Hood County Live Stream

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:01:08]to the state of Texas to Texas. One state under God one indivisible.

[00:01:20]>> Okay.

[00:01:22]>> All right. So, our next item is citizen comments at large. Can I have one speaker?

[00:01:30]Mr. Long >> should have mentioned we should pray for um our commissioners that are ill and Dave Eagle and Annette's husband for sure. So, I just want to get up here quickly and publicly state my disappointment in the meeting on Tuesday. We had a judge who self-admittedly was not cleared to be at a meeting and came in to to vote on something that could potentially change the county for the next 5 years and beyond. So that was a little bit shocking. I I felt like they they took our strategic plan, they took our development ress, and they took subchapter K and they literally just threw it in the garbage. And I'm getting tired of watching it. uh they had a law firm review what would be an engineering level packet of documents and approve it and they made an approval based on the law firm's assessment of again engineering grade package and it's very similar to what happened the first time when spectrum came up if you remember a couple of our commissioners couldn't even pull it up on their computer yet they approved it with conditions so I don't know why Amazon is getting such treatment, but I'm to the point now where I I no longer believe it's passive ignorance. I think it's more of an active pursuit. And um I'm not excited about it. Uh I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how a data center and a water quality district enhances recreation. No one has explained that to me. I'm still waiting for someone to explain to myself and Mr. testy here how a data center enhances quality of life for people in rural areas. I still haven't seen an explanation on that. So, I think we need to pray now more than ever that God has one final move to protect us from ourselves here. And I'm not going to stop fighting, but we need to throw everything we have at this. So, thank you guys for showing up. Really appreciate it. And yeah, that's a that's a prayer in Jesus name. So, thank you.

[00:03:43]>> Thank you. Amen.

[00:03:47]Did anyone else receive I didn't have any forms?

[00:03:50]>> I didn't feel one out, but I'll say a few words, please.

[00:03:55]>> I don't, >> you know, we're we're a little informal here, but >> I I didn't I didn't prepare anything either, [laughter] but I've got to just state my disappointment.

[00:04:05]Uh I've given this this court the credit of the doubt. county. Um, and I even um mentioned that I thought they'd been reasonably transparent up until now, but that decision uh last Tuesday was clearly a backdoor deal that was already done. It it it just reeks of that. Um, why would you not provide any explanation to um I they didn't even provide any assurance that they'd even reviewed what was submitted to meet the conditions and uh and so in doing so they've set the precedent for all the other conditions that have been set and and that's extremely extremely disappointing.

[00:05:01]I would I would love for someone to explain what Kevin Andrews means when he talks about he's got to follow the law.

[00:05:12]I would just wish that he he would provide an explanation for that.

[00:05:18]Uh because I'm not I mean it it's just not it's not very obvious.

[00:05:23]But we all know that Amazon went to Somerville County. They got um they got some tax abatements approved over there.

[00:05:31]I believe that was all just a matter of leveraging um these commissioners and it it just seems odd that Judge Masselle came in at the last minute. It seems to me that was done to approve Amazon.

[00:05:47]Uh I'm very disappointed that a precedent has been set more than anything.

[00:05:55]So, and I do agree with Matt. I think um why do we even have subchapter K?

[00:06:04]Why do we even have it? Um it's um it's not obvious that there there's any interest in leveraging it at all. So, that's really all I had to say. I'm extremely disappointed.

[00:06:19]Um extremely saddened. uh this c this this court this county has a gift and they don't even want to seem to try to test and see what the limits of that gift are. So >> thank you.

[00:06:34]>> [applause] >> May I say anything?

[00:06:39]>> Sure.

[00:06:40]>> I'll be very, very brief.

[00:06:41][clears throat] >> And I would like to echo both of what you guys just said. And I would also like to add my disappointment and how unbelievably disrespectful and insulting this court was to this volunteer commission.

[00:07:03]Um, I think that is disgraceful that this group of volunteers who have given your time and your expertise to help this county was completely ignored uh with regard to that last submission u and its approval. Um the very idea of this commission was to assist the county where it is deficient.

[00:07:35]Um and I think you were completely ignored and I'm very sorry that that happened. But I do appreciate and I think I speak for everyone in this room and all of the commissioner court meetings that people come to. We really appreciate your efforts a lot. Thank you. [applause] SOMETHING.

[00:08:00]>> SURE.

[00:08:04]>> CRAWFORD.

[00:08:07]>> UH, I'm extremely disappointed by what happened on Tuesday. Um, I was given a copy of the uh opinion by Deborah Mergle from the Jordans to the um commissioners and the judge. And um in that it documents where they had been meeting with the council for um spectrum and the county attorney.

[00:08:36]Furthermore, it goes on to detail that the basis for their argument and their exemption comes from uh the section 2 subdivision code 1.6.

[00:08:52]So, I looked it up and I was very confused because it says basically nothing.

[00:09:01]Furthermore, if you go through the development regulations and you go to the sections pertaining to the type of development that we're dealing with, there is a definition of the conditional approval process and that it says that when a project is presented to the court for approval that it's either to be approved, denied or approved with conditions.

[00:09:29]So, there's that flaw. Next flaw is that the conditional approvals were put together and developed with the assistance of Hood County's legal counsel, Blakeley Fernandez, during the hearing. They went out into executive session. Miss Fernandez was on the phone with them. I think at some point in one of the court sessions, she was on the Zoom. So, she was the attorney, the council that crafted the conditional approval process. So, why is it why that Miss Merkel is involved? We've never heard of her.

[00:10:10]Where did she come from? And she expressly uses the word in her document that says, "I I reviewed everything and I think it's fine." Well, the documents that were submitted pertain to drainage, traffic studies, endangered species, etc. So, how is it that one person who's not a professional engineer says that and that we can go on that authority and there was some deal made between our county attorney and her and the council for spectrum. I find that to be a little out of sorts, especially on Memorial Day weekend. Furthermore, I got more the documents that were submitted by Spectrum for their conditional approval, which are now available online. I just glanced at them and the most glaring thing that sticks out at me on the endangered species report is the date.

[00:11:17]one year ago in 2025.

[00:11:21]So why is it that those things were not submitted to us right when they made their first submitt?

[00:11:27]Despite the fact that they were submitted to the county on March 19th, this commission, the development commission has put in a formal process of review and recommendation that was ignored by the commissioner's court.

[00:11:42]I read all of the spectrum documents at the time that they were submitted. I haven't read all of the conditional approval documents, but in those documents, it states that during the 45 days per year that the nuclear power plant is shut down, they will be using those diesel backup generators, which run at about 95 dB.

[00:12:07]They have heavy particulate matter. it's going to affect us. And when I stated that in my comments during the commissioner's board meeting, [clears throat] it seemed to me that nobody else knew that fact. And it makes me wonder, did the commissioners read the submittals? How did they make their decision? And worse yet, why didn't they even look at whether it's in the water quality district for what it's called Squawk Creek and our regulations, although the name has changed to Comanche Creek Reservoir.

[00:12:39]So, I don't understand how this is a big failure of a process. And that's really where we're at. We had a process that considered our regulations, our state law 231.

[00:12:54]And I want to draw attention to 231.231, which states that wherever there is a higher standard in the law, it shall apply.

[00:13:06]And that did not happen on Tuesday. So I don't know what the consequences are going to be if there's any type of uh action that can be undone but it would be nice to explore that avenue. Thank you for hearing me.

[00:13:22][applause] >> I just I want to add I want to explain some things.

[00:13:32]Oops going down.

[00:13:35]So when we talk about a breakdown in processes because I agree there was a breakdown in processes um on I was on an email trail Nette as well and of course I wasn't on the ones that went to Bowler Engineering but there was an email that went to Clint was the only person on that in March uh showing that he was meeting with the AWS project spectrum people and that they submitted those documents in a shared link file.

[00:14:05]file and based on when an email finally got forwarded to me and then everything before it that I wasn't copied on also came with that that was on April 20th is when it went to Nette Samson the files that had been given to Clint on March 19th.

[00:14:25]Nette forwarded them to Matt and myself, but when we got that, the link had expired on it. And Nette asked for an updated link. Um, I think she'd sent an email to Matt Mills and said, "Hey, get this guy at Boulder Engineering to send us the link again because not only could we not open it, she couldn't open it."

[00:14:46]And they had sent it on to Deborah Merkel and she couldn't open it. So, um, I after Yesterday, because I had not seen these documents, I emailed the gentleman in Bowler Engineering explaining, "I can't open this link.

[00:15:04]It's expired on April 18th. Please send me an updated link," which he did promptly. He promptly sent me a link and I was able to get that and downloaded the documents. What he told me in that email was they had retransmitted those documents on May 5th.

[00:15:20]I wasn't included in that email communication. So, I had no idea that they had been retransmitted on the 5th of May. I don't know. I I don't know who who else was on that. But anyway, when I got the the link yesterday and downloaded everything and I put it up on the development commission web page, but I have expressed concerns over this.

[00:15:43]This on its face clearly shows a breakdown in processes. It should not have happened. Those documents should have been out to the public. I did ask our county attorney today because I looked into filing a complaint under the Texas Open Meetings Act for the fact that those documents were not made available to the public and I was told that that is not a legal requirement and and therefore I don't really have any grounds to make that complaint. I agree that this is egregious and and I agree that something should be done. I just I don't know what you know like I said the violation of the Texas Open Zoom meetings act was immediately where I went to um to talk to him about and you know he said no that's not the case you know I guess we could get a second opinion and find out because in my opinion this issue is way too important for the public we all should have had a chance to see those documents unfort it's it's it's more than unfortunate that there was a breakdown in the process was I wish I'd known they had come in on May 5th. I should have followed up when the link had expired. I should have made a note to myself to get an updated link. I thought somebody else was handling that. So, I'm I apologize for for not following up sooner than I did. So, anyway, but I just wanted you all to be aware of of that's that's how things went down from what I could tell from yesterday and the emails that I started, you know, going through.

[00:17:15]Did you ask anybody about the consequences of a legal error?

[00:17:20]>> No, I haven't. You know, I haven't had a chance for you to talk to Texas Association of Counties magazine.

[00:17:31]Was this Laura B Garcia?

[00:17:34]Uh she's like um an attorney and any legal questions you had? Okay. Well, I'll contact.

[00:17:43]>> That was my next one because I know we we do have some people there that we can reach out to. Um anyway, I something I neglected to do last week was introduce our newest member of the development commission. This is Gary Davis. Uh Gary has many many years doing uh project management and um we are very happy to have him. He uh replaced Tyler Scott who stepped down. So, he is our representative for precinct one.

[00:18:10]>> [applause] >> Okay. So, the next thing on the agenda is to approve the minutes from our meeting last Thursday. If anyone had any changes or anything or motion that we approve them.

[00:18:31]>> All right. We've got a motion to approve the minutes. Seconded and a second. All in favor say I. I.

[00:18:38]>> Any opposed?

[00:18:40]Okay. All right. So, next on the agenda, we have Dr. Andrew Wolford with us. And I know many of y'all that have been attending court know who he is, and he has put together um a presentation.

[00:18:54]Commissioner Samuelson had asked him to do um an in-depth analysis on the Apache Best project and um and compliance with 850 NFPA 855. So, I'm going to turn this over to him and let him give his presentation.

[00:19:12]>> Thank you.

[00:19:33]>> Move your little mouse around.

[00:19:39]There we go.

[00:19:43]>> So, try to get the mic here. I'm sitting tall. Got a lot of papers to keep people organizing for me.

[00:19:52]>> There we go.

[00:19:53]>> All right. So, um let's pivot from the frustration with the actions of elected officials, the court.

[00:20:06]legal matters and that sort of thing and join me in my world where we can't abuse and break the laws of physics even if we want to. And so for the next 30 plus maybe 45 minutes I invite you to spend time with me to look between the pages of some documents that were received where we can actually u look into fact there's a difference between documents received and documents fulfilling requirements.

[00:20:40]Um I'll stay here to answer as many questions as needed. I said we needed to plan for 30 to 45 minutes based on the questions that come up in the middle of the presentation. So, um, by way of, uh, by way of an outline to the presentation, um, I'm going to talk a little bit about, uh, my qualifications, why am I reviewing this, the Apache Hill best project, what I know about it, uh, a little background on what National Fire Protection Association is, and their codes, and then we'll pick out those applicable standards associated with the best facility. and I'll review my findings in summary form. There's a document that's been provided to Commissioner Samuelson already in draft that's a much more detailed findings and then I have some recommendations and additional observations to make at the end of that and we'll have some questions.

[00:21:37]So my [clears throat] background is I am actually I'm a an engineer that came up a few times about lawyers reviewing engineering documents and so I am an engineer. I'm a physicist and I have a liberal arts degree as well. Uh I spent 40 years in various industries evaluating the risks of hazardous facilities and that includes natural gas facilities, liqufied petroleum, petrochemicals, nuclear materials, uh toxic materials, you name it. If it can kill you by dispersion, by fire, or explosion, I've looked at it in some manner or another.

[00:22:18]And I've done these risk assessments not as an insurance agency would do just walk down a facility for a day. We've done thousands of manh hours of an analytical work and modeling and understanding accident scenarios that can happen. So I spent a lot of time on this. Uh I am a subject matter expert in the physics of vapor dispersion, fire and explosion. I've been a contributing author and co-chair of a a a code for liqufied natural gas in Canada. Uh I've been an expert witness for numerous major accidents in the petrochemical industry, managed over a thousand projects and personally conducted about 300 or so process hazard analyses. And we're going to come back to that terminology a little bit later in the presentation.

[00:23:09]So Apache Hill based on the documentation is planning to put 96 Sunro Power Titan 2.0 battery energy storage system containers on the site out near Rainbow's promised childcare near uh the condo. The site will be rated at 200 megawws and 400 megawatt hours electric. So let's get a feel for what that means. That's about the same as a thousand Teslas parked on a s on a single lot. It's also as if we parked them 14 high on all parking spaces as far as the energy density goes. Can >> I ask you a question? Where did you get those stats?

[00:23:51]>> The 200 and the 400. Yeah. Came out of these documents here, >> which are the compliance with all the codes and standards that we're going to talk through.

[00:24:00]>> Okay. and uh and they're only about 200 feet from Rainbow's promised child care as far as the nearest best to the borderline.

[00:24:12]So, on to National Fire Protection Association. Jeff, are you here?

[00:24:16]>> There you go. Jeff knows all about any fire professional knows NFPA codes.

[00:24:21]>> What you may not know is there's 1,600 of them. That the code development began in 1896 for sprinkler systems. Wow. and that this is the the prominent worldwide fire code organization.

[00:24:38]When an engineer commits to following NFPA codes, it means they formally agreed to design, implement, and maintain systems and facilities strictly in compliance with those codes. The it's both a professional and a performance requirement commitment.

[00:24:54]Not doing it means that it's not optional. It's a legal requirement.

[00:25:00]Ignoring it can lead to fires and shutdowns and insurance issues and higher fire risks and harm to reputation.

[00:25:07][clears throat] So, uh, just so that I got things straight, this isn't I don't have intimate familiarity with this code.

[00:25:16]It's pretty new. Best systems are pretty new. So, I had to come up to speed. I called one of the key authors and had a discussion. His first words to me were, "Um, do you have anybody hired to help advise you on this yet?" And I said, "No, I'm going to try and do it myself." He said, "Oh, well, I'm already advising several counties in Texas, and the typical engagement's between 400 hours and 300 300 and 400 hours of time to help you understand it. It's a complicated standard." And I said, "Well, let me just try. We'll talk through it." And by the end of the call, I think he was confident that I could understand what he had to say. But this is the kind of thing that you need to understand.

[00:25:58]Even if they did everything right, it would take extreme detailed knowledge to really understand what's been required of them and the nesting of these codes and standards and how they feed into one another. So this is a little diagram I'm trying to help and simplify. So there's a code called NFPA 855 which is essentially requiring the builder to analyze and mitigate all hazards associated with a best facility. It's the overarching standard and then beneath it requires some testing to demonstrate this particular set of equipment has certain behavioral characteristics of release of gas, possible fire propagation, possible explosion. So they have to test some of this equipment in a certified testing laboratory and provide those results. That's the standard called UL954A as well. Because these containers have the possibility of fire escalation and explosion, there is a NFPA68 and 69 which deal with both of those. It deals with blowout panel design so that the building doesn't just explode. This is similar to if we had a tank farm and we put a thief hatch on it. If you have an overpressurization, you don't want the whole thing to just rupture. You want an a controlled release. So that's what the 68 standard does. 69 establishes ventilation with the intent to keep your flammable uh mixture below flammable limits within the container.

[00:27:37]So, it's supposed to detect a release and begin ventilating that space to maintain lower than flammability limits of the gas.

[00:27:49]So, 855 requires hazard identification and mitigation.

[00:27:56]It's minimum requirements.

[00:27:59]My conclusion is right there in the middle in italics.

[00:28:05]This fails miserably to meet the requirement of 855.

[00:28:13]It's completely deficient. It's borderline deceptive in the way it was put together. I have 16 detailed deficiencies. I'm going to just hit a few key ones here. I I'd be happy to go through all the detailed ones, but the process is called hazard mitigation assessment. You may know or you may remember I talked about process hazards analysis. I've done 300 or more. It's a similar type of study. Essentially, it's a workshop where you work through systematic identification of the causes, consequences, and risk levels of any accident scenario that's possible. This HMA is contrived. The process is not supported. It's not referenced to any kind of adopted criteria. It's not performed to industry standards and it's a very deceptive piece of work. The HMA assigns low risk levels to every risk that they evaluate so that they don't trigger the requirement of adding safeguards.

[00:29:15]And finally, >> I have a question.

[00:29:17]>> Yes.

[00:29:17]>> Are they assigning this to themselves?

[00:29:20]>> The analysis was done by a hired engineering firm by the by the client.

[00:29:27]>> Okay.

[00:29:28]Now in the PHA world, those ones that I have done, the client is usually required to have an independent third party lead the study and independent subject matter experts participate in the study. One of my recommendations in the future will will touch on that.

