Tag: Toxic Sites

Pearland, Toxic Sites, Water Quality

State agencies have finally caught up with the chemical soup left to seep into the soil for two decades at a 3.5-acre abandoned tank farm in south Pearland, poisoning the wells of nearby residents with high levels of lead and other contaminants. Now the Camtraco Enterprises site, at 18823 Amoco Dr. — along a rail line running west of Highway 35 — is poised to become the latest addition to Texas’s Superfund registry.

Camtraco, which operated the fuel storage, blending, and distillation facility under a series of assumed names (Beaumont Chemicals, Camtraco Chemical Corp., Glycols Inc., Mondobello Chemical Services, Picos Chemical Plant, Okemah Hydrocarbons, and Southeastern Oil Company), halted work at the site in 1992. A sampling of the chemical bouquet discovered both on- and off-site from recent TCEQ efforts: arsenic, barium, chromium, lead, mercury, bis(2-ethylhexyl)adipate, bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate, diethyl phthalate, di-n-butyl phthalate, methylene chloride, 1,4 dicholorobenzene, toluene, and tricholoroethene (TCE).

Pearland Gets The State’s Newest Superfund Site! Take That, Pasadena! [Hair Balls]
Camtraco Enterprises [TCEQ]
Hazard Ranking System Documentation Record (PDF) [TCEQ]

Map showing the Camtraco Enterprises site’s former features: TCEQ

77584, Hazards, Pearland, Superfund-Sites, Toxic Sites, Water Quality

Disaster Aftermath

09/25/08 5:23pm

Ike’s Toxic Imprint

Environmental, Hazards, Quicklink, Toxic Sites, Water Quality

1 Comment

IKE’S TOXIC IMPRINT “So far, regulatory officials have identified 228 sites potentially poisoned with gasoline, industrial chemicals, feces and other contaminants from Greater Houston to Lake Charles, La. But none of the reported spills is considered major, authorities said. Cmdr. Virginia Kammer, who leads the U.S. Coast Guard’s cleanup efforts along the Texas coastline, said the largest spill was about 3,000 barrels, and the responsible facility moved quickly to get the problem under control.” What about the region’s 28 Superfund sites? No word yet, but the EPA has “started to investigate.” [Houston Chronicle]

Disaster Aftermath, Environmental, Hazards, Hurricane Ike, Pollution, Superfund-Sites, Toxic Sites, Water Quality

Disaster Aftermath

09/23/08 3:16pm

Houston Bayous: Now Featuring Raw Sewage!

Environmental, Public Health, Quicklink, Toxic Sites, Water Quality

1 Comment

HOUSTON BAYOUS: NOW FEATURING RAW SEWAGE! “Ever since the hurricane, a number of the city’s waste water treatment plants went without power. As a result, the city was forced to actually dump raw sewage straight into the bayous. First of all, it smells awful. There have also been some oil slicks along the waterways. And you can’t miss the dead fish.” [abc13]

Bayous, Disaster Aftermath, Environmental, Hurricane Ike, Public Health, Toxic Sites, Water Quality

Disaster Aftermath

09/18/08 6:36pm

Taylor Lake: Not a Good Time for Swimming, Boating, or Fishing

Environmental, Lakes, Public Health, Taylor Lake Village, Toxic Sites, Water Quality

House and Damaged Boat on Taylor Lake, Taylor Lake Village, Texas, after Hurricane Ike

A note from the City of Taylor Lake Village:

Taylor Lake is closed to recreation – swimming, boating, fishing, and water skiing. The Gulf Coast Waste Disposal Authority industrial wastewater treatment plant on Port Road was inundated during the storm and its ponds of untreated industrial and sanitary waste overflowed into Taylor Lake. The Lake may be contaminated with industrial pollutants (volatile organic and other compounds) and bacteriological contaminants. Residents should avoid all contact with Taylor Lake water until further notice.

Any other area industrial pollutants gone AWOL after Ike? Where did they end up?

Hurricane Ike Update [Taylor Lake Village]

Photo of house and damage on Taylor Lake: Flickr user Linda Railsback

77586, Disaster Aftermath, Environmental, Hazards, Hurricane Ike, Industrial Pollution, Lakes, Public Health, Taylor Lake Village, Toxic Sites, Water Quality

Environmental

09/09/08 9:35am

$325K for a 50-acre Texas City Park?

