County Obtains Injunction Against Recycler

Officials in Harris County, Tex., obtained an injunction late last month requiring Wood Resources Inc., the site of the mulch fire in November, to clean up its grounds in an effort to prevent future fires. Cathy Sisk, an attorney with Harris County, said the fire, which began Nov. 6, burned for about two weeks, costing the county a significant amount of money to put it out.

"The point is to get the site in a condition where it's not a fire hazard," she added.

Under court order, the company's owners will have to establish a plan approved and sealed by a registered engineer and present it to the county by Jan. 15 so that the recycling center will not become another public health risk.

A temporary plan is being imposed by the court, requiring the company to reposition the mulch in smaller piles, no higher than 15 feet and no wider than 30 feet and separated by at least 25 feet of cleared land by Jan. 5. The wood material will be made into wood chips for sale. The proceeds of mulch sales will all go to the county as a part of its reimbursement fund.

Other portions of the injunction include the following: the company will cease accepting stumps, logs, log sections, branches, lumber, municipal solid waste and clean wood material; the company is ordered not to cause, suffer, allow or permit the discharge of contaminated waster from the site, unless authorized by the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission; and the company must have a fire suppression plan in place.

At the time the fire began, according to Sisk, the facility had around 500,000 cubic yards of wood material on its 10 acre lot. After the file was extinguished the facility still had around 100,000 cubic yards of wood material.

The injunction also stipulates that excess material that cannot be made into mulch must be removed from the site to the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission landfill by Jan. 15.

County commissioners at the onset of the fire indicated they intended to try to shut down the recycling center’s operations permanently. While the facility had been doing some processing of the wood debris, Sisk says that the amount processed was limited.