Local T.V. Stations Oppose Blue Ridge Landfill Expansion (Click title link for more)-

TV Stations: Landfill Trash Heap Would Block Doppler Radar, Put Public At Risk
by Bob Dunn, Apr 15, 2007, 11 07 am

The safety of everyone in the Houston and Galveston region will be at risk if Blue Ridge Landfill expands, because the giant pile of refuse would block Doppler radar signals and prevent hurricane detection, three Houston TV stations claim.

That information surfaced in documents filed with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Those documents include a request by Houston’s ABC, NBC and Fox Broadcasting television affiliates to formally contest plans by Blue Ridge Landfill TX LP to expand Blue Ridge Landfill, at 2200 F.M. 521, a mile north of Fresno in Fort Bend County.

The landfill’s owner, a subsidiary of industry giant Allied Waste, wants to increase the landfill “waste footprint” from the current 302 acres to 784 acres, and increase the maximum height at which refuse can be piled, from the current 58 feet to 170 feet.

But at that height, say officials with KTRK Channel 13, KHOU Channel 11 and Fox affiliate KRIV, the giant mound of garbage would block weather radar signals from the stations’ towers, 3 miles or less away to the northwest.

“The landfill, if so constructed, would block the radar signals to much of the southeast and preclude the collection of weather information, such as the location, speed and direction of movement of hurricanes in parts of the Gulf of Mexico,” Austin attorney Richard Lowerre wrote in a request for a contested hearing over the landfill expansion. “The expanded landfill would also prevent the tracking of tornados and other storms to the southeast.” . . .