jerry Jeff Walker – who filed suit to enjoin the agencies from enlarging MoPac and connecting it to State Highway 45. That suit was not successful.

Photo by Lars Plougmann made available through a Creative Commons license. This article has been changed since publication to correct the number of new lanes that are proposed.

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