- 22-Story Millennium II Going Up Next Door to Millennium Tower in Westchase [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Fein Interests’ ‘The Grand’ Apartments To Open in Cinco Ranch’s 34-Acre LaCenterra Development Next Year [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- That ‘Cuban, Creole, Caribbean’ Restaurant Moving into the Old Red Lantern Space Downtown Will Be Called El Gallo Rojo [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot]
- Metro Again Considering East End Overpass After Gasoline Infiltration of Soil Is Found To Be Far More Extensive Than Previously Believed [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot]
- Work on Downtown Galveston Transit Terminal May Not Start Until June [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Exploring an ‘Unscripted’ 1,000-Foot-Long Marsh Near Main Street and US-59 [OffCite Blog]
Photo of former Louis White Grocery, 4101 Lyons Ave.: David Elizondo via Swamplot Flickr Pool
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Regardless of how large it might be, I wonder why not a word was mentioned at that big meeting a few years ago for the underpass for the EastLine that there was contaminated soil issue, although it was known. They need to clean that up anyway now that it’s known to be so large.
@ Dana
Let’s not ‘shoot the messenger’ here. While Metro is fighting multiple fronts of ineptitude, they didn’t contaminate the soil. To hold them to a standard that no one else (gov, private business, individuals) has to follow is not the way to go.
The reason no one has to fix the contamination is b/c its currently not causing a problem. Like Metro says, to try and remediate the sol could actually cause more problems than the one its trying to solve.
You would, however, think that an environmental study would catch this sort of thing.
DNA I’m just saying that this soil contamination was known and that Metro was always planning on doing some clean up but this was never mentioned publicly, as far as I know. I would think this would’ve been a major point and that the soil in question would’ve been examined early on, not now. Now, it looks like Metro gave in to the people at the meeting only now to say, Oh gee, look what we found….oops,, while they knew this might be a problem all along and now they can go ahead with their original plans for the flyover
@Dana
I hear you loud and clear. If they knew about contamination, they should of known of the EXTENT of contamination.
I don’t know if METRO is well run enough, however, to be so dastardly as you’re portraying them. My guess is some outside contracted company took initial soil samples. They found the contamination and gave some sort of assessment to the extent. METRO took them at their word. When all of the brouhaha went down in the East end, METRO capitulated. Now, right b/f the earth moving, either the same enviro soil company or another tests and realized that the soil was much worse. METRO with pants down has to tell everyone the bad news. Then they say something dumb like (paraphrasing) ‘The important thing is to get it done’. No it’s not. The important thing is to provide the promised service while respecting the community even if its less than perfect.
I think we can see from the Central station debacle that METRO doesn’t have the smarts to pull one over our eyes.
I’m a huge proponent of light rail. Culberson and his cronies’ objections to the University line are capricious and rooted in misinformation / lies. They do however, have a real critique when they question METRO’s management and ability to deliver.
I enjoyed reading about the ‘unscripted marsh’. Wouldn’t it be nice to have pocket wet lands and pocket prairies all around the city? These places could be carved out every few blocks from all of the random abandoned/unused lots around the city. Rather than just being parks blanketed with st. augustine grass they could restore some aesthetic beauty to the city while at the same time providing functional benefits like flood control and reminding Houstonians what this place looked like before we got here. I don’t know how the city would pay for this but it seems that the city would be the one that would need to do it…..?
Metro needs to do the bridge! The North Line bridge is big but I wouldn’t say ugly…but it is not wow look at that bridge looking either! I believe they should paint and have portraits over Hispanic civic leaders on the support pillars! Something aestheticly pleasing!
El Gallo Rojo? Ahhh, yet another Spanish name for a Houston Restaurant. How refreshing. /s