Houston Police Department's Environmental Enforcement Di

http://www.youtube.com/user/goldstoneexterior

Houston, Texas-based Goldstone Exterior Services Inc., a leader in compliant, environmentally-superior power washing and exterior services for commercial real estate and industrial companies made its presentation to the Houston Chapter of the Association of Chief Operating Engineers in August, 2009. Joined by a representative of the Houston Police Department's Environmental Enforcement Division, and the City's Health Department, in Segment Seven, Sylvia Brumlow of the Houston Police Department's Environmental Enforcement Division answers more questions about the enforcement and potential consequences of improper washwater discharge and transport. ... (more info)




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http://www.youtube.com/user/goldstoneexterior

Houston, Texas-based Goldstone Exterior Services Inc., a leader in compliant, environmentally-superior power washing and exterior services for commercial real estate and industrial companies made its presentation to the Houston Chapter of the Association of Chief Operating Engineers in August, 2009. Joined by a representative of the Houston Police Department's Environmental Enforcement Division, and the City's Health Department, in Segment Seven, Sylvia Brumlow of the Houston Police Department's Environmental Enforcement Division answers more questions about the enforcement and potential consequences of improper washwater discharge and transport. ... (more info)




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I know you guys have an environmental setup, but these guys are freaking psychos. "We weigh the trash" and "you can go to jail for 5 lbs of trash".


Well, to each his own. I hope you guys make a lot of money off of it and I appreciate you not suggesting it should be spread elsewhere.

Thanks for the videos.
 
I'm just glad the Houston crime rate is down to zero so the police can focus on serious stuff like people washing their homes and cars.
 
We only do it because it is the law. But there are some in our area that do not do as the law requires and it takes from my business. I am sure you can understand my point of view as well.
 
We only do it because it is the law. But there are some in our area that do not do as the law requires and it takes from my business. I am sure you can understand my point of view as well.

I do. You have to live with what you've got. I have a feeling you guys would be successful even if you were cleaning here with virtually no regulations. My comments were meant towards the gestapo you have there.
 
We recover here even though 95% do not. That makes us charge more and thus be less competitive. We can deal with that. Chemicals and detergents down the storms should not happen. Hot water on a sidewalk cleaning stuff off that would come off with a good rain should not be part of it. Ever see a sprinkler system running water over the curb or down a driveway to a storm drain. This after it's been sprayed with gallons of herbicides and pesticides.

My big problem is taking police resources to enforce it. I also found the guy in the audience interesting that said he wants to be a "watcher". Creating an army of snitches for the government. You can all say it's for the environment but it's really all about money. Money for specialized equipment that drives smaller companies out of business and money from fines to justify the existence of another group of government employees.
 
I always find it amazing how we like the law when it works in our advantage but have no problem having a beer and driving home.
 
We recover here even though 95% do not. That makes us charge more and thus be less competitive. We can deal with that. Chemicals and detergents down the storms should not happen. Hot water on a sidewalk cleaning stuff off that would come off with a good rain should not be part of it. Ever see a sprinkler system running water over the curb or down a driveway to a storm drain. This after it's been sprayed with gallons of herbicides and pesticides.

My big problem is taking police resources to enforce it. I also found the guy in the audience interesting that said he wants to be a "watcher". Creating an army of snitches for the government. You can all say it's for the environment but it's really all about money. Money for specialized equipment that drives smaller companies out of business and money from fines to justify the existence of another group of government employees.

+10 Great post!






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Superior Power Washing
Chris Chappell
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why do fireman get to wash junk from wrecks down the drain. I drove by a wreck today and they were washing gas from a burst gas tank down the drain, I should have got a picture.

The city of houston violates the law everyday.
 
We only do it because it is the law. But there are some in our area that do not do as the law requires and it takes from my business. I am sure you can understand my point of view as well.



I wish I could have been at this meeting. I'd like to have heard Sylvia Brumlow's response to my police analogy. We are called in to REMOVE the pollution. The pollution is there before we arrive on the crime scene. It's our task to remove it. We have the responsibility to do it in a proper manner....within the law. This is no different then a policeman responding to a crime scene and facing ridiculous regulations that ties his hands and allows the criminal to go free.

The crap we are cleaning up WILL end up in the storm drains...all by itself. We didn't make the pollution. If these public officials really want to protect the waters of the US (and I'm really not convinced this is the motivation of the Houston PD), then they would REQUIRE the businesses and property owners to have at least a quarterly cleaning. With the revenue source (the owners of the property) back in the equation, capitalism would be allowed to function to solve the environmental concerns. It would be profitable to have the equipment and spend the time following the CWA. As exampled by this asinine presentation by Mrs Brumlow, the message to the polluters is to keep polluting, and as soon as you try and clean it up.....we are going to crawl up your butt with a regulation microscope.

We are the solution to the problem.....not the cause. How this simple fact of reality escapes so many is beyond me.

BTW......Houston is 4 hours and 28 minutes from Ft Worth. If the 15 year old "model" can't save Houston......it's time the Org's come up with another link to a better plan.
 
Had an account for a local Chick Fil A to clean weekly the parking lots and Drive Thru. After servicing for about a month I was called one morning by the operator of the Chick Fil A and was told he received a call from a Sergeant Mike Walsh from the "Major Crimes Division" and was investigating a complaint of waster water being discharged into the storm water drain by a pressure washing company. Walsh set up an appointment to meet with the manager that afternoon at 1pm, (this was April of this year), and told the operator to not contact me. I showed up at 1pm for the as I wanted to find out was going on.

After meeting with the operator for about a ½ hour in the back room, the Detective came out to the seating area and we sat down to discuss the situation. He pulled out some pictures of cleaning the parking lot and explained that a complaint had been filed by a competitor of mine and identified the person as Doug Baxley, from Goldstone Exterior. The Detective told me that this guy doesn’t actually do pressure washing but sells equipment. I later found out this not to be true, and that Goldstone does do power washing.

After discussing, and the detective explaining to me that the law in the City of Houston is that “nothing can go down the drain except for rain”, and explaining to me that the storm sewers that I discharged my waste water into feeds directly into Lake Houston and that that is where all of Houston get’s it’s drinking water. and me admitting that it was me in the pictures, the detective asked me to come down to his office the following Monday to receive two citations for “MS4 A discharge not entirely composed of storm water.”

The following Monday my wife and I went to the Detective’s office to receive the citations. Both tickets carried a fine of $425.00 each. While receiving the tickets, Sergeant Walsh showed me two emails that came across his computer while we were sitting there. They were from the same Doug Baxley of Goldstone Exteriors and the emails contained pictures of two different Taco Bell/KFC restaurants and power washers allowing waste water being discharged to the storm drains over the weekend. Apparently this Detective get’s about 1 to 2 of these emails per day from this guy. Later as we were preparing to leave, the detective received a phone call on his cell phone from Doug Baxley reporting a power washing company in progress of cleaning a parking lot and allowing storm water to go down the drain. Detective Walsh left immediately to go “apprehend” the alleged suspects.

I was not aware of the strict laws or “best management guidelines” that City had enacted and that is my fault. But, had this Baxley guy come up to me while I was working and explained that I was in violation of the law, I would have shut it down right then and there and found out what I needed to do to be complaint. Instead he chose to secretly sit in his car and take pictures of me on TWO different weekends and then turn me in.

The City of Houston’s law is basically this. You can not allow any waster water to go down a storm drain. It must be collected and disposed at an “approved” waste site (whether you use chemicals or plain water) of which there are only about 3 “approved sites” in the city, all of which are about an hour from me. But, before you can do this, you must take your equipment to the City of Houston Health Department, demonstrate to them that the equipment works properly, pay a $590.00 fee and have a permit issued to haul waste water within the City of Houston. You then must fill out a manifest for every job, detailing how many gallons of waste water was collected form the site, have the owner of the business sign it, as well as the “approved dump site” and then file that manifest with the City of Houston Public Health Department every month along with a $2.50 filing fee.

“Nothing down the Drain, but Rain” means “Nothing down the Drain, but Rain” so the use of filter socks, filtration pads, etc are not compliant. 100% of ALL waste water must be contained.

Funny thing is, the only chemical I used on the parking Lot is the EATOILS BT200, which is Certified GREEN. We sell this same BT200 to many municipalities. They use it to keep there storm AND sanitary sewers clean. It is also used to clean lakes and reservoirs. It was even used in some areas of the Gulf Oil Spill and more extensively used for the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Of course, this fell on deaf ears with the City.

Due to these strict law’s, and knowing that there is someone, a competitor running around snapping pictures and turning people in, I just decided to get out of the commercial business and now concentrate only on job’s that do not require recovery/reclaim.

By the way, I went to court, and Sargeant Walsh dropped one charge and lowered the fine to $200.00 on the other.
 
Is this a new aggressive enforcement happening or has it been going on for a while?

Apparently it has been going on for about 2 years. Hear is the first question and answer from a FAQ's hand out given by the "Major Offender's Division of the Environmental Investigations Unit"

Q -"We have been pressure washing for several years with no problems, why is ste state just now showin interst?"

A - "The water problems as they relate to power washing have just come to the attention of the Environemntal Investigations Unit. This is why an education effort is under way in liea of immediately doing enforcement"

Apparently they have decided to enforce in lieu of education.
 
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