AUSTIN Most residents in rural Fayette County, about halfway between Austin and Houston, had no idea in 2016 their community was about to be on the receiving end of 40 million pounds of sewage sludge every year.
That is until a legal notice published in the back pages of the local newspaper alerted residents of the application to use ranchland along the Colorado River as a dumping ground for the sludge trucked in from Texas capital city. After that notice appeared in our newspaper, there was a public outcry, recalled Regina Keilers, publisher of the Fayette County Record. And within weeks, the application was withdrawn.