Land Prices, Parks, Quicklink, Texas City, Toxic Sites

$325K FOR A 50-ACRE TEXAS CITY PARK? “BP is staring at a $650,000 penalty for unauthorized land disposal of hazardous waste. . . . The penalty is not yet final but will probably come before the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in October, an agency spokeswoman said. Half of the proposed $650,000 fine requires BP to buy a minimum of 50 acres of contiguous property in and around Texas City and make it suitable for park land. The company will be required to preserve the entire property in perpetuity as a park and nature preserve.” [Hair Balls]

Environmental, Hazards, Parks, Texas-City, Toxic Sites

Hazards

07/21/08 2:31pm

Sherwood Forest Mystery Sludge

Memorial, Sherwood Forest, Toxic Sites, Water Quality

There’s trouble in Sherwood Forest: Newman Branch, a stagnant finger of Buffalo Bayou that traipses between Little John and W. Friar Tuck Lanes, had fire hydrants running full force on Friday to flush out raw sewage that mysteriously appeared in the waterway, reports Allan Turner in the Chronicle:

Houston oilman Dewey Stringer, who lives near the point where the bayou passes Memorial, said similar pollution has periodically plagued the waterway for at least five years. Generally, however, heavy rainfall dilutes the contamination.

Stringer, who was among residents to report the pollution to authorities, said the odor was so severe that he and his wife found it difficult to sleep. He had planned to relocate to Galveston this weekend and commute to work.

Stringer said he has developed eye irritation from vapors rising from the bayou and both he and his wife have developed persistent coughs.

Buffalo Bayou tributary flushed [Houston Chronicle]
Sewage Contaminates Neighborhood [Houston Chronicle]

77024, Buffalo Bayou, Hazards, Memorial, Pollution, Sherwood Forest, Sludge, Toxic Sites

Fort Bend County

07/21/08 1:03pm

Raising a Bigger Stink: Shadow Creek Ranch Residents Still Fighting 170-Foot Uphill Battle

Fresno, Hazards, Pearland, Shadow Creek Ranch, Toxic Sites

Rooftops and Sidewalk in Shadow Creek Ranch, Pearland, Texas

The contested case hearing for the proposed expansion of the Blue Ridge Landfill on the western edge of Shadow Creek Ranch has been postponed — to October or November at the earliest — reports Natalie Torentinos in the Journal of Pearland. But the the buzzards are already circling:

Like passing dark clouds, incomparable and scary odors have traveled through Jamie Leeâ€™s neighborhood in Shadow Creek Ranch, the smell seeping through the garage, laundry, even the water faucet. “This morning at 8 a.m. I left to take my daughters to school, and I could barely breathe outside,” Lee said. “It was nauseating.” . . .

Additional issues are geology and drainage â€“regarding contaminated groundwater and increased flooding, respectively. The landfill is attracting scavenger animals such as vultures, seagulls and rodents. [Attorney Richard] Morrison showed pictures taken of buzzards perching on the roofs of several homes, located in Green Valley Estates north of the landfill.

Allied Waste wants its pile of trash to expand to 784 acres and reach a height of 170 feet. Current restrictions limit the landfill to 302 acres and 60 feet.

Landfill odor causing a stink [The Journal of Pearland, via HAIF]
Hurricane Detection System To Be Blocked by 170-Foot-High Pile of Garbage [Swamplot]

Photo of Shadow Creek Ranch: Flickr user Sean Brady [license]

77584, Fort Bend County, Fresno, Hazards, Landfills, Pearland, Shadow-Creek-Ranch, Toxic Sites

Development Strategy

12/06/07 2:35pm

Fifth Ward: New Urbanists Meet Old Toxic Waste

Environmental, Fifth Ward, Hazards, Land Development, Master-Planned Communities, Proposed Developments, Toxic Sites

Residences at Seventh at 5th, by DPZ

A reader who lives in the neighborhood points us to drawings and information from New Urbanist planners Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. about the firm’s designs for the former MDI Superfund site in the Fifth Ward. DPZ, of course, is most famous for the enormous small-town-sized stage-set the company designed for the 1998 Jim Carrey movie The Truman Show, which became so popular that it was kept on and is now used as a Florida Panhandle resort named Seaside.

InTown Homes and Lovett Homes owner Frank Liu bought the MDI site — a former metal foundry and spent-catalyst “recycling” facility famously polluted with lead and several thousand chemistry sets’ worth of other toxic substances — from the EPA late last year, with promises that he’ll spend a couple of years and $6.7 million remediating the property before letting Houstonians live there. Still, 36+ acres of inner-loop land at $5 a square foot doesn’t sound like too bad a deal.