[00:29:46]The HMA ignores many significant hazards. The only ones that they covered in this study were the minimum ones stated explicitly in the main part of 855. But in appendices, it's clear the guidance is the intent is to find out what all the hazards are. So as an example, the study doesn't really touch on toxic vapor dispersion of unignited um thermal runaway gas. So I wound up doing that and the results of the toxic vapor release demonstrates that there are indeed health and safety impacts that reach the Rainbow's Promise Daycare Center. This bullseye diagram here is centered on one of the besses at Apache Hill. And what we're doing is we're tracing vapor dispersion at concentrations listed in the little area there that you can't read. 50 parts per million down to two parts per million.

[00:30:44]But 50 parts per million is a health effect. And the 50 parts per million is the blue circle which very much reaches the road.

[00:30:55]this tool that I managed to use. It was very coincidental, kind of serendipitous really. I have a a license to run the code called fast and I get newsletters and one of the newsletters that came in within two weeks ago was that hey, we've got a new module called the best anal analytical uh algorithm and I called the vendor and said could I try that out?

[00:31:19]Would you cop me a copy of that and let me use that in my work? And they said, sure. So this is a brand new piece of software focused on analyzing dispersion from best facilities >> and it's a state of >> quick question.

[00:31:36]Are you going to make this available on the Hood County website anywhere or some people?

[00:31:41]>> Yeah, I just have to make sure that I get it >> marked correctly and so that it's traceable and that sort of thing.

[00:31:48]>> When when he's done and then he provides that to me, I'll get it out there.

[00:31:52]>> Okay. Thank you.

[00:31:54][clears throat] So, I leave you with the concern that we haven't even looked at vapor hazards associated with this facility neighboring to the daycare center.

[00:32:04]>> How about neighboring to the lake as well?

[00:32:06]>> You can see the circle >> neighborhoods.

[00:32:08]>> Yeah. And and I have I have oriented the um the wind direction up towards the northwest, but it can go any direction. And the wind probability of distribution is p predominantly from the southwest, but it can come from any place as we all know.

[00:32:27]>> And so if it's a vapor release, does it then rain down on the >> It's not going to it's not going to rain out. Uh it's a gas and it is um above its vapor point when it's released, but it is heavier than air when it's released. So, it travels um I don't have that diagram, but the plume can either go vertical or horizontal or it can go touch down and then bounce back up and go horizontal.

[00:32:54]>> Can it contaminate the water or the soil?

[00:32:57]>> No.

[00:32:57]>> Okay.

[00:32:58]>> What type of event, Andy, is do you have >> This is thermal runaway.

[00:33:03]>> What's that?

[00:33:04]>> Thermal runaway.

[00:33:05]>> Battery overheating.

[00:33:06]>> Do you guys know what that is?

[00:33:07]>> No.

[00:33:08]>> Okay.

[00:33:08]>> Pretend we don't. Thermal runaway is very unique to uh lithium ion batteries.

[00:33:15]What it means is through some transient usually through the control system a certain number of cells starting with one begin to get overheated either from over amperage or lack of control of the uh of the load. But some software that's meant to control battery uh power levels is it goes off and it winds up heating one cell and it becomes a feedback that the overheating then causes reaction of the electrolyte that causes heating and it just keeps on going. That's why the term runaway is used. It can escalate from one cell to a neighboring cell. It can escalate from one bank to a neighboring bank. It can escalate from one building to a neighboring building.

[00:34:06]And that's what the UL testing is supposed to explore. And we'll talk a little bit about that.

[00:34:11]>> Can that toxic vapor be breathed in by people on the ground?

[00:34:15]>> Yes. Yes.

[00:34:18]>> How what's the distance on your your outer circle?

[00:34:21]>> Um it's probably about 800 ft. I'm going to have to get one with scale on it. I just put it on the map because I thought people would be familiar with the area.

[00:34:36]>> So, do they have certified safety shut off systems or >> there's all sorts of control systems?

[00:34:43]>> There's all sorts of controls and mitigations there and they are supposed to work >> but but it's all depending on the on the risk level. That's right. Safety integrity level. Right.

[00:34:52]>> I couldn't have said it. If they are assessment incorrect, then those then those functions may not be adequate.

[00:34:58]>> And as a result and as a matter of fact, the safety integrity level functional safety assessments referenced in here, but it wasn't provided to us.

[00:35:08]>> Wow.

[00:35:12]>> Says enough school that is nearby. I'm the picture that you have up there. The distance there I think is about a half mile.

[00:35:25]>> Okay.

[00:35:26]>> But I'm assuming that that in a sense almost reaches that. I don't know that it's on your photo map.

[00:35:34]>> Just circle.

[00:35:37]>> You guys know the area a little better than I do. Honestly, >> I'm happy to turn this map over with the uh with the bullseye plot on it. We can look at it for the features on it that you want to find. If I may, I could go point out that school.

[00:35:53]>> Sure.

[00:35:54]>> Yeah.

[00:35:54]>> Okay.

[00:35:55]>> You can use my mouse to point it.

[00:35:58]>> Your what?

[00:35:59]>> The mouse.

[00:36:00]>> Oh, okay.

[00:36:02]>> Then you don't have to reach your arm way up there.

[00:36:05]>> So, just stand judges.

[00:36:07]>> Elastic manual.

[00:36:10]>> That's me and Brian school.

[00:36:12]>> Okay.

[00:36:13]>> Uh, that's our parking area. This is the school bus lane there.

[00:36:18]And I believe that is the daycare facility there.

[00:36:22]>> No, the dayare is right.

[00:36:24]>> That white building is the school.

[00:36:26]>> Sh. This is the dayare.

[00:36:27]>> What? The school.

[00:36:28]>> Oh, >> the two white rectangles together.

[00:36:31]>> That's right.

[00:36:33]>> Behind the school. What's it called?

[00:36:34]>> The thing below tree that zoomed out right there.

[00:36:39]>> The little cross.

[00:36:41]You can't see the daycare because it's inside the blue.

[00:36:44]>> It's inside the ellipse. Yeah.

[00:36:46]>> Oh, okay. It's inside the >> You said it was 200 feet from the school and yet the circle went 800 ft out.

[00:36:52]>> If I may, >> I can't get it to show up there.

[00:36:54]>> Okay.

[00:36:57]>> Okay. So, you see the elementary school by the lake.

[00:37:00]>> It's on my screen.

[00:37:07]>> Maybe if you go into present mode.

[00:37:09]>> Out of present. Okay. Let's try that.

[00:37:12]>> There you go. Okay.

[00:37:13]>> Oh, now we can see it. This right here is Mr. Gotcha.

[00:37:17]>> No, school is down below.

[00:37:19]>> No, this is right there.

[00:37:21]>> That's right off the river.

[00:37:22]>> The daycare that we're referencing is right here, >> right in the ellipse.

[00:37:26]>> This is Manbrano Highway.

[00:37:28]>> Yes.

[00:37:28]>> That comes down and makes the corner.

[00:37:30]Comes down. This over here is Treaty Oaks. That's how >> Okay.

[00:37:35]>> This is the school.

[00:37:37]>> Right here's the the little gas station on the corner. That is the daycare right there.

[00:37:42]>> Yeah.

[00:37:42]>> Okay.

[00:37:43]>> Thank you, guys.

[00:37:47]I'm g keep it out of presentation mode so I can see the cursor.

[00:37:51]>> All right. So now I'm going to move into the document. Uh the standard UL954A is a prescription of a testing uh methodology to evaluate best components for the possibility of venting gas, a thermal runaway, the heat generation rate possibly affecting neighboring exposures, and then our fire and explosion mitigation measures adequate.

[00:38:26]And so I'm just going to tell you that this document I did not purchase the two UL standards.

[00:38:34]They were 500 bucks a piece. So I chose not to do that. I did look into the NFPA stuff and I I just reactivated my access to those. But I was able to understand by reading the report on it and reading some of the published information what the UL standard requirements are. And I will just say that even without detailed knowledge of the standard, this report is hard to read. It's hard to really understand what was done. And I confirmed with the auth one of the authors of NFPA 855. He said, "Are you are you looking at the Sunrow report?"

[00:39:16]And I said, "Yes." and he said, "That's going to be really hard for anybody to understand because it's not straightforward."

[00:39:24]So, the reason I bring that up is some of these conclusions may be changed if this is supplemented with information that I don't have, but what when I look at what it states, there's concern.

[00:39:38]There's a lot of concerns.

[00:39:40]>> Are they using this report at other sites? Is that why you're >> typically what happens is the manufacturer will pay for the test to be done once and then any buyer of the system gets that test to utilize in their satisfaction of local or uh national codes of standards.

[00:40:00]So not every customer pays for a test and so some of the testing conditions may not be identical. As a matter of fact, this one states that the entire test setup was for an indoor located unit, which is not the case with Apache Hill. I don't know what the difference is on their test setup for indoor versus outdoor. But if you read these, you know, 50 or 60 pages of tabular data and find the one word that says setup for indoor testing, then you kind of raise a suspicion about whether it's applicable to this or not.

[00:40:35]So with all of this said, um the intent is heat up a cell and a cell is pretty small. You know, lithium, a lithium ion battery has a certain electrolytic potential like we learned everybody learning chemistry, right?

[00:40:53]There's certain electrochemical potential and we can't change that voltage. It's part of mother nature. So when we want lots of voltage, we have to just add lots of cells together. And that's what they do. They just keep stacking these cells in banks and banks and wire them either in parallel or in series. And so a cell is tested to see what the off gas is from the runaway. So you remember I talked about the runaway being overheating, rupturing the container, the the plastic or whatever polymer that encloses the cell and then that reacting and those vapors and flammable mixtures coming off. So they test that composition because it's necessary to know for designing the safe zones. Then they look at can the thermal runaway be contained in the smallest unit of battery cells.

[00:41:48]And the language here is one of the most frustrating things about this standard.

[00:41:52]The standard's clear about language, but the vendors use their own so that you can't quite line things up. So these guys talk about containers. We never talk about a container in the standard.

[00:42:03]So you got to figure out, well, are they talking about an installation or are they talking about a unit level? So it doesn't match up very easily but the intent is contain it within the smallest uh module and then if it doesn't stay contained within that then does the heat generation affect neighboring modules and then if that continues throughout the entire building or container shipping container then our fire and explosion measures that we use enough to keep it from escalating beyond that So that's the purpose of the test.

[00:42:40]>> Is it the gas that catches on fire?

[00:42:44]>> Gas is flammable. There's a lot of hydrocarbons and hydro and CO.

[00:42:49]And and as it turns out, my first fora into figuring out what the off gas was.

[00:42:53]I found a very recent paper 26 March and it basically said since the whole industry doesn't really know what the vapors coming off of these cells are, we measured a couple and here's our results. But there's a lot more that need to be looked into. So we don't really know all of the papers coming out.

[00:43:13]>> The probability of one of these sales deteriorating the fact that they get, >> you know, that's a that's because it's such new equipment. We don't have a whole lot of history and there would be criticism.

[00:43:24]>> So these guys could get away with a lot of that, right? Not having >> producing data that really probably not substantiated by any valid studies or analysis or anything like that. Yeah, I think this is just uh one aspect of the entire data center industry where the industry is way ahead of regulation, way ahead of controls, way ahead of standard safeguard design, and they're building so fast that it's going to catch up later, but probably incidences that they should have should be something available, right? There's been enough instances with like you're saying the Tesla vehicles and on airplanes and >> you know every engineer is going to argue well a Tesla battery is not the same as what we put in down at Apach even though it's a you know different design different safeguards.

[00:44:09]>> So the performance criteria I'm just going to echo this one more time. I know this is small but I cut and pasted from an official document. So the the idea of testing the cell is to check can thermal runaway be induced and is the cell vent gas flammable and can we characterize what it is? And then at the module level the thermal runaway is it contained within the module or if not does the cell vent gas is it flammable perm standards. And then at the unit level, does one unit impinge upon a target unit at temperatures that could create damage to this the target unit? And then finally the installation which is not a required test by the uh the UL 9540 but it's optional and it's recommended and that's temperatures and explosion uh mitigation measures to determine the effectiveness of this and then they essentially they launch into another set of standards to determine whether the explosion prevention works. So this is officially from the report and here's what they said. Cell thermal runaway was observed. Cellto cell thermal runaway propagation was observed. No module to module thermal runaway. No flying debris. No electric arcs. No external flame. Battery module weight measured.

[00:45:38]Blah blah blah. That's what this this is the official summary of the test. And then we go down to the next and see that In the report that summarizes it, the NFPA 855 report, they say, well, figure 16 shows an error view of the container arrangement before testing and 17 depicts after. Although the executive summary in the NF in the UL report states no fire or thermal runaway occurred, it's clear that there was thermal runaway that occurred on those.

[00:46:12]You can see the secondary containers burned. toast.

[00:46:18]>> So, you can imagine this report's been a little bit hard to review when it doesn't even maintain internal consistency.

[00:46:25]>> And did they state the location of the test?

[00:46:28]>> China, >> but it's written in but it's like a German header on >> TUB is the company. TUV is a Dutch company that has an office for testing in China.

[00:46:39]>> There's a lot of >> TUV. Yeah.

[00:46:42]>> Was that TUV report provided with their report? Woo.

[00:46:45]>> It It's Yeah.

[00:46:47]>> Yeah.

[00:46:50]>> Yeah.

[00:46:51]>> CSA is the overarching standard or testing facility lab and then TUV is the observer.

[00:46:59]>> So, um, now we move on to explosion protection. As it turns out, strangely, the the requirement is either you build the building with blowout panels so the building doesn't rupture and you design those according to what you expect the the internal pressurization is going to be or you build the ventilation system to maintain the flammable range below the lower flammable limit in the event of any release. It's an eitheror. In this case, they did both. I'm not sure why, but they did. So, NFDA68 designs the venting. There were nine I found nine deficiencies. Seven of them were just missing information. You know, they reference things they didn't state or didn't provide. They had figures that couldn't be read, tables that didn't have numbers in them. The second thing there is the computer software used to calculate pressure generated by the deflogration of the gas is not validated. It's a requirement by NFPA standards to show the validation of the tool, especially computational fluid dynamics tools. Conclusions relating to pressure generated by the deflogration of the gas cloud are based on an incorrect lower flammability limit. This is very much key to the review.

[00:48:21]The purpose of measuring the gas is to determine what the gas makeup is and then you use some analytics to determine what the mixtures flammable limits are.

[00:48:32]>> I don't know what deflogration means.

[00:48:34]>> Deflogration is uh >> fancy word for blowing up.

[00:48:37]>> Yeah. Explosion is everything.

[00:48:40]Deflogration is below the speed of sound. Detonation is above the speed of sound. It just has to do with the flame front.

[00:48:48]>> Okay. So the um the purpose is to identify the gas components and find out from that what is the flammability of the mixture. Well, they stated the flammability of the mixture without stating how they came up with it. So I took the mixture and I calculated the flammability and it's not the same.

[00:49:08]>> Mine is much lower. So when they claim that they're maintaining below the flammable limit, it's the one they're using which is around five something 5 something and I calculated around 3.02.

[00:49:23]So they're not maintaining it below flammable limits if you calculate flammable limit correctly.

[00:49:30]>> The numbers >> and there's I have some theories on why but it's not even important at this point. And so NFPA69 is maintaining the the ventilation and this is a very advanced software that is being used for this kind of purpose. The modeling assumptions in this software were very limited. Usually when a responsible analyst uses CFD, computational fluid dynamics to analyze a problem like this, they also explore a range of sensitivities and assure the reader that they've made the assumptions that give you the most conservative outcome. These guys did none of them.

[00:50:13]They just picked locations and stated these are the ones that give you the worst case. They have no basis for saying that. And in fact, I look at it as a question.

[00:50:24]um the exhaust fan actuation was not based on the correct gas concentration.

[00:50:29]The conclusions relating to it are based on the incorrect lower flammable limit.

[00:50:34]And so I'm saying we reject this NFPA 59 study.

[00:50:39]And then Jeff, I I put this stuff in here for you. NFPA 855 has in NXC a whole bunch of things about firefighting. And these are just the highle headings. It's about uh 12 pages of stuff. Uh I don't know if you've read it yet, but there's a lot of specialty things that need to be done.

[00:51:01]Mostly pre-planning, you know, the your pre-arrival, having procedures, having staff trained on procedures. Uh there's a lot dealing with if you use suppressants, especially a lot of water, the issue of containing the runoff because this stuff is going right through a building full of toxics.

[00:51:25]And this is a operational requirements.

[00:51:30]They didn't provide any of this, but there's operating manuals, maintenance manuals, commissioning manuals.

[00:51:38]um [cough] and to [clears throat] and design information which was not provided. This is all to achieve compliance with that FPA 855. We're not seeing any of it yet.

[00:51:48]>> Are they supposed to put any type of a containment wall in there so that it would capture the >> I love that idea and I think if they executed the hazard analysis correctly, >> someone would have come up with that as a suggestion for that risk.

[00:52:07]I can say the one that's at the power plant or something does have containment.

[00:52:11]>> They've got the containment.

[00:52:13]>> They could have.

[00:52:14]>> Yeah.

[00:52:14]>> Yeah. So, it's a possible >> heard that >> it's responsible design.

[00:52:19]>> So, my recommendations for this project are Hood County should issue an injunction to Apache Hill to stop work until compliance with NFPA 855 is proven satisfactory to the AHJ.

[00:52:32]Put county AHJ should issue review findings to Apache Hill for action. Hood County Fire Marshall should define resource needs to equip the Hood County Fire Department to respond to best instance per NFPA855.

[00:52:47]And then Hood County should then direct Apache Hill to provide a commitment for funding of Hood County Fire Department for all of those best resources.

[00:52:57]And finally, if Apache Hill does choose to reperform this hazard management assess uh assessment, Hood County specialists should be involved with it.

[00:53:09]Any workshops, we should send our nominees, fire department experts, engineers to be a part of it to create that hazard analysis correctly with all the stakeholders present.

