Unrepaired Travis County landfill threatens housing project, sparks lawsuit
Unrepaired Travis Co. landfill threatens housing project
A developer cannot build an affordable housing project right now because the county has been a polluter for decades. The state has gotten involved, but there is no concrete timeline to fix the old county landfill in South Austin.
TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas - A developer cannot build an affordable housing project right now because the county has been a polluter for decades.
The state has gotten involved, but there is no concrete timeline to fix the old county landfill in South Austin.
Developer speaks on decades-old mess
What they're saying:
Corbin Graham, a real estate investor, wants to relocate the LKQ Pick Your Part junkyard that sits on South Congress to the old county landfill.
"We found this landfill, and it met all the criteria for that user," Graham said.
They cannot start on the plans though, because the land has problems.
"We want to work through the problems and see if we can find a win-win to get them here," Graham said.
"So, you knew there were problems when you purchased this?" FOX 7 Reporter Meredith Aldis asked.
"Absolutely. We knew that the issues were long-standing. We thought a higher level of scrutiny could solve the problem, because it's not complex, it's just detailed," Graham said.
Timeline:
The problems date back decades. Travis County used the site off 290 as a landfill from 1968 to 1982. The county then started post-closure care and should have been monitoring and maintaining the land to make sure it doesn’t leak contaminants, release harmful gases, or cause pollution. Apparently, that didn’t happen.
Bill Aleshire was the county judge a few years after the landfill closed.
"One of the reasons I've delayed commenting on this is that I needed to go back and be reminded of why in the world didn't we get it fixed," Aleshire said.
In 1990, the State Health Authority notified the county there was a problem with leachate, basically trash runoff, coming out of the landfill.
"We did take some remedial steps, but looking back over the recording over the basically almost 10 years that I was there, it seemed like every time we set a course, an alternative was considered and then another alternative and so it got mitigated, but not fixed," Aleshire said.
To this day, it hasn’t been fixed.
In March 2024, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality investigated the landfill and found ponding, erosion, leachate leaks, and leachate draining towards the creek. The county received state violations. Court records reveal some progress has been made, but the violations remain active.
Graham said you could see the damage to the property.
"What you see here we call these Christmas trees, where they have different pumps that are constantly being added because the leachate coming out is well beyond the initial estimates and to repeat myself, that's because the cap condition of the landfill is allowing copious amounts of rainwater to get in mixed with the trash and come out some which gets caught in the pumps a lot of which comes out as the seeps," Graham said.
Environmental lawyer Jim Blackburn said this is dangerous, especially for people that are downstream of Walnut Creek.
"We've got lead, we got arsenic, these are known contaminants. It's not like people are going to die tomorrow, but these are contaminants that are serious and if they were coming from an industry, they would be treated as in violations and stop, cease, desist, fix it," Blackburn said.
Dig deeper:
The Texas Attorney General has sued the county because it has not been fixed.
"The county is a pollution enforcer, and now we have a county that is a polluter," Aleshire said.
The AG said the county "failed to adhere to state statutes and TCEQ regulations related to solid waste, water quality, and landfills." Court documents stated the county is still responsible for post-closure care and maintenance.
"We didn't fix the problem when I was county judge, but for God's sake, that was 35 years ago, what's been done in the last 25 years?" Aleshire said.
The state is requiring the county to make sure the waste is sealed up, the soil and sediment is sampled and cleaned up, and the leachate collection system is repaired.
"The county's got itself and its taxpayers in an even worse position than it would have been even 20 years ago or 25 years ago, because now that if you look at that lawsuit, the county could be on for tens, or perhaps hundreds, of millions of dollars to fix that and to pay the fines that are accrued," Aleshire said.
This delay is holding up Graham’s plans to turn the junkyard on South Congress into a mixed-use development with multifamily units, including affordable housing, and office and retail space.
"If that doesn't happen, we will be pursuing a taking of kind, a forced condemnation, and that's where the government has improperly taken property and needs to compensate the owners for having impacted it and taken it knowingly, and with bad intent. We believe that's the case," Graham said.
Travis County responds
A Travis County spokesperson said in a statement:
"Travis County has been productively working and cooperating with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to address the closed landfill and will continue to do so. Travis County’s commitment to protect our environment is evident by the policies and actions taken by this and previous Commissioners Courts. They have been good stewards of our natural resources and remain focused on preserving Travis County’s natural resources for generations to come."
What's next:
The Travis County Commissioner voted this week to use eminent domain to acquire the closed landfill. A county representative said this is another step needed to address the environmental issues at hand.
Graham said he will be fighting this in court.
The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin's Meredith Aldis