Asher Price of the Austin (TX) American-Statesmen wrote this story last week, a brilliant example of "he said-she said" finger pointing that inevitably ends badly for all involved.
The really funny part: Apparently city officials thought that once their tires wore out they tires simply disappeared into thin air. Enjoy:
State and county environmental investigators have started investigations into how the City of Austin disposes of used tires from its fleet of cars and trucks.
The investigations come as the Austin Chronicle reported that the city appears to have failed to properly dispose of tires that were once on city police cars, motorcycles and trash trucks.
The tires have ended up at Vic’s Tire Service, in a light industrial area in Southeast Austin.
In dozens of piles, many taller than a person, the tires have sat for nearly a year, according to Victor Almaguer, who owns the company. He says the city owes him about $50,000 that he needs to collect before he can dispose of the tires, which he estimates number 6,000.
The city says it is trying to comply with state environmental rules.
There was “a breakdown in the recordkeeping process used to track tire disposals,” said a memo Tuesday (Dec. 8) written by Leslie Browder, Austin’s chief financial officer, to the City Council. “Steps are currently underway to correct this process, and bring it into full compliance with regulatory requirements.”
The memo says the city doesn’t have a contract with Almaguer to transport tires. Almaguer, who has a contract with the city to drive out to repair flats on city vehicles, said he took the used tires from a city scrap pen at the direction of city Fleet Services Manager Bill Janousek. Almaguer said Janousek told him the city would pay him later.
Janousek was put on paid administrative leave last week, according to Browder’s memo, because he failed to pass along a complaint about the tires to his superiors.
Janousek declined to comment Tuesday.
Piles of scrap tires are frowned upon by environmental authorities because they can serve as a breeding ground for mosquitoes and a haven for rodents and snakes.
Tires in stockpiles also can ignite in hot conditions, creating tire fires that are difficult to extinguish and can burn for months, generating unhealthy smoke and toxic oils, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Almaguer said he and other workers shift all the tires after heavy rains to get rid of sitting water. But he said that mosquito infestations are a problem at the site in summer and that he has spotted snakes and rats in the tires.
"I’m just doing what the city told me to with the tires," Almaguer said.
To prevent fires and the spread of disease, tires are supposed to be tracked from cradle to grave through registered transport and disposal. Anyone who stores more than 500 scrap tires must register with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
In its Dec. 4 issue, the Austin Chronicle revealed that the City of Austin did not properly track disposed tires.
And Almaguer says he is not registered with the environmental agency for storing tires or picking them up.
"Tracking tire inventory from ‘cradle to grave’ is very complex in a fleet with the diversity and size of the city’s fleet," said the Browder memo, which said the city staff may recommend that outsourcing of tire transport and disposal be discontinued. The memo also noted that the Austin Police Department, which is also investigating the case, had visited the site and determined that not all tires were from city vehicles.
"Regardless of the tire generator, we are working to immediately dispose of all of the tires on the lot in accordance with TCEQ requirements," the memo said.
The Travis County attorney and district attorney’s office have been investigating the tire site since November, after the Austin-Travis County health department received an anonymous complaint about conditions there and forwarded the complaint to a county environmental investigator, according to Assistant County Attorney Kevin Morse, Assistant District Attorney Patty Robertson and Austin-Travis County Health and Human Services Department spokeswoman Carole Barasch.
The state environmental commission, which oversees the collection, processing and recycling or disposal of more than 19 million tires a year, began an investigation of its own after the Chronicle story, spokeswoman Andrea Morrow said.