[00:53:21]>> So who who is the authority having jurisdiction?

[00:53:24]>> I believe it's the fire marshal.

[00:53:29]And who would issue the injunction?

[00:53:32]>> Oh, that'd be the court.

[00:53:37]>> So, recommendations for us guys here, development commission. I I would say we need to require and I don't know how you do this legally, but it just needs to be done. Require engineering design information early in the plan approval process to enable identification of impacts and hazards of any proposed industrial project.

[00:53:58]Require verification of financial capacity of all applicants to finance the construction and decommissioning of any proposed project. Reject any project which ties the long Texas Longhorn Act name countries.

[00:54:12]and ensure any submitted design data and studies are reviewed by subject matter experts.

[00:54:20]>> So this process for um this best development it would apply to a lot of the data center concept plans which have best facilities on site.

[00:54:35]>> Absolutely. So with every data center project, this should also be a requirement >> if it's got a vest.

[00:54:45]>> Yes.

[00:54:46]>> So was the was the [clears throat] fire marshall engaged at all in the in the pre-esign?

[00:54:52]>> Well, I know I got the documents from Commissioner Samson who got them from you, right? Correct, Jeff. Yeah.

[00:54:59]>> Okay.

[00:55:01]So they gave you the opportunity to review them.

[00:55:05]They did send me the hazard mitigation.

[00:55:07]Yes.

[00:55:10]>> So, Andy, I I don't know to what extent your conclusions address this, but one of the concerns we discussed initially uh at the commissioner's court and amongst ourselves was that of response monitoring the entire operation, who would monitor it? And I think in that report, as I've seen it, there was one person with Sunrow, I gather, who would monitor the entire uh operation, so to speak. Uh, and what your thoughts are. Is one person sufficient or whether that's being done visually, whether it's been done on the basis of I see something smoking or the alarms have gone off.

[00:55:58]>> Yeah, it's all the same thing. They their anticipated Manning was one person.

[00:56:02]>> Yeah. there's not really a building for that person to reside in. So, they're not going to be there long. You know, there's no if you're in Texas in the summer, I guess you're sitting in your pickup truck. I uh I would want them to turn in their operations plan and then justify that they don't need any more than a single individual.

[00:56:21]The next stage that is responding to let's say the bell goes off and uh and a response time of seven volunteer fire departments and the report suggests that in a rural location it's going to take longer without any further commentary.

[00:56:41]Uh and I think the fire marshall would certainly agree with that. But uh you know the point is how how much longer >> and has the fire you know who knows what the status of the fire is at that point and what the thermal flow might be whether there was an explosion uh all the other considerations that kind of get factored in uh and you have a nearby facility 200 ft wide [clears throat] and I know you have a so-called evacuation plan from that particular location, this rainbow uh which they have one for the nuclear site, but they do not have one when I visited with them for the uh possibility of a fire at the Sunite.

[00:57:34]>> Yeah, I don't think we've seen any of the planning from this uh proposal.

[00:57:38]>> I actually just got the emergency response plan.

[00:57:41]>> Okay.

[00:57:41]Monday or Tuesday and I've already sent in that I'd like to make some requirements some changes.

[00:57:47]>> Mhm.

[00:57:48]>> Um one of them said so they have level 01 2 3 and so on. Um, at level one, they had to possibly notify the fire marshal.

[00:58:01]>> If the AHJ required that, I'm going to require that any incident above a level zero that we are required to be notified as well as Rainbow's promise.

[00:58:12]>> So that they have that extra time even if it just turns into be an evacuation drill.

[00:58:16]>> Sure.

[00:58:18]>> And so yeah, I got their ERP the other day and I have told them that I'd like to make changes.

[00:58:26]>> Well, one of this is kind of a subtle thing, but one of the one of the purposes of a hazard management or hazard mitigation assessment is to painstakingly go through every scenario.

[00:58:39]And for every consequence of a given scenario, we identify the safeguards that are related to that scenario and we look at the reliability of those safeguards. What they did was they just put them all in the same box. every safeguard applied to every consequence and so there's no linearity. It'd be like doing double entry bookkeeping and putting everything in the same Excel cell. It just you don't have any way of aligning the scenario with its protections. And so once that's done, once we know what the mitigations are and then we demand that we see their functional safety analysis for how reliable those are, it'll be very clear that they can't just then kick it over to oh, and anything we can't handle, the fire response is going to take care of things. This is a principle of safety.

[00:59:32]So we design around prevention, not mitigation. preventing things from happening in the first place as opposed to responding to them once they're already in progress.

[00:59:42]>> How how costly is it for um a a facility owner to comply with everything that you would recommend? Is it costlier for them or is this just like so it's it's much more costly or somewhat more costly?

[00:59:59]One of the largest >> driving a car. It's cheaper if you drive it without insurance. It's required that you have insurance.

[01:00:06]>> Thank you, Jeff.

[01:00:08]>> One of the one of the key issues here is the reliability of the safety systems.

[01:00:13]And they brag a lot about all these safety systems, measuring thermal transients and offnormal amperages and things like that. But what we learned in the process industry is if if all those sensors are tied into one PLC and that PLC's got a certain reliability, that's the entire reliability of the whole circuit.

[01:00:31]>> That's the weak link.

[01:00:32]>> And that's the weak link. And so until I see the functional safety assessment, I'm not going to believe that they have much in the way of mitigation from automatic sensors and shutdowns. Once we see it, we can identify if they need additional and it and in that case it could be expensive because you're talking about much more reliable electronics than your base level model.

[01:00:58]>> How much are those kids lives worth?

[01:01:02]>> Whatever we tell them to spend.

[01:01:03]>> Exactly.

[01:01:05]>> Let me just stay with this for a second because Jeff's here. Uh it it's kind of like you know the police department has its uh standards in terms of response emergency responses and uh the critically here a fire is a much more of a threat to all of us in different ways but the point is once the notification you have a responsibility on the part of the owner to notify us the fire department and then you have a time timeline line developing from the fire department to getting there in a rural area depending on time of day time of day considerations.

[01:01:47]We have major construction going on scenes in this area all the time but uh I'm sure Jeff is aware of that. But uh you know in the in the training of these individuals is clearly a critical dimension of dealing with thermal runaway and the hazmat suit considerations that apparently do play into this. I'm not sure whether we have any or not but it's obviously pointed out even in the report I believe that Jeff has provided.

[01:02:22]But these all complicate the process of dealing with a potentially or potential massive fire or a threat to Robin Robin Rainbow Daycare with 50 kids preschool on uh on short notice.

[01:02:44]There may be something to be done at the federal level with uh because this is violating a CFR like an OSHA or the chemical safety board maybe >> you know I wish >> they typically are are limited on resources and the follow but at least it's on the the unique thing about this is there's a whole body of work done around ocean 1910 process safety management and they have a list of hazardous chemicals and quantities but that's all with the backdrop. This is the prochemical industry where their business is either making, storing or shipping this stuff. These are batteries that have very small amounts of these types of materials in them. Y >> but they also have the propensity for lots of energy to drive the release of these materials. So OSHA 1910 doesn't even touch this issue. It's just the quantities aren't there. We're in an area where we need a new regulation.

[01:03:41]There's a bit of a, by the way, two babies at that point. There's a bit of a wind tunnel effect as I understood it between rainbow and sunro.

[01:03:50]>> And I didn't even consider that in my model. I just, you know, I mean, you're absolutely right. That could be a big exacerbating aspect.

[01:03:57]>> Yeah. Oh, there please.

[01:04:00]>> Yeah. So, that's to the development. And then I have a a set of questions. I'm going to circle back and let people question. You guys have been doing a good job during it. So, these are additional side comments not to do with the report itself, but who is this? Who is Apache Hill? My favorite part.

[01:04:20]You're going to love it. It's not a registered business in Texas or Florida.

[01:04:26]A press release in August of 24 states that Black Mountain Energy sold it to Vitus Energy, whatever it is. an affidavit from a an officer of Apache Hill LLC representing themselves as an executive with the authority to bind turns out is just an employee of Vitus as well.

[01:04:50]And so what's Vitus? Vitus is a woman-owned business with three employees.

[01:04:55]It's in St. Augustine, Florida with an address at a wedding venue.

[01:05:01]They have zero identifiable relevant experience doing best facilities. They have zero relevant experience in energy projects. They have zero completed projects. They have unverified financial resources to develop a large capital infrastructure energy project.

[01:05:18]>> This folks that we want to give permission to build.

[01:05:21]>> Are they Somalian?

[01:05:23][laughter] >> Not yet.

[01:05:25]Who knows who the investors will be?

[01:05:28]Well, it's it it almost feels like it makes you question is are they just owners in name only?

[01:05:40]>> We just don't know.

[01:05:41]>> Is that Black Mountain related to Black Mountain and Somerville?

[01:05:48]>> I would say so. project >> Vinnie >> Black Model is a major provider to URP.

[01:05:56]They have 20 to 25 projects under contract of some sort.

[01:06:01]>> Is that project called like project black mountain or is it that's just how >> they have different >> they would be identified as the owner operator.

[01:06:11]>> Okay. But clearly they made a decision offload this asset.

