Don't kick up any dust on the Chacon Park Trails

By María Eugenia Guerra

Feeling a little short of breath on your morning run down the Chacon Park Hike and Bike Trails? The City of Laredo 's disclaimer “Use at your own risk” takes on new meaning when you understand that the trails are surfaced with material from the old Anzon Antimony Smelter.

Perhaps it would be behoove the City to provide for those who enjoy the creekside greenspace paper masks and Material Safety Data Sheets for the ingredients in Anzon's “product” mix – Antimony slag, Dolomite lime (10% of the mix), and ferrous sulfate heptahydrate (8% of the mix).

Though Anzon says that the mix is 78% soil and that the Antimony content is a miniscule .03% to .05%, I would take issue with the Antimony content because much of the surface of the trails of the Chacon Creek park are littered with the shiny black slag that was too heavy to move in runoff into the creek and into the river with the soil, Antimony residues in the soil, Dolomite Lime, and ferrous sulfate heptahydrate.

There are parts of the trail that have fallen off, sheared off, at which you can see the slag riddled cap of Anzon “product.”

The City of Laredo did not conduct any independent tests on the Anzon soil and relied on tests by Trinity Testing Laboratories, Inc.

To date the City has also used the Anzon material on the airport paving project, the Río Grande Plaza Parking Lot Paving Repair, McPherson Paving Project, Soliz Property Low Water Crossing II, Unitech Industrial Park Paving Repairs, Killam Industrial Park Paving Repairs, Airport Airplane Viewing Area Paving Project, Bartlett/Bustamante Paving, 820 Union Pacific Street Repair, 4600 Springfield Widening, 2100 Bustamante Paving Project (Mercy Hospital), San Mateo/San Gabriel Street Repair, Edgewood/Winrock Intersection Improvement, Marcella/Taylor Bus Bay Street Repair, and El Portal Project.

LareDOS is awaiting a response in full from the City of Laredo to an open records request made August 1, 2005.