ALLAS - Governor George W. Bush responded to criticism of his environmental record yesterday by lauding a cooperative effort between local, state, and federal officials to turn a potentially contaminated site into a Dallas homeless shelter.
A day after environmental groups accused him of creating an ''air quality crisis'' in Texas, Bush acknowledged that the state has ''environmental challenges.'' But, he said, he's proud of his own record - while not content with it.
Bush stood before a rock-crushing machine in an abandoned soil-testing facility with Mayor Ron Kirk and state and federal regulators, where he touted the cleanup program that will result in a new Union Gospel Mission for the homeless. ''For years, sites such as this were closed to development because of wrong logic, bad regulation and legal liability,'' Bush said of the old Army Corps of Engineers laboratory near Love Field.
The site is one of 965 in the Texas Voluntary Cleanup Program, approved by the Legislature in 1995 to provide incentives to reclaim potentially contaminated sites. About 400 of those sites already have been turned into productive pieces of property, he said.
The city has worked with the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up the Dallas site and yesterday, Bush joined with the other officials to certify that the property has been found safe.
The certification removes any future liability for the new owners.
