Monday, August 25, 2008

Residents in East Fort Worth celebrate major cleanup of 15-acre illegal dump site

By Pegasus News wire

On Monday, a press conference hosted by Mayor Mike Moncrief was held to announce the competition of the extraordinary cleanup project at the Walker Branch Recycling site. Local residents joined the mayor, along with Fort Worth Councilmembers Frank Moss and Danny Scarth, State Senator Kim Brimer, State Representative Kelly Hancock and Executive Director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) Mark Vickery.

For several years, the Walker Branch Recycling property has been a dangerous concern and nuisance to thousands of residents in east Fort Worth. But those residents will no longer live in fear of an environmental disaster from a fire thanks to a major cleanup effort led by the state of Texas.

Walker Branch Recycling, Inc. began illegally operating a “recycling” plant in 2002. However, instead of recycling construction and demolition debris, the operator was in fact illegally dumping the materials at a 15-acre site located off Precinct Line Rd. With roughly 6,000 residents living nearby, the dump site posed “… an imminent and substantial endangerment to human health and the environment” according to the TCEQ.

The types of illegally dumped items on the property included construction and demolition debris (such as lumber, sheetrock, concrete, insulation, carpet, metal pipes, paint cans, duct material, etc.). Also found on site were empty pressurized cylinders, empty refrigerant containers, plastic, appliances, furniture, tires and a large quantity of wood. There was an estimated 370,000 cubic yards of dumped material in piles reaching as high as 30 feet.

Once notified of the problems on the property, and after all enforcement action failed, the city of Fort Worth filed a civil lawsuit against the property owner, who filed bankruptcy the day before the trial was to begin. Mayor Moncrief then sought the assistance of State Senator Kim Brimer and State Representative Kelly Hancock who helped identify the estimated $3 million needed to fund the cleanup of the property through TCEQ. The cleanup took approximately 10 months to complete.

Source: The City of Fort Worth

See more stories in:

• Environmental Issues
• Politics and Government > City Government > Fort Worth

Comments

Pavel Lishin Verified

I always wondered how many recycling companies just haul the stuff off to the city dump.

3 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

topcad Anonymous

How did this guy even get started doing this illegal dump to begin with? And is the civil lawsuit going to go anywhere? I want to know where the owner of "Walker Branch Recycling, Inc" is now.

3 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Laura Seewoester Staff

topcad: The Startlegram has a little more information on the background of the situation. The owner, Earl Burrell, is apparently still living in Tarrant county, presumably far away from any dump.

3 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )