Houston Police Department's Environmental Enforcement Di

I must say that fair is fair with this situation, if one person does what they are supposed to do and reclaim the water then his cost per job will be higher. He has 2 options either get less and less work because the guys not reclaiming will do it for cheaper or he can just follow protocol and turn in the allegid ones not reclaiming. Most areas that are enforcing it and even not enforcing it have call numbers to report discharge's. I hate to see it pan out this way but in the end I would be more upset with myself for not checking into whats needed to my business to operate in my city than someone turning me in for not doing whats supposed to be done to operate in that city.
 
welder said:
Ya wonder if Goldstone is paying this cop off. They seem to be in cahoots. Pretty crummy business practices if you ask me.
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Easy Doug is a Freind of mine, we have talked and he is as frustrated as the guys who have received fines.

I talked with Mike Walsh the Sergent in charge of enforcement with his boss conferenced in. The sistuation they even admitted needs refining.

In a nut shell again the City is relying on us to police ourselves. You know what this means, I spend money to comply and joe goes down to homedepot and buys a 299 special. This isnt going to work, if in fact it was fair accross the board people would be profiting. Instead Co like Goldstone are now invested with 1000's in machines and equipment to only compete with guys violating the laws.

How is this a good program, and for who is it good for?

Customers are confused!!!! I have called PM in houston and they simply do not want to clean. Its not even about the fines, its about the public perceptions. Somehow they are viewing not cleaning being more responsible. Did this do us any good? Frustrating is what it is, for both LOW ball Joe and goldstone.

Again the Hammer strikes again, instead of shutting down pressure washing like in past citys lets see if we can bring houston into the 21st.
 
Wow, this is really eye-opening to say the least.

I thought that Goldstone was swamped with work, I guess not if they have so much time to be driving around every weekend taking pictures of the competition and ratting on them. Could it be that they are just jealous that they did not get the account and want others to suffer or is it that they feel the need to spend their weekends patrolling the city taking pictures of other companies that are out there working? I just don't know.
 
Christopher said:
Wow, this is really eye-opening to say the least.

I thought that Goldstone was swamped with work, I guess not if they have so much time to be driving around every weekend taking pictures of the competition and ratting on them. Could it be that they are just jealous that they did not get the account and want others to suffer or is it that they feel the need to spend their weekends patrolling the city taking pictures of other companies that are out there working? I just don't know.
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Goldstone is Doing well, people do not realize sometimes the ramifications. Chris driving around taking photos is nothing I will ever advocate. Maybe Doug was frustrated at the time. It should not be our Job, each and everytime this has happened in 10 years a bad outcome. Plus even if you take the photo of the guy do you think the customer is going to hire you?

We need BMP in place, they need to be smart ones. Citys are not fully ready or equiped to enforce then they should not impliment laws that are not practical.

Houston just needs some refining. This is all we can ask, some do not realize that they are possibly in violation of there own CODES.

Plus as you pointed out they left the DOT problem out of the equation.
 
Chris Tharpe said:
I must say that fair is fair with this situation, if one person does what they are supposed to do and reclaim the water then his cost per job will be higher. He has 2 options either get less and less work because the guys not reclaiming will do it for cheaper or he can just follow protocol and turn in the allegid ones not reclaiming. Most areas that are enforcing it and even not enforcing it have call numbers to report discharge's. I hate to see it pan out this way but in the end I would be more upset with myself for not checking into whats needed to my business to operate in my city than someone turning me in for not doing whats supposed to be done to operate in that city.
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I agree with you Chris, BUT, all he had to be was a MAN and walk up to me and explain that I am in violation. Then If I continue to clean, or you catch me again, then turn me in. But to go around blindly trying to catch people and hurt them is not good business. (BY the way, if I wanted to, I could follow Goldstone and find violations on them, I learned of one yesterday that they committ EVERYDAY, and would cost them dearly if not shut em down,) If Goldstone was TRULY doing this to increase their business and protect the 1000's thay have invested in equipment, why do they not just wait and go in the next day and educate the owner of the business that he ALSO is in violation and could face criminal charges as well as fines. Hec, put the time and resources they are using to bust people towards educating the public and contractors. My view is just to always help people, not hurt them. If they don't want your help, then, yeah, I say turn them in.

For some reason, Houston has just decided that they are going to be relentless in pursuing PW's, with the help of Goldstone. I personally feel that it's because they have realized that it's a revenue stream and helping to keep some cop's employed. By their own admission this all came to light to them in the last two years, yet NO education was done that I was aware of. I have had an Occupational License witht he City of Houston for the last 7 years. They can easily pull all those licenses and send mailings to us to educate us.

BY the way, some cities that are around Houston, if you call them and tell them where you are cleaning, they will email you permission to allow your waste water down the drain.

AS I said before, after learning everyting about the Law's here in Houston, I decided to get out of the commercial parking lot cleaning business. I would have made that same decision if Doug Baxeley had come up to me and had a conversation with me and explained to me about the requirements and after I investigated what he said to be true.

I'm not mad at Baxeley, the City, or the Law's. I'm mad that education is very lacking, and the very people that are doing the enforcement are the ones that seem to be the least educated.
 
Chris, he is busy ...lets just say his operating costs are up and cant get what he should because there's no real help from inforcement. Hes frustrated hacks continue to operate at lower costs while he is trying to clean according to the laws.
 
I wonder if any of the orgs have read this and are planning any help for the Houston bro's?

Like Robert H. mentions, there are Logical, Rational and Responsible solutions for most of this stuff and I agree that there are a lot of Hacks, lowbidders and lowballers out there that will not change, don't care to change and even when the change is affordable, they just will not do it.

Those are the guys that need to get the citations and get out of the business, not the guys that feed their families, willing to do the right thing and have or will get the proper equipment to do the job the right way.

It is senseless to haul the wash water across town when you can deal with it properly on the spot. The city is not informed good enough to make the right decisions because there is a lot of technology and ways to do things that they probably do not know about. If they did then things might change.

I would not have a problem with proper enforcement if they would let you do the job in a logical manner (not hauling away the wash water, filling out forms, blah, blah, blah) and only harassing the hacks that are not even trying to do the right thing.

If I lived in Houston, I would try to have meetings with the right people and have some serious discussions about the situation and after having meetings with all the right people, have a large meeting with all of them together to nail down a logical, rational and reasonable solution that all must follow but nothing where you have to go out and spend 10k, 30k or 50k on a rig that is not needed.

Even though city officials are very busy, there are always channels to go through and there is also other forms of getting the message across.
 
Chris,Having cleaned in houston its not that simple. going to the health dept (Naomi) being sent out dated information and going to the public meeting where the district attorney sent their reps and having talked to code enforcement officers. No clear cut answers period.I cleaned grocery stores (heb) 2004-2007 It doesnt look like anything has changed.



Chris as far as any organization getting involved what would be the point unless they practice what they preach
 
Wow what a thread.
So when will you be in Houston Ron.

All of my invites over the years have vaporized appearantly.

I told you there was a market in this town for you get to involved in.
This thread proves it.

But, no one ever listens to little 'ol me.

Let me know when you are here and I'll have the towne car come and get you.
 
Ron Musgraves said:
Chris, he is busy ...lets just say his operating costs are up and cant get what he should because there's no real help from inforcement. Hes frustrated hacks continue to operate at lower costs while he is trying to clean according to the laws.
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Geeesh man, that's in our world every day! Doesn't mean that we call the cops on every hack hood cleaner there is. After we see a hack job, the time is spent on educating the customer, NOT sending pics to the ahj.

So goldstones methods of doing business now is to utilize the law enforcement agency to strong arm instead of educating the customer when he catches a improper cleaning.

If I were joe customer and heard of these methods, I would look for anyone BUT goldstone. The impression is allready there that if you don't do what he says he will call the cops. Very self defeating in the long run.
 
There are many ways to do business, if you lose bids because your overhead is too high, don't get your panties in a wad and stalk that company that won and call the police on them if they are not 100% in compliance, maybe you need to streamline your business so you get more jobs and stop having hissyfits because you lost some.

I am sure that Goldstone would not like someone stalking them and ratting them out to the cops if they let some water go down the drain (unless the cops and them are in bed then it will not matter). I am sure that there are guys out there that would like to follow them around and return the favor, don't dish out what you can't eat.

Like they say, all is fair in love and war. Do what you have to to clear your mind, relax your emotions and make yourself feel better.

I am sure that PM's (property managers) in Houston, Texas would like to know that Goldstone ratted them out if they had received fines for contractors not being 100% compliant on some jobs. I am sure that some of the Houston, Texas Property Managers would frown on this sort of activity (stalking the competition, calling the police on them and making sure that someone gets a fine if they don't get the job).

I wonder if some of the Houston contractors could call the police on Goldstone for stalking/harassing them when they are working, it is against the law to be a stalker. Maybe some of the Houston companies can get a peace bond or restraining order on Goldstone to keep them away when they are trying to work so they are not being harassed.

This is such a shame.
 
Maybe if some of the orgs started talks, something can get done to change things?
 
I think that if some of the guys like Ron, Robert H. and other industry leaders set up a meeting, maybe they would listen to some reason?

Maybe then things could start rolling to a fair solution?
 
Dollarspa said:
Chris,Having cleaned in houston its not that simple. going to the health dept (Naomi) being sent out dated information and going to the public meeting where the district attorney sent their reps and having talked to code enforcement officers. No clear cut answers period.I cleaned grocery stores (heb) 2004-2007 It doesnt look like anything has changed.



Chris as far as any organization getting involved what would be the point unless they practice what they preach
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Yet the city of Houston has raised the rate of their dumpsite permits almost $200.00 in 2 yrs.

It really seems like Houston doesn't know what one hand is doing vs. the other without the help of informants.

I see the public works vehicles all the time on Resi's and they just wave as they go by.


One thing that has not been brought up in the thread......
Does anyone know if the Chic-fil-et have containment traps under the property before it routes to the local systems?

This issue has been mentioned before and makes the entire thread moot if that is the case. Or some of it anyway.

It could very well be a simple oversight, that no one thought to ask about before the accusations and fines started flying.

I mean if they have containment onsite, then Doug was fined wrongfully (and everything that lead up to this).


I know that a couple of fried chicken huts and an oil changing facility has there own containment here in town. So no problems there.


It is still beyond me why the city doesn't "upgrade" their systems to meet with their own compliancy specs.


.... hope this all turns out well in the end.
 
Dollarspa said:
Chris,Having cleaned in houston its not that simple. going to the health dept (Naomi) being sent out dated information and going to the public meeting where the district attorney sent their reps and having talked to code enforcement officers. No clear cut answers period.I cleaned grocery stores (heb) 2004-2007 It doesnt look like anything has changed.



Chris as far as any organization getting involved what would be the point unless they practice what they preach
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I hear what you are saying David, it is such a shame that city is in that kind of situation.

Maybe there is a solution out there? Maybe get some of the TV stations involved to hear our side of the story, some simple solutions and maybe that tv press would get them to start to listen?

What do you think?
 
That is a very good point Adrian.

Lots of places have the dry wells and other kinds of containment in place and most of us contractors know this. Maybe it was known to everyone but the guy cleaning and maybe Goldstone knew of this also but still called the police. Maybe the police did not know so they got involved and citations were issued.

It does seem like one hand does not know what the other is doing as for the city.

As far as Goldstone, this topic of dry wells, containment and other methods have been here on this bbs and others for a number of years and most here that visit the boards probably know about it or can read the older threads. It would be interesting to see if they knew but still called the police. That would really change things.

Some of the newer members probably do not know about the dry wells and containment but they can search here for the threads and learn about them and probably find out in their areas who have them or other forms of containment for their own knowledge.
 
See, that is my point.
I have an acct. (parking lot) that has regular good old fashioned storm drains on their property that lead into one main drain tube which leads to an open pond onsite for the runoff. They simply have it pumped out on regular basis. It flows no where near the city's system. I don't even have to pay to have my wastewater removed. They do it for me.
 
I have been having many conversations the last two days with Ron. I have just learned about these containment sights underground in my conversations through these conversations with Ron. (Am also learning how uneducated I am) I am not sure about the Chick Fil A and if it has these types of containment. The restaraunt sits on a pad on a parking lot of a huge Kroger, (and next door is an oil change business that Ron says is compliant for containment,) so my guess is that it does. However the detective told me the storm drains of the Chick Fil A, as well as all other Storm Drains in the City lead to either Lake Houston, Galveston Bay, or the various bayous that lead to these waters.
 
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