+- WineBoard (https://www.wines.com/wineboard)
+-- Forum: GENERAL (https://www.wines.com/wineboard/forum-100.html)
+--- Forum: Rants & Raves (https://www.wines.com/wineboard/forum-12.html)
+--- Thread: Helotes, TX is now world famous!! (/thread-13173.html)
- Kcwhippet - 01-11-2007
Well, maybe just nationally. I read a news item in this morning's paper about this really huge mulch pile in Helotes that the neihbors don't particularly like. Seems it caught fire on Christmas and it's still smoldering. That's gotta be some big mulch heap!!!
- hotwine - 01-11-2007
Yeah, it's a major pain to locals. Has been burning since Christmas night and is expected to continue for weeks, maybe up to a year. Formed as alternate layers of mulch and dirt, it was some 80 ft high and 440 ft long when ignited by an arsonist. Local, county and state officials are doing the usual concentric finger-pointing ritual as to who should take charge of solving the problem. Cost estimates are in the $1.2-$1.7 mil range and will undoubtedly be borne by taxpayers. The landowner is said to have an EPA permit for a mulch pile, but at only 1/3 the quantity that's actually there.
We're about a mile due north of it and when the wind is out of the south, it blows the smell directly into our garage (when left open). Two schools with combined enrollment of some 5000 kiddos (mostly high schoolers) are within about 1500 ft of it, and some kids (esp. asthmatics) are having to stay home. The elderly are being advised to stay indoors as much as possible.
There's a real traffic jam of newshound choppers overhead between 5-6:30 each evening as all the newsies try to get updated video of the pile (which, like Buckster, doesn't move - it just squats there and fumes). Has become a regular feature of the local Infobabes and Reporterettes (to use Rush's terms).
More info and probably lots of photos are available at local TV stations' Websites (WOAI, KSAT, KENS) and our only newspaper at mysa.com.
- Innkeeper - 01-11-2007
Sounds much worse than our current and more insignificant problem. There is a pile of 5000 or so tires on the other side of the ridge in Alton smoldering away, and when the wind is right, disturbing our pristine air.
- hotwine - 01-11-2007
Burning tires are very difficult to extinguish. Recall that the "camp fire girls" in Naples used 'em for warmth in the winter, driving the city fathers (well, at least the mothers) nuts.
This thing is like that. But it's compounded by being directly on top of the Edwards Acquifer, an extremely sensitive underground reservoir that's San Antonio's only source of water. That severely limits the options available for fighting the sucker.
Just heard that the high school's ag ed barns will be evacuated tomorrow of their 400 head of livestock. And up to seven more schools could be impacted if the wind shifts.
Stay tuned.