Posted: 1/19/2007 8:59:58 AM EDT
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For those in other areas, there was a pile of brush/mulch about 80 feet high, 50 yards wide and about 300 yards long on private property that caught fire Christmas night. And has been burning/smoldering ever since, creating a haze of smoke for most of the city of Helotes (15 miles NW of San Antonio). The landowner had operated a gravel pit and was now functioning as a dump for this waste. Due to development in the area, it grew rapidly. The landowner claims vandals set it on fire Christmas night. Citizens got upset, Texas Commission of Environmental Quality was alerted and mobilized Oilmop to extinguish the fire. And TCEQ barred the landowner access to his property. So the landwoner brings TCEQ into court and regains access PLUS sues to block the use of wetting agents. The lawyer argues the area is environmentally sensitive and over the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone. Landowner wins, naturally. So now Oilmop and its subcontractor Williams needs 5 times more water to do the job...and by spraying over 3 million gallons of water, neighbor's wells are turning up cloudy, smokey water. So no more water on the fire. It will burn/smolder for another 6 weeks... But what is really sad is politics, namely TCEQ and its heavy-handed infringement of property rights, has effectively done NOTHING to put the damn fire out and in trying to protect the aquifer, has only furthered contamination! For the record, the wetting agent that was going to be used is one that rapidly biodegrades. And using it would have limited the runoff. But TCEQ called it a "chemical" (funny how water is also a chemical as are all the by-products of incomplete combustion) and that only complicated the problem. www.woai.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoId=350095,565 |
| Man, its a small fricking world. I am pretty sure this is our newest customer. They just bought a machine from my company and we have had hell contacting them since Christmas to set an appointment to install the equipment. The Operations Manager of my company came back from this place and he commented that it was the biggest compost pile he had ever seen and frankly I thought he was overstating the size of it- his size estimation was smaller than yours! He said it was 17 years worth of inventory. That must have been one big fire. Sucks if vandals started the fire because about half a dozen people probably lost their job when the pile burned. |
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One thing I'm noticing more and more... it is all about 'protecting' the aquifer... like it somehow is on a tipping point and one more nudge will remove all potable underground water... what a load of crap. It's not about the environment, it is about being subservient. /rant off. I went out to Government Canyon natural area a few months ago and drove past the mulch pile. Looked like a bad idea at the time. As soon as it caught on fire, all resources should have been used...including the aquifer 'nuking' wetting agents. |
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Precisely why I am staying as far away from that mess as possible. Starting with the landowner. This event is a far deviation from the norm that all involved don't know anything outside of their range of expertise. TCEQ gets the major rotten tomato award for failure to consider the collateral possible and probable damages. They get the myopia ribbon for failing to visualize a flow of 4200 GPM. Then they get the dufus award for violating the rights of the land owner. The fire marshal and his subordinates need to know anything flammable and exposed to air CAN BURN. Tree roots will burn if dry and will burn for years. Coal seams have been burning for decades. Dirt stops no fire as long as it has fuel and oxygen. And finally we have the landowner. Stockpiling that much flammable brush in one area was only asking for trouble. Hindsight is always 20/20 but the pile shoulld have been kept wet. |
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TCEQ is your typical PC govt. organization, that was formed to be a self propagating organization. Don't ever complain to them and expect them to actually make anything better. They can't, or won't. There is a small town down the road from me. They got a grant from the feds to put in water and sewer. To make it "easy" on people, the town told anyone who was putting in a new house, to just run their sewer lines out to the street and dump the sewage into the ditch. I complained to TCEQ about this, and was told that the town was in the act of putting in the sewage lines, and they wouldn't do anything about it. It took them 5 years to put in and hook up the sewer lines. Sorry for the Hijack. I just had to vent about TCEQ. I understand what you are going through. |