City May Trade Mueller Airport to Stratus

On December 7th, the Austin city council voted 5-2 to consider trading development rights for the former Robert Mueller Airport site in East Austin to Stratus Properties, a remnant of Freeport-McMoran. In exchange, Stratus will theoretically agree to develop less of its holdings in the Barton Creek watershed. The negotiations are the latest phase of a decade-old battle over development over the aquifer.

Who is Freeport-McMoran?

Originally a Louisiana fertilizer company, Freeport McMoran grew in the eighties to incorporate real estate,development, and gold and copper mining into a single conglomerate headed by James Robert "Jim Bob" Moffett.

Virtually no aspect of Freeport's operations has withstood much scrutiny. Domestically, Freeport headed the list of polluters in terms of tons of toxic chemicals released into the environment. When the state of Louisiana attempted to address this, Moffett denounced the state as a "banana republic" and threatened to move his operations elsewhere.

More notoriously, Freeport McMoran has maintained close ties with Indonesia's dictator Suharto, and the company has been implicated in numerous human rights violations at its Mt. Ertsberg copper and gold mine in Irian Jaya. Freeport Sulphur was the first foreign investor in Indonesia after Suharto's 1965 massacre of half a million people (allegedly communists according to the CIA who, according to the Washington Post, provided hit lists), taking advantage of concessions made in mining policies demanded by the US Government as a precondition for development loans. The mines, from which all foreign and media observers are excluded by the Indonesian army and Freeport security, has been criticized by Amnesty International since 1977. Following the international prisoner's rights groups announcement that prisoners at the mine had been held in steel containers for months at a time, Amungme villagers blew up a section of the mine's slurry pipeline. In retaliation, US-made planes dropped cluster bombs on the village of Ilaga.

Freeport and the Indonesian government have since forcibly relocated thousands of indigenous Papuans to expand the mining concession area. In 1995, the Australian Council for Overseas Aid released an eleven-page report detailing how Freeport was "involved in killing or causing the disappearance of 37 people following a demonstration against the expansion of a mine in Irian Jaya." At that demonstration, army and Freeport security forces opened fire on an unarmed crowd when protesters raised the outlawed flag of the OPM or Papuan Independence Movement.

Freeport-McMoran has always enjoyed a close relationship with the University of Texas, where Moffett graduated.

Former UT Chancellor William Cunningham was a member of the board of directors of Freeport, and the UT Geology Department, through a "research collaboration" provides technical information to the mine. In 1999, two men were arrested protesting the dedication of the Louise and James R. Moffett Molecular Biology Building. In 1995, the UT student government had passed a resolution condemning the choice of a name.

Stratus Properties, formerly Freeport McMoran Properties, was founded in 1992 as a subsidiary of FM. The company has technically been independent of Freeport since 1997, when its CEO and Moffett proteg‚, William "Beau" Armstrong III, paid off its half-million dollar debt.

The Barton Creek project is a joint venture between Stratus andOlympus Real Estate, with Olympus holding a 50.1%controlling share. Olympus, in turn, is owned by mega financiers Hicks, Muse, Tate and Furst, the holding company that bought the Texas Rangers from George W. Bush and recently sold AMFM Radio to Clearchannel Corp., giving that company an untouchable 900+ station monopoly over the radio dial. Clearchannel, as an aside, also owns Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura, billboard giant Eller Media, and is cited in FCC documentation as having called in complaints against Free Radio Austin.The Barton Creek history

FM Properties acquired the Barton Creek tract in 1988. In 1990, a broad coalition of environmentalists was able to successfully challenge FM's Planned Unit Development by forcing the city council to pass the "Save Our Springs"ordinance, setting limits on the amount of impervious cover- surfaces like roofs and parking lots that limit moisture absorption and create higher rates of runoff- within the development area. Although Freeport sued- Moffett threatened to "bankrupt the city"- it took an act of legislature to undercut the ordinance. House Bill 1704 allowed developers tobuild under the water-quality regulations that were in place at the time the property was subdivided.

The Mueller Airport Deal

Currently, Stratus is threatening to build out all of its holdings under the grandfathered regulations. The company seems to be willing to build under the SOS ordinance in exchange for access to city sewage infrastructure and development rights at the former Robert Mueller Airport site. Although the city still has the ability to refuse sewage connections or favorable zoning, the council on December 8th voted to approve entering negotiations.

Mueller Airport is currently mostly abandoned, although police did use it as an internment center during new years celebrations last year. The city has hired a design firm to create a plan for the site as a "diverse, green-built,transit-oriented, central-city village" according to the Austin Chronicle. City council members and neighborhood organizations have expressed skepticism that a builder such as Stratus, whose experience is mainly in golf-course "estate"suburbs could accomplish this, and have suggested mounting a nationwide search for a better general developer. Whether or not a developer exists who would actually create the community-oriented land usage the council dreams of is a sourc eof some skepticism as well.