[01:06:16]>> And what's happened here is they transfer the ownership through some kind of process of the sale.

[01:06:22]>> They're shedding.

[01:06:23]>> We don't we don't know what that process >> any good company would >> I I don't think that the companies that are truly behind this want I mean obviously they don't want it known. They don't want the bad PR.

[01:06:37]>> Yeah. Um, and that's what I'm really concerned about with some of these big data centers is that they may be developed, but we don't we may never know who's actually in them. It may be difficult to figure out who's actually operating inside them.

[01:06:53]>> Well, the people that get the approval and get the ability to develop it then get tenants and then the tenant says, "Well, I'm going to have a best facility."

[01:07:06]they can do it.

[01:07:08]>> Well, and I I totally agree with you and the point I've made is, you know, these people say we're nothing like a Bitcoin mine right now. But if Bitcoin went to $500,000 and they could afford nicer locations, I think they would in one second allow them to occupy their space.

[01:07:33]Um, it's not a reality right now, but it could be. And to your point, we're two, three degrees away from ever being in touch with the end user at this point. We're dealing with power companies, land speculators, industry speculators, data barons, I'm calling them. And that is a major concern.

[01:08:01]So, my last comment is just how how do we assure ourselves of Lone Star Act compliance? Um, you know, I'm just going to tell you what I understand that to mean. I originally was told that it was you can't buy Chinese equipment, but when you read the act itself, it doesn't really say that. It says you can't allow access of these nations through the purchase of this equipment. So, you can buy the equipment. You just have to make sure that they can't access it. Sure.

[01:08:30]>> So that's a whole process.

[01:08:32]>> And so my experience is, let's just make it real simple. Anybody have a garage door opener that's tied to your network at home?

[01:08:41]>> Yes.

[01:08:42]>> Ever had a guy come out and say, "Give me your password so I can help set you up." That's the scenario. We're going to have all of these best battery management software installed throughout facilities wherever they build them that require service at some point. a data upgrade, a software update that you know at some point it originates within the manufacturer and the manufacturer software division. There's no way over the course of the life of the facility that it would be a simple task to assure you that you don't have access created for speaking.

[01:09:25]>> Sorry, >> you'll be speaking Mandarin.

[01:09:28]Well, in my recollection of that act, there's there's no mechanism for enforcement.

[01:09:33]>> There's not.

[01:09:33]>> It's it's like the affidavit.

[01:09:37]>> How do we challenge that? How do we prove, you know, if someone if that's all they can do, all they have to do? How do we know that it's truthful? You know, there's is there a state certificate or any type of which office manages it? Is that a TCQ?

[01:09:55]>> Utility commission.

[01:09:56]>> PC. Yeah, >> that's PU.

[01:09:59]>> They're supposed to source their components.

[01:10:04]>> So, it's self policing.

[01:10:08]>> There's no certification or audit process.

[01:10:12]>> Not associated with that act.

[01:10:13]you buy the product from me that you're going to put in there, >> right?

[01:10:17]>> I provide you with a piece of paper that says I certify that the products that I sold you to install are not in violation of that law.

[01:10:30]That is your certification to present to BU County or whoever's going to police that I guess the puff uh haircut and the attorney office are the ones that police but that that's what you have to provide is the certificate from the seller that you purchased these items from. I've I've worked with a lot of a ahks over the years and u you know building code officials, building inspectors, but the fire department was always the one that seemed like they really had the most power. They were the ones that you were fearful of shutting down a job.

[01:11:17]They were the ones that were you were fearful of totally having to redesign your project.

[01:11:22]I don't know where that authority comes from in the legal circles. I just know that I've seen it. And uh so a lot of that a lot of times that comes from being inside city limits and places that are able to adopt fire code or a city that has city ordinances that have fire codes in them. We technically in the county can't even adopt fire codes yet because we don't meet the requirements.

[01:11:47]>> Wow. The only thing that they've given us here in the last two years is the ability to enforce any state adopted codes, but I can't adopt them.

[01:11:57]>> What was that?

[01:11:58]>> Brought up a point that he thought because we touched Karen County, >> but we don't touch county. We're separated by about a quarter mile of Johnson County.

[01:12:08]>> I thought there was one little stretch where we did touch.

[01:12:12]>> No, >> there's there's nowhere. And trust me, I've been watching populations in Parker and Johnson, hoping that one of them get close because I don't want that many people here.

[01:12:20]>> Johnson is we don't >> What's our threshold? Is it 250?

[01:12:25]>> Doesn't the have to provide a certificate for them to energize it?

[01:12:30]>> It's 225,000 people. So, we'd have to have a quarter million people or touch a county that does before I can adopt the code. I I can enforce >> the state adopted codes.

[01:12:43]So, and that's something we've been and I'm gonna back this up just a little bit.

[01:12:49]>> Um, when all of this started, Commissioner Samson was wanting me to just just enforce A55.

[01:12:56]And so I saw that as my opportunity to let the court know that if I have the ability to enforce codes and you're asking me to enforce them, I'm going to enforce all of the ones that are available to me because I'm going to use the the best over at um as an example.

[01:13:15]I worry more about the Dollar Generals that are dotted all over the county than I do that best facility over there because the the Dollar General is open to the public. They're 12,500 square feet. There's no marked exits. There's no fire suppression system. There's no alarm in there. And it's open to the public. And for any of those of you that have been in a Dollar General, the aisles are small. The crap was everywhere. I mean, so that being said, I I'm working on trying to get a schedule and adopt and uh permit process in place, but I have to run that through the board.

[01:13:56]>> Well, I would urge you not to be bashful about it.

[01:13:59]>> Not to be what?

[01:14:00]>> Bashful. You should you should reach for what is required. Oh, yeah.

[01:14:04]>> And that could be a big financial number.

[01:14:08]So, should the fire marshall review every data center project for uh risks and hazards that may pertain to codes?

[01:14:18]Because we're going to hit that 250,000 population threshold probably in the next year or two >> at one of those.

[01:14:27]>> We're not that close here.

[01:14:28]>> No, not here. I'm talking about MBS and Parker or Johnson because of the growth.

[01:14:36]I mean >> these are old numbers but I I saw 196 and 170 or something like >> Johnson 220 now 224 I think for >> 224 >> for Johnson >> and is Parker 224 >> Johnson >> Johnson is so Johnson's going to keep growing >> there's a lot of we should all buy a place >> let's put a 20story apartment building over there.

[01:15:05]>> I'll build.

[01:15:06]>> Have you been in touch, Jeff, with any counties that have their own code >> because they're eligible to?

[01:15:13]>> Yeah, we're actually So, my office is a member of the Tarant County arson task force and so everything that that's in Tarant County or touches it are all members of the task force.

[01:15:26]>> We're technically not even eligible to join, but because we got in early, >> we're kind of grandfathered in. Yes, we've I have conversations with guys that have codes all the time and because they're able to adopt codes and they go with international builders or whatever, >> they're they're code and Houston, I'm going to use them as an example. Talked to the Houston fire marshall at a conference. He's got like 160 inspectors >> for the city of Houston.

[01:15:52]>> Yeah.

[01:15:53]>> I have one guy that works part-time >> that is a certified inspector. Actually, I got three of them. But with each project application, you're going to need resources.

[01:16:03]>> Correct. Now, we have a budget session coming up, and I've asked for a full-time employee that's just a code enforcer, inspector, all that stuff.

[01:16:12]But, >> well, I would suggest you need engineering support, too.

[01:16:16]For subject matter review, >> we have a firm that we talk.

[01:16:21]>> Jeff, you're here kind of. And it's great that you are >> kind of I am here.

[01:16:26]>> Yeah. And I I just heard a way of getting rid of all the general dollar stores which [clears throat] would be be nice but given the deficiencies in the equipment or in some of the considerations related there too what you know I you got you know my concern when I visited Rainbow and the distance between Sunrow and Rainbow Wind Tunnel uh the evacuation plan. Yeah. uh that can be worked out. It seems to me that you know the uh when something like this happens it happens quickly and it can be explosive can be thermal and it can maybe be more gradual but it's going to be timing it's going to be and water as I understand it doesn't do as well with thermal type fires according to the >> water water hardly touches lithium ion batteries otherwise >> right so you're then dealing with retardants and I think you mentioned was something you were working on. Uh it takes retardants either you load them up or they're on your trucks to begin with. I'm not sure that but you've got a time factor there.

[01:17:41]Uh I mean as you look at this and maybe you don't want to commit here but uh it seems to me as if it's almost impossible for you to get there within a reason well reasonable is a question of what's reasonable to you may not be reasonable to me but uh the uh I suspect there are standards that you abide by that you want to be to a fire within 10 to 15 minutes it would seem to me and uh my question would be I'm not you can get to a fire like this with the proper equipment, uh, with the trained personnel, with the hazmat suits if you need it. Uh, other than maybe, and maybe you can get there, maybe it's a strictly a containment strategy. It's not a put out the fire strategy.

[01:18:28]But it seems to be almost impossible. I mean, I would I would just say uh it not not all pull up the towers in New York, whatever. I mean, you're walking into a blaze or an explosion or whatever it may be. These are self-contained type units.

[01:18:45]You can't walk into those units. I don't believe you cannot. Uh so they're just basically bricks from your perspective and you're either pouring water or retardants on those bricks and yet you've got children within 200 ft and you don't know whether they were impacted or affected by whatever took place.

[01:19:08]It's Sounds like almost to me it's a catastrophe in the making. That's if it happens and there's always the probability. You can sit here and say, "Well, chances are low and so on." But when you have 50 kids at risk and 10 staff, if it were my grandchildren, I would be scared.

[01:19:29]>> How did that scared? You know, >> I'll put it into perspective this way. I don't care how old the person is.

[01:19:36]>> Yeah. Every life has value, >> right?

[01:19:40]>> And and my goal is to protect every life, whether it's 50 kids or one person in a nursing home.

[01:19:48]>> 50 old.

[01:19:49]>> I mean, age doesn't matter to me. It It's all about protecting the citizens and then protecting the exposures.

[01:19:58]So, our our number one life, our number one goal is always going to be protect life. Our number two goal is to protect property.

[01:20:07]So >> with that in mind, can you get to that pollution time?

[01:20:13]>> I'm going to say our average response to there from the two fire departments would be going would be anywhere depending upon time of day and night between 7 to 13 minutes.

[01:20:27]And an event that would happen there, there would be three departments that are dispatched. It would be PCON, Indian Harbor, and Granberry.

[01:20:35]Is there anything in that?

[01:20:36]>> Do they have Do they have the Yes. No.

[01:20:40]>> Uh the only thing that we have is F.

[01:20:45]>> Is that going to do it?

[01:20:46]>> It's that's not going to be effective on the lithium ion battery.

[01:20:50]>> What I'm trying to do is get them to buy me an Elsa system, which is that liquid nitrogen and dry ice.

[01:20:56]>> That's what I was going to ask. Have you talked to them about that? If what has been their response? Are they amanable to paying or they >> So I actually put Carver Anderson in touch with the the building manager over there >> and I know they've had a conversation and about two weeks ago I put Carver in touch with somebody who may have access to a best type system that may be willing to let him conduct tests on those batteries because right now Carver system is so new It hasn't met all of the testing requirements that they all want to see.

[01:21:35]But I just from what I've seen already, I'd feel better using an Elsa system on it than 80,000 gallons of water.

[01:21:42]>> But we don't have any mechanisms to force them to pay for it. It would be just approaching them and that it would be voluntary for them to agree to do that.

[01:21:51]>> Correct. And I would think that their risk analysis department of whoever it is in the wedding venue in Florida or whoever. But um if you if you consider the amount of loss that you would stop from using a system like that as opposed to just letting it burn and protect the exposures. I mean just just the protection of their investment alone I think would stand out and make them think >> a correctly conducted hazard mitigation assessment would have come up with those answers. That's why I have to be so critical of this one. So what what is the cost to the county in the event of a thermal runway fire at a facility like this in terms of the chemical the Elsa systems and you know do we need more than one Elsa system and you know how much does that cost and you exhaust it and have to buy another one I mean who pays that >> don't know the answer and I tried to kick that over to you to do >> right >> and so my plan is to get the companies to buy the It's an $8,000 cryogenic container basically is what it is.

[01:22:59]>> I think you should ask get it certified.

[01:23:01]>> I think you should ask them to pay to get it certified.

[01:23:05]>> And then so my goal moving forward because I don't I don't know that Elsa had been introduced or even out to the public yet started.

[01:23:15]moving forward if there are any more I'm going to recommend that they have it built into the system in the first place >> because carpet has the ability of of being segregated to where you have one system that covers so many containers >> that can be activated just by that container so >> right because you don't want to rely on you driving up with it because you still got a 7 to 13 minute delay >> right and even looking at their their ERP their standoff is like 175 ft >> why is Well, so once there's flames visible, >> then they're worried about the deflogration thing. And so they're saying that emergency responders should have 175 ft standoff. Wow. So, I think a lot of them I think their plan is if they have a container that actually catches on fire with flames visible is to stand back at an arching range for the hose and keep the others from getting hot enough to >> That means you have to park and shoot it over.

[01:24:15]>> So, the area is very close to that standoff.

[01:24:19]>> Yeah. 25 ft away.

[01:24:21]>> That's a little further than that. But that's why I'm wanting to make some recommendations to change their ERP that rainbow and fire department 911 get notified at level one's event which absolutely basically just the sounding of an alarm or a future trip.

[01:24:38]>> And so their stuff doesn't really start until level three.

[01:24:43]>> And and I'll I'll put it into comparison to the nuclear power plant. They have events that happen there all the time that that trigger an unusual event >> and they notify us that hey by the way we have an unusual event. This is what's going on.

[01:24:56]>> And so >> is that automated pronunciation?

[01:24:59]>> Yeah, that should be >> and so we can start pre-planning and getting things in motion that we may not be activating the EOC at this point, but we're at least aware that something's going on.

[01:25:12]And I want them to have that same notice.

[01:25:16]So, so is there any type of an automated system where there would be a sensor that would go, you know, that would trigger the need to put this fire out or start up the Elsa system and then like drone operate the the Elsa. I mean, not even have people involved.

[01:25:35]>> Well, it can be it could be as Jeff was suggesting, just having an on-site facility that's haven't built that system >> so that it it just automatically goes off. Correct.

[01:25:46]>> I think that should be a requirement.

[01:25:49]>> They have refiner needs to chemical.

[01:25:52]>> So essentially you would have one cryogenic container that would that would cover a bank >> and you 10 what however many it is and it's plumbed into each one of those in that bank. If any one of those triggers that system there's a head that activates in there cool side environment in there. there at -345° and there is no possibility of thermal runway. One, it takes the oxygen out of the room and two, it makes it so cold in there it can't hurt your feet.

[01:26:22]>> And then the the concern for population safety would really go down.

[01:26:28]>> Well, the concern for thermal runaway would certainly go around. There's always going to be a concern for public safety.

[01:26:35]>> Okay, excuse me. the concern for thermal runaway would go down.

[01:26:40]>> You have an electrical substation there.

[01:26:42]Does that play into your thinking next to on the other side?

[01:26:46]>> That electrical substation there is why they built it where it is.

[01:26:49]>> I know.

[01:26:51]>> So >> the point is does the thermal runaway aspect play into that? So reading their HMA, if if their systems work as designed, if they have a a thermal, smoke, or I think there's three separate things in there, a smoke, a gas, and a thermal. If any one of those three trip, it's supposed to deenergize the block and take it offline until they can get out of the necessity.

[01:27:24]If it's a gas, perther HMA in the design and whatever, it's supposed to have ventilation wheels that pop open and ventilate the gas so that it doesn't hit the leal. And if I recall correctly in their design, it's supposed to have like a little Bunson burner thing that is positioned right above the vent so that if it's exhausting flammable gas, it's supposed to burn that gas off before it gets to the environment. So, so really we we could write this up as a suggestion to the legislature that any area in Texas that's served by volunteer fire departments would have this as a regulation, a regulatory requirement for any best facility.

[01:28:06]>> Well, the problem the problem with best is it has not made it through all the testing steps to to prove that it is effective enough to make it regulation.

[01:28:14]>> It has to be tested by an official laboratory.

[01:28:18]How long does it take? 10 years?

[01:28:21]>> No, it takes money. It doesn't take time. Just takes money.

[01:28:24]>> Well, so the conversation that I've had with Carver, his dad has been working on liquid nitrogen and dry ice solutions for 40 years.

[01:28:35]The problem that they've had that Carver says that he's recently thinks he's found a solution for is transport deployment.

[01:28:46]But that wouldn't apply to permanent facilities. What's that? That wouldn't apply to permanent facilities.

[01:28:51]>> It sounds to me that if there's an incident that if it go if it can affect the community, it means the integrity level would be quite high. Even even if the probability is low, the risk is very high. Which means that's going to have a very high safety integrity level. This this what that means is the equipment that is supposed to provide the protection has to be certified for use for that specific application. If it's not safety certified to seal level two or se level three, which sounds like to me it's probably as high as S level three, then that's a major another major flaw in in in their design, which also violates an awful lot of regulations. I mean, an awful lot of regulations.

[01:29:40]So, the fact that they we're saying that they've got a protection system that's going to open these vents, the the thing that opens those vents, the actuator that open, if it's not certified to a certain safety level, then they're non-compliant.

[01:29:54]>> Well, and think about this. So, we just talked about three separate systems that are all supposed to automatically activate trigger, right? That all run through a control. I mean, there's so many links in the chain, you know, >> that the regulations are very clear when it comes to safety integrity.

[01:30:14]>> Well, very having a power outage shouldn't be their problem because they've got a whole >> battery system, >> ton of batteries there back it up.

[01:30:22]>> Okay.

[01:30:23]>> So, how far along are they in their battery installation?

[01:30:27]>> They there's no there's very limited number of batteries that are even installed there. They don't have they don't have any plans even starting to load out until I like for summer.

[01:30:36]>> The the containers starting to show up.

[01:30:38]>> Uh >> the containers are starting to show up.

[01:30:42]>> So when I talked to the project manager 3 weeks ago, four weeks ago, he said there was something that they're waiting on >> that hasn't happened yet.

[01:30:52]>> What are those capsules that are there?

[01:30:54]Like what are those?

[01:30:55]>> I mean I understand those bases.

[01:30:57]>> Are you talking about the white containers that are there? That is the containment system.

[01:31:01]>> Okay.

[01:31:02]>> That that's the thing that >> But there's nothing in it.

[01:31:04]>> But there's no batteries in it.

[01:31:06]>> Correct. Gotcha.

[01:31:07]>> Hey, when I talked to him that 3 4 weeks ago, he said there there are some that have some batteries, but they're not even putting the control units in there to charge them yet because they're waiting on some approval of something.

[01:31:21]>> So, they're not online?

[01:31:22]>> No.

[01:31:23]>> And in on the internet, I found the proposed startup date was like July. And you're saying that's probably not realistic. That was what they >> proposed and hoped, >> but probably not.

[01:31:36]>> Is is there any fire hazard risk from the batteries that are that are there now >> that are staying >> just sitting there?

[01:31:44]>> How many people here drove a hybrid car?

[01:31:47]>> I mean, they have to be energized.

[01:31:48]>> There's a battery risk sitting out.

[01:31:52]You have to issue a document that the place is ready to go. Personal safety.

[01:32:00]>> Yes, we have to go and we got to go inspect their fire alarm system, their suppression systems. Uh there's all kinds of different things that we've got to go look at before we give the home to Humble to say, "Okay."

[01:32:14]>> Have you ever turned anyone down?

[01:32:17]>> I've never have been asked to inspect one.

[01:32:20]I've never been asked to inspect one >> because again, this whole thing of us even being able to enforce fire codes is still very new.

[01:32:30]>> We don't have a fee schedule in place yet. We don't have a permit process in place yet.

[01:32:35]>> I don't have that yet.

[01:32:38]>> I've been asking for for some form of code to enforce for the last 10 years.

[01:32:44]So you don't have the staff is what you're saying to basically >> with if this goes to where we are able to enforce codes all the time. No, I do not currently have the staff. I've asked for a full-time employee in the next budget cycle.

[01:33:00]Haven't haven't been to my budget hearing yet again.

[01:33:03]So come support the fire marshal.

[01:33:16]>> If I understand correctly, this was like an cop project. So it didn't come to hood county. Hey, we want Apache Hill.

[01:33:22]It was like >> No, this didn't come to the county at all.

[01:33:25]>> Oh, right. So it didn't come to the county. This is like the state saying because isn't cut the state of Texas.

[01:33:33]>> Well, it's they're not affiliated with the state.

[01:33:39]This was I think this was initiated by Urkott and the public utility commission acting together and have pre-selected some locations because of the so-called corridor >> that they have drawn with respect to power to provide that to the DFW area and surrounding areas. So is model the same as a power plant. You get to earn money on energy.

[01:34:10]>> My understanding [clears throat] is they buy the energy when it's low >> and then when the demand comes and it >> so they don't sell it at the high rate.

[01:34:19]They discount it because it's available but they're still going to be generating revenue.

[01:34:25]>> They buy it low, store it, sell it high if they can. That's how we work it out.

[01:34:31]That's >> so worse.

[01:34:40]>> From the grid. That's why they're connected to the >> They buy it at off peak hours. Right.

[01:34:46]>> Right.

[01:34:49]>> There's not much power being used.

[01:34:51]>> Right.

[01:34:53]>> They're just scavenging.

[01:34:56]If you think of it this way that they buy it and we all have our light switches turned on >> and they sell it back when everybody turns the light switch. It's by their model, it's supposed to help stabilize the the cost of energy because they're storing it at off peak times and providing it on high peak times.

[01:35:15]And the claim is they're going to help stabilize the energy cost by putting this power back into the grid when it's at high demand.

[01:35:23]>> But the the revenue does not benefit the county.

[01:35:28]It benefits maybe.

[01:35:33]>> So you're talking to a redneck who built a career off of being too stupid to run out of burning buildings. So when it comes to when it comes to the the revenue generation and how it benefits, I can give you my best guess. I would think there would be some tax benefit off the sale of that energy back into the grid, but I'm not I'm not an economic person.

[01:35:56]>> Is the operator >> and they're going to get the revenues and they're going to pay a tax on those revenues to some extent which the county in will benefit from. That's about it.

[01:36:10]>> What's the life of those batteries?

[01:36:16]>> I don't think that's There seems like there's this big >> new onyear cycle.

[01:36:24]>> Pardon me.

[01:36:25]>> New new design of batteries coming out two years.

[01:36:28]>> It's on a two years.

[01:36:30]>> Well, on a so on a smaller scale, I can tell you that they now sell smoke detectors that have lithium-ion batteries in them. And where we used to need to replace a smoke detector battery every six months, those lithium ion battery smoke detectors are set to last for 10 years.

[01:36:47]>> Wow.

[01:36:48]>> And that's just a little bitty battery and a smoke detector.

[01:36:53]>> Yep.

[01:36:57]>> Put the battery back up.

[01:37:00]>> I wish they all were smaller, >> right? Well, technically they are. Just put a whole crap container.

[01:37:09]>> Have you ever taken apart the wall battery or the powerful battery?

[01:37:14]>> This is a bunch of little double A batteries.

[01:37:16]>> That's it.

[01:37:17]>> All just stacked together wired.

[01:37:20]>> That's what these are just on a larger scale.

[01:37:24]>> Does the uh >> let's ask the $64 question. Come back to it. And that is if you don't approve, if you don't agree, they can't open and operate as a facility. Is that correct?

[01:37:38]>> That is my understanding. Yes. That they have to have a sec certificate of occupancy before they can go operation.

[01:37:45]>> Good. Is your understanding that under those conditions that all you have to say is they've met 855 that's it or are they expandable collapsible based on these other concerns that we have we've talked about.

[01:38:00]>> So thinking about the best thing that there's more than just 855 that I have to inspect against because I have to inspect against the alarm code for the fire alarm. I have to inspect against the electrical code. have to inspect against the 855 which all 855 is battery storage system. So the batteries, all of that stuff, all are under 855. But there, you know, somebody mentioned something about at the data center, there's a dozen codes that apply to a data center at least because it's the same thing. You have you have water for sprinklers, you have alarm systems, you have electrical components, you have egress that you have to consider now that you're inside of the there's all kinds of life safety codes that can be applicable to these projects.

[01:38:48]But I can't go make up codes to hold them against. I mean, and again, please keep in mind this is still all very new to me in our county to do this. So, I'm still learning the codes myself.

[01:39:04]>> So, once there's a certificate of occupancy and then there's a second phase of expansion, you'll have to go back and reinspect and get another certificate of occupancy.

[01:39:15]So the certificate of of occupancy basically gives them the ability to operate. Then there is still going to be the requirement that we annual inspections.

[01:39:25]>> Oh, plus the annual inspections.

[01:39:27]>> So annually we will go out and inspect just randomly show up and and have them show us the the alarm system. And are you going to require that they are connected to the fire department so that any alarms that go off at the data center or at the best facility or whatever they ring at the fire department?

[01:39:47]>> Gosh, you're talking a whole different conversation now because if they ring at a volunteer fire department and they're all at home having dinner with their families, it's not going to matter.

[01:39:56]So my going back to their emergency response plan, they listed Granberry Volunteer Fire Department as their fire response. They listed Granberry PD as their law enforcement It's not even Granberry PD as the sheriff's office.

[01:40:07]It's not Granberry Fire Department as the con. So my suggestion on those two pieces is that they will call the fire department direct. They call 911 because the best way for you to get any fire or EMS or law enforcement response is to call 911 and then they dispatch appropriately through all the methods that we have to notify people to to get them to respond.

[01:40:31]>> There was an incident there like and they called 911.

[01:40:36]Would would there be a way then to notify like the PON residents and everybody in the area through that Everbridge program that they're signed up? How does that >> We could, but I don't know that we would need to >> notify people in PCON of something that happened at the best.

[01:40:53]>> What about an automated like connection to 911? I mean, you're saying that someone's going to call 911. So, the people that are supposed to be monitoring this system 24/7, they're the ones that whenever there's an automatic trip, whether it's heat, gas, or smoke, they they're supposed to make that notification. If it's an automatic notification, I haven't seen that part yet, but it's my understanding that that entire system is supposed to be monitored 24/7.

[01:41:25]whether that's by somebody in Singapore or >> 911 in county Texas monitoring this from some other country >> they might have to dial 10 digits I don't know >> this is very disconcerting >> thank you Jeff for being here >> thank you Yeah. [applause] >> Thank you very much for explaining some things.

[01:42:11]>> Thank you Dr. Walford for Thank you.

[01:42:16][applause] Anything else?

[01:42:24]All right.

[01:42:25]Well, what time is it? Anybody else have any comments or questions before I adjourn?

[01:42:32]Okay. So, it is 7:42 and we are going to go ahead and adjourn this meeting.

[01:42:42][applause] Yes, this is also So all things are