October 19, 2009 – 10:26 am
Levels of soot in Houston now exceed the EPA’s longstanding annual limit: “The area of concern is along the Ship Channel, the only place in Texas where levels of the tiny particles surpassed the EPA’s annual limit from 2006 to 2008, according to the most recent data available. The agency uses a three-year average to determine whether an area is in compliance. Monitoring shows air near the Ship Channel is getting cleaner, thanks in part to new rules for idling trucks and the paving of gravel parking lots. But EPA and local officials don’t know whether the improvements will be enough to drop the rolling average below the annual limit of 15 micrograms per cubic liter of air, since that average includes higher 2006 levels.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
Read more about: Air Pollution, Air Quality, Hazards, Houston Ship Channel, Industrial Pollution
October 16, 2009 – 1:44 pm
Drought-stressed trees in The Woodlands are under attack! “Since July, nearly 1,000 pine trees have been removed because they were attacked by pine bark beetles, community officials said. And that does not include the hundreds of dead trees on residential property. Recent rain and cooler weather has lessened beetle activity, but sparse, brownish-orange pine trees can still be spotted throughout The Woodlands, which is known for its forested landscape and protective tree covenants. ‘It’s been a major outbreak,’ said John Powers, interim co-manager of the Community Associations of The Woodlands. ‘In July and August, we were adding dozens of trees to the tree removal list every day.’ The infestation isn’t just in Montgomery County. It’s affecting trees throughout Southeast Texas, including Harris, Chambers, San Jacinto and Waller counties, according to the Texas Forest Service.” [Houston Chronicle]
Read more about: Critters, Hazards, Trees
October 8, 2009 – 2:59 pm
“The seminar, one of seven held in the Houston area this week, attracted people hoping to find a gold lining in the economic downturn. Banking on the Trump name to draw crowds, the classes promoted a method of house-flipping some Houston financial advisors call a high-risk sleight of hand, difficult to pull off without a measure of deception. Trump didn’t make an appearance: the class was taught by his ‘No. 1 instructor,’ Stephen Goff, who says he has flipped 200 properties with great success. ‘People ask me, “Steve, if you’re making so much in real estate, why do you travel the country teaching people?”’ said Goff, wearing a charcoal suit and a button-down shirt the color of money. ‘If it was in your heart to help people, and Donald Trump asked you, what would you do? I got on the first plane.’ Goff led the seminar in the call-and-response style customary to revival meetings. . . . [Retired real estate agent Jayne] Pace said Goff reminded her of Houston’s ‘prosperity preacher,’ Joel Osteen, but without the same megawatt smile.” [Houston Chronicle]
Read more about: Foreclosures, Hazards, Real Estate Investing, Scams
October 2, 2009 – 3:50 pm
Swamplot reader ms. rosa reports on tonight’s scheduled demolition of the 1906 Savoy Apartments building (later the Savoy-Field Hotel) at Main St. and Pease Downtown: “Just spoke with Cherry [Demolition]. They will start tearing down the building tonight (Friday, October 2, 2009) at 7:00pm. It will not be imploded (as hoped!)” [Swamplot; previously]
Read more about: 77002, Apartments, Demolitions, Downtown, Environmental, Hazards, Vacant Buildings
September 24, 2009 – 11:17 am
City officials have decided to give the owner of the original 1906 Savoy Apartments building on Main St. Downtown an extra week to knock down the structure before going ahead with their own emergency demolition plan. The building’s owner — listed in Harris County records as Michael Nassif — will now have until midnight next Friday, October 2nd, to have a contractor of his own choice begin dismantling the structure. If that doesn’t happen, the city-selected contractor will complete the demo that weekend — and leave the property with a lien for the $448,600 cost.
While negotiations have focused on how quickly work can begin, residents of the Beaconsfield across Pease St. may be more interested in how long the demo will take — and how it will be done. Architect David Hall, who has studied the building for several developers, spoke to abc13 reporter Gene Apodaca about the asbestos embedded in the building’s crumbling interior plaster:
“It’s full of environmental issues. There are pathogens that are a result of the pigeon droppings, there are areas of the building I measured where pigeon droppings were six inches thick,” said Hall.
