alamo road

ALAMO – Cleanup is now under way at a large trash dump on FM 495 near Alamo Road. People who live nearby called it a health hazard. That cleanup started just a few hours after they called CHANNEL 5 ON YOUR SIDE for help

It’s an otherwise beautiful spot on FM 495 just east of Alamo road. Horses roam the pasture. Right alongside the road is a huge pile of garbage. Trash bags, brush, wood, even tires rest next to the roadway.

“The people are cleaning their lots, putting it outside the lot on the side of the road and no one is picking it up. It can get out of hand. It’s pretty dangerous and it’s always windy,” says David Herring, who lives in a nearby RV park

This mess is ugly to look at and a health hazard, but the worst problem is that it’s a fire hazard. The pile is nearby Guerra Elementary School.

CHANNEL 5 NEWS brought Alamo City Manager Luciano Ozuna to the site to take a look.

“It’s not a trash area that people just come and dump. I think there was probably a major cleanup done by these people that are here. See there’s some palm trees over there? And these are probably those,” says Ozuna.

Ozuna says the city of Alamo has a $188,000 a year contract with the company BFI to pick up trash like this. It’s a scheduled route. The company comes by each location once a month. Ozuna says sometimes people put their trash out early.

“This would be sort of like a special pick-up that would have to be done by either BFI or by the city to come and clear this out,” says Ozuna.

The next scheduled pickup for trash at this location was next week, but just Thursday afternoon, Alamo city workers went back to the site. They loaded the trash and debris into a couple of big trucks, clearing the shoulder of the road of trash and removing the fire hazard.