After the jump: a look at DPZ’s MDI plans, plus large grains of salt.

77020, Development Strategy, Environmental, Fifth Ward, Hazards, Land Development, Master-Planned Communities, New-Urbanism, Proposed Developments, Superfund-Sites, Toxic Sites

Demolitions

11/19/07 8:09am

Carousel House Demo: Mold Wants To Be Free

Historic Preservation, Meyerland, Mold, Toxic Sites

Carousel House at 9602 Moonlight Dr., Houston

As if on cue, the Carousel House received a demolition permit Friday. (See 9602 Moonlight Dr. in today’s Daily Demolition Report, below.) As of this morning, the Meyerland mod is still intact — well, at least you’ll be able to see its silhouette through the fog.

Who wants to keep all those mold spores cooped up in a dingy old home, anyway — when really, they could be doing so much more for this city? Set them free!

From Mod Pad to Mold Pit in Four Years: The Sorry Saga of the Carousel House [Swamplot]

Photo: Ben Hill

77096, Demolitions, Historic Preservation, Meyerland, Modern Design, Mold, Toxic Sites

Buying and Selling

11/14/07 4:04pm

From Mod Pad to Mold Pit in Four Years: The Sorry Saga of the Carousel House

Demolitions, Fraud, Historic Preservation, Home Design, Homebuilders, Meyerland, Mold, New Construction: Residential, Toxic Sites

9602 Moonlight Dr., Meyerland, Houston

One detail glossed over delicately in Lisa Gray’s colorful tale of the decline of Meyerland’s Carousel House, featured in today’s Chronicle: The abandoned home’s apparent awful stench. From a few would-be visitors, posting on HAIF:

The owner told me that everyone he’s taken in there has gotten sick soon after coming out. Apparently it is REALLY nasty in there. I may swing by and get some new filters for my mask.

and

i could smell “the smell” just standing in the driveway

But hey, the interior shots from just a few short years ago make the house look super fab! Built in 1964 by owner Robert Cohen, the Modern gem merited a Texas magazine feature story in 2003. Just four years, one ultra-rich attorney, one shady personal assistant, countless hookers, umpteen heroin hazes, and a couple of dozen missing exotic cars later, the house on the corner of Moonlight Dr. and Braesheather appears headed for an almost-certain but certainly difficult demolition. (15,000 pounds of steel, anyone?)

After the jump, highlights of the home from its heyday, excerpts from the sordid and fetid tale of its fall from Modern grace, and a photo of the far more up-to-date carousel that just might be built in its place!

77096, Buying and Selling, Demolitions, Fraud, Historic Preservation, Home Design, Homebuilders, Meyerland, Mold, New Construction: Residential, Toxic Sites

Development Restrictions

06/14/07 11:44am

Residents Living Over Contaminated Groundwater Shocked To Learn They Won’t Be Allowed To Drill Wells

Environmental, Fallbrook Greens, Tower Oaks, Toxic Sites, Water Quality

One of the more fascinating EPA Superfund sites in the Houston area is a neighborhood off Jones Road just north of FM1960. Residents who had earlier appreciated how convenient it was to drop off their dry cleaning at nearby Bell Cleaners began to regret that benefit in 2002 when the TCEQ announced that the local drinking water was laced with nasty levels of dry-cleaning solvent tetrachloroethylene, or PCE.

That was bad. But now it’s even worse: These residents will now be prohibited from drilling their own wells to drink the local groundwater!

Coalition members said they recently learned Harris County officials would not allow anymore water wells to be drilled in the Jones Road Superfund site, which covers the Evergreen Woods and Edgewood Estates neighborhoods west of Jones Road and north of FM 1960, and some commercial properties east of Jones Road.

“We understand that Harris County is putting health concerns above everything else, but several residents out here believed they could drill another well into a deeper aquifer if they needed to, and now that is not an option,” said Jones Road Coalition board member Ron O’Farrell.

According to a Houston Chronicle story, only 124 out of approximately 400 neighborhood property owners signed up for a proposed pipeline to bring uncontaminated drinking water into the area. But now, after a Harris County order banning new wells—and the recent discovery of trace elements of vinyl chloride in existing residential wells—some residents are saying they want to re-open the signup period.

Why were they so reluctant to sign up for a supply of nontoxic water in the first place?

Coalition members said there are two primary reasons some residents are concerned about signing the agreement that would allow them to hook up to the water pipeline. One clause in that agreement requires residents to permanently cap their individually owned groundwater wells, and the other gives the state unlimited access to their property during the project and remediation effort.