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77002, Apartments, Demolitions, Downtown, Environmental, Hazards, Vacant Buildings
September 23, 2009 – 9:43 am
Additional obstacle in last night’s fire at the Copperwood Townhomes, on Imogene St. at the northern edge of the Westwood Golf Club: “The burglar bars ’slowed us down a little bit getting in,’ said HFD District Chief Tommy Dowdy. ‘If (the occupants) tried to get out through the window, it would have been a deterrent.’ Firefighters discovered the man’s body in a ground-floor apartment.” [Houston Chronicle]
Read more about: 77036, Burglar Bars, Fires, Hazards, Sharpstown
September 21, 2009 – 1:21 pm
“. . . roads go over top of petroleum pipelines all the time with an agreement & bond to protect them. Citie$, countie$ and large entitie$ do it all the time. The whole of the Woodlands Town Center, including the regional mall there, is built atop a pipeline, which runs alongside the foundation of the Anadarko Tower. Even Lake Robbins, though it’s not at all deep, is on top!” [movocelot, commenting on Comment of the Day: Where the Townhomes Ain’t]
Read more about: 77380, Comments, Hazards, Pipelines, The Woodlands, The Woodlands Town Center
September 17, 2009 – 3:24 pm
Early this morning: the 10th and 11th in a series of set blazes in the Heights, all targeting vacant homes. The latest were on 9th St. and 12th St.: “Before today, all the other fires had occurred along Ashland between 10th and 11th streets. Today’s fires were within three blocks of the previous blazes. District Chief Arthur Broussard said both fires appeared suspicious, and the second one appeared to start near an exterior staircase. Firefighters put it out within 15 minutes. ‘It’s pretty brazen, pretty brazen,’ he said of the second fire starting such a short distance from where firefighters and police were still on the scene of the first one.” [Houston Chronicle]
Read more about: 77008, Crime, Fires, Hazards, Houston Heights
September 8, 2009 – 10:25 am
A marauding pack of four-legged criminals has attacked and killed more than 6 pets in the Woodland Heights area: “[Recovery specialist Doug] Worthy said pets should be kept inside at night, if possible, and if people are out after dark, they should carry something like a bat to protect themselves. The pack of dogs are described as four to six brown and black mutts, weighing between 80 and 90 pounds.” [Click2Houston, via Heightsfolk]
Read more about: 77009, Crime, Critters, Hazards, Woodland Heights
August 31, 2009 – 1:42 pm
Robert Boyd’s original remarks on the scraping of the Wilshire Village Apartments briefly mentioned another older apartment complex that Matt Dilick redeveloped and now runs: the Bayou on the Bend Apartments, at 5201 Memorial, just west of Shepherd. Boyd’s link to discussions of that complex at ratings website Apartment Ratings sparked a quick note from a reader:
It looks like Apartment Ratings attracts tenants who want to complain, but it seems like most of the gripes about other apartments focus on managers who are hard to deal with, thin walls, neighborhood crime, that sort of stuff. Have you read the reviews of Bayou on the Bend?
Bayou on the Bend gets a 35 percent positive rating from readers who have written in to comment — certainly not the lowest number for a large Houston complex. Here are a few choice excerpts:
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77007, Apartments, Bayou on the Bend, Buffalo Bayou, Disaster Aftermath, Flooding, Hazards, Hurricane Ike, Memorial Drive, Mold, Swimming Pools
August 26, 2009 – 2:42 pm
Oil spill on the bayou: “The spill spread from an oil storage tank in the Mont Belvieu area, leaking into Smith Gully then on to Cedar Bayou. Mont Belvieu’s Emergency Management Chief Bruce Oliphant said best estimates put the spilled oil at 200 to 300 gallons but said a reason for the leak had not been determined by Tuesday afternoon. ‘We’re not sure why it leaked,’ Oliphant said. ‘We couldn’t see where it was coming from the tank and maybe it was coming from somewhere underground.’” [Baytown Sun]
Read more about: 77520, 77523, Bayous and Waterways, Baytown, Cedar Bayou, Hazards, Water Quality
August 19, 2009 – 1:23 pm
The Sierra Club and a Texas environmental group have filed suit against Chevron Phillips claiming a bonus supply of air pollutants and toxic chemicals has been escaping from the company’s Cedar Bayou chemical plant just north of I-10 in Baytown: “‘Like many companies in Texas, Chevron Phillips has repeatedly violated its own permit limits by emitting a wide range of harmful pollutants into the air from the Cedar Bayou plant,’ said Luke Metzger, Director of Environment Texas. ‘Because the state of Texas has failed to stop such violations at Cedar Bayou and elsewhere, citizen groups have had to step up and enforce the law themselves.’ The Clean Air Act contains a ‘citizen suit’ provision that allows private citizens affected by violations of the law to bring an enforcement suit in federal court if state and federal regulators do not. . . . Chevron Phillips’s permits contain both hourly and yearly limits on the amounts of pollutants it can emit into the atmosphere. The lawsuit alleges that equipment breakdowns, malfunctions, and other non-routine incidents at the Cedar Bayou complex have resulted in the release of more than a million pounds of pollutants into the surrounding air, frequently in violation of legal limits. A single such ‘upset’ or ‘emission event’ can result in the release of tens of thousands of pounds of air pollutants in a matter of hours or even minutes.” [Environment Texas, via Houston Chronicle]
Read more about: 77521, Air Pollution, Air Quality, Baytown, Cedar Bayou, Hazards, Industrial Areas, Pollution
August 18, 2009 – 6:28 pm
Another few months, another one of those studies from research firm First American CoreLogic — this one using data from the end of June. By that date, the firm says, 26.15 percent of all Houston-Sugar Land- Baytown-area mortgages were in a “negative equity” position. Add in the “up to their eyeballs” crowd of mortgage-holders who are within 5 percentage points of owing more than their homes are worth, and the figure rises to 33.86 percent. That’s a marked increase from the figures in the firm’s March study, which used data from September 2008. [First American CoreLogic; previously on Swamplot]
Read more about: Financing, Hazards, Houston Data, Mortgages, Negative Equity, Price Trends
Comment of the Day: On the Case of the Demo Fires
“Chron.com reports “Unoccupied home [in 5100 block of Wipprecht] burns in NE Houston.” Wonder if that was the demo.” [GoogleMaster, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: Wipprecht Gammage]