Helotes can finally breath easier
March 28, 2007
MySA.com: Helotes debris fire may be out, but battles remain in aftermath
Helotes can breathe again.The monster debris fire that confounded county leaders, mocked the state’s environmental agency and grabbed national attention for three months has officially gone poof!
Finally!! Three months of this fire burning and it is finally out. We have certainly come a long way since those first few weeks when no one was doing anything but watching it burn. We watched it all and I still can’t fathom a fire that takes three months to put out.
Still to be determined is who will pay the estimated $5.5 million in cleanup costs. Also: Where will they put the dismantled debris?
Welcome to Part II of The Longest Fire in Bexar County History. The blaze began in December 2006. The legal battle could drag into 2008.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality says it will send the cleanup bill to landowner Henry Zumwalt. The fire, after all, erupted on his property.
Zumwalt lawyer David Barton says his client does not intend to pay. TCEQ, after all, botched firefighting operations. Not only that, the state agency gave Zumwalt tacit approval for the eight-story pile that ignited on Dec. 26.
Mark it down. You’ll see these guys in court.
That story line could be entertaining. But another could be challenging, if not a bit frightening. Thousands of cubic yards of brush remain scattered across Zumwalt’s property.
“The Zumwalts are responsible for hauling all the materials off the site,” Allan says. “I don’t know how many truckloads it’s going to take. But he’s not going to get that stuff off in a month.”
What worries the mayor is a cruel possibility. The mother of all Texas brush fires could give birth to an offspring.
Zumwalt has made it clear he isn’t paying the bill for putting the fire out. What would make anyone believe that he will foot the bill for cleaning up the property? He is taking no responsibility for anything so far. Several months ago there was news that they had found it to be arson but that didn’t hold up. He of course still holds to that belief but I ask would it matter if it was? He created the hazard that burned for three months, why does it matter what started it? He created the pile, it was on his property and that would make it his responsibility. Let the lawsuits begin.
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Posted in Helotes, Helotes fire, Henry Zumwalt, TCEQ, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, texas
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June 22nd, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Your facts are all wrong.
June 23rd, 2007 at 7:40 am
Hello Helotes Citizen,
These were the facts almost 3 months ago when I wrote this. If something has changed, email the news story and we would be happy to update it. But as of the writing of this story nearly 3 months ago these were the objective facts. I did follow this story quite closely for several months and I would be happy to update it if there is something to post. I would find it hard to believe that “my facts are all wrong” or that they were at the time of writing this piece because we work very hard to be sure that all of our facts are accurate. Of course, Zumwalt could have had a change of heart in the last three months and fixed the situation but, like I said I haven’t seen a news story on it so would be more than happy to update if you send one, but at the time of the writing of this story all the facts were accurate.