“I would not mind paying a fee for the tap and paying a plumber, or whomever it takes, on my own to tap in to the pipeline as long as I don’t have to sign the agreement ad give them complete access to my land,” said Donald Haus, and Edgewood Estates resident.

Jones Road coalition wants to reopen pipeline agreement [Houston Chronicle]
Jones Road Groundwater Plume [TCEQ]
Jones Road (Harris County) Texas (PDF Superfund update) [EPA]

77065, Edgewood Estates, Evergreen Woods, Fallbrook Greens, Groundwater, Superfund-Sites, Tower Oaks, Toxic Sites, Water, Water Quality

Fort Bend County

04/20/07 9:59am

Hurricane Detection System To Be Blocked by 170-Foot-High Pile of Garbage

Fresno, Pearland, Shadow Creek Ranch, Toxic Sites

Some Other Landfill

Residents of Shadow Creek Ranch now have some unlikely allies in their fight to prevent an adjacent landfill from expanding into their, uh . . . airspace: TV weathermen.

That’s right: the real problem with Allied Waste wanting to expand its Blue Ridge landfill in Fresno from 302 to 784 acres—and increase its allowable maximum height from 58 to 170 feet—isn’t any toxic stench that might upset nearby residents, but the fact that it will block your TV newspeople from scaring you to death with alarming reports of giant hurricanes sneaking up on Houston from the Gulf.

That one-and-a-quarter-square-mile, 16-story tower of waste will block the Doppler radar installations of Channels 11, 13, and 26, which are located a few miles to the northwest. Sounds kinda picky, huh?

It may be too late for the weathermen to help new residents of the “#1 selling master-planned community in the Houston-Pearland Metroplex” stop their already smelly neighbor, since Fort Bend County and Missouri City have signed agreements not to oppose landfill-expansion plans. And TCEQ has already given its go-ahead to the giant heap of trash.

Seems it’s a little easier for developers to build towers outside Beltway 8—and you can build with cheaper materials, too.

Many residents of neighborhoods surrounding the landfill, such as Shadow Creek Ranch and Fresno, say whatâ€™s at stake for them is maintaining the value of their homes or their ability to obtain clean drinking water, and to maintain an acceptable quality of life in the face of what some believe will become at best a stinking nuisance.

. . . Allied has acknowledged, that in November 2005 a â€œstatistically significant exceedance of barium was detected at the landfill.” The metallic element can act as a powerful nerve poison.

Detection of barium amounts to evidence the landfill already is leaking, [Environmental Attorney Richard] Morrison said in comments to TCEQ, and may threaten the drinking water supply in Fresno. He said more than 80 water wells are located within a mile of the proposed landfill expansion.

Allied Project Development Manager Gary McCuistion has stated that the company is â€œvery confidentâ€ the increased presence of barium represents a naturally occurring event. [emphasis added]

After the jump, an aerial photo from the Shadow Creek Ranch website showing that pinkish, naturally occurring growth just across Almeda.

77584, Fort Bend County, Fresno, Landfills, Pearland, Shadow-Creek-Ranch, Toxic Sites

Environmental

04/12/07 9:13am

A Subdivision’s Dirty Little Secret

Neighborhood Associations, Toxic Sites, Woodwind Lakes

Here’s another Texas tale about discovering oil on your property—only not the way you’ve probably dreamed about. Don’t we all live on top of former oil fields around here? Many of us do, but in Woodwind Lakes, a relatively recent development inside the Beltway and north of 290, some residents are living on the more toxic and unremediated spoils of a former gas processing plant. Houston Press writer Todd Spivak unearths the gooey details:

The Brookses . . . hired Klein, a licensed geologist, to take more soil and groundwater samples from their backyard. The results were chilling.

Klein found elevated levels of benzene, ethylbenzene, styrene and acetone. Total petroleum hydrocarbons were detected as high as 23,000 milligrams per kilogram — more than twice the level deemed safe by state regulators.

Worst of all: A layer of hot, oily sludge was discovered just one to four feet below the surface. Touching the sod or breathing the air likely exposed them to dangerous contamination, Klein says.

There’s real drama here, but we’re only scratching the surface: What about the strange rashes on pets, the angst over diminishing property values, the vicious feuds among neighbors? It all highlights how easy it can be to put up fancy Houston homes just about anywhere. So many tiny scandals wrapped up in this spicy story: