Judge & pals use Anzon dirt & antimony slag for pro bono roadwork at Colonia Los Arcos

By María Eugenia Guerra

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, or so goes the adage, and in Colonia Los Arcos on Hwy. 59 el Camino Bolivar is covered with dirt and slag from the old Anzon antimony smelter on IH-35.

“If we can't help them, let's not hurt them,” said Webb County Pct. 2 Commissioner Judith Gutierrez of the residents of Los Arcos after the discovery that Webb County Judge Louis H. Bruni, at his own expense and through his company, Bruni Energy, and private contractor Jerry Resendez of Resendez Enterprises had dumped more than 200 yards of antimony-laced soil on Camino Bolivar.

Camino Bolivar is a private road in this community of about 400 families and 3,200 residents 16 miles east of Laredo .

The soil, which came from the area around the now defunct Anzon antimony plant, was hauled to Los Arcos by Resendez, who also operated some of the equipment on the roads. The pro bono road work began shortly after colonia residents held a press conference March 4 to protest the condition of their roads. They also protested the actions of Judge Bruni and Commissioners Cynthia Cortez Bruner and Frank Sciaraffa, who voted down a motion by Commissioner Gutierrez to declare a disaster in Los Arcos and other colonias whose roads had become impassable due to heavy rains. Such a declaration, Gutierrez said, would have allowed county equipment to work on the private roadways of those colonias.

A sample of the soil recently dumped on Camino Bolivar was collected by then Road and Bridge Superintendent José Luis Rodriguez and delivered to Trinity Testing, Inc., for analysis in San Antonio . Results were forwarded to county engineer Tomás Rodriguez on April 15 with a cover letter that noted that analysis of the sample employed the Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastes and the EPA Test Methods for the Examination of Solid Waste. The results found 2,407 mg. of antimony per kilogram of soil.

Interestingly, engineer Rodriguez noted, the day after he received the soil analysis he was visited by Carlos Hornedo and Jaime Calanta of AI Divestiture, Inc. (Anzon Industries). “They wanted to know where the soil had ended up, and they wanted to be sure we knew it hadn't come from them,” Rodriguez said, adding that he had rejected the use of that purportedly remediated soil from the Anzon property when it had been offered to him three years earlier.

First known as Lead Industries, British-owned Texas Mining and Smelting Company during World War II became an American firm, National Lead, which operated the smelter until it ceased production in 1976. In 1977 the original British owner, by then called the Cookson Group, re-acquired the Laredo operation, naming it Anzon American and later Anzon, Incorporated.

Hornedo, in a subsequent telephone interview with LareDOS, said that Resendez “had been contracted by AI for some time to transport some materials.” He added that “the material is safe and is no longer considered a contaminated material by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).” Hornedo said that after remediation measures approved by the TCEQ and the EPA, the once contaminated material is now called a “product.”

Hipolito Carbrera of the Laredo office of the TCEQ concurred and said that the antimony waste had been reclassified.

Antimony is a brittle metal that is not readily fabricated and has no significant use in its unalloyed state. It is alloyed with lead and other metals to increase their hardness, mechanical strength, corrosion resistance, and electrochemical stability. In its compounds, antimony is most commonly used for fire retardation.

In 1988 the EPA designated antimony and its compounds as priority pollutants, ordering that persons who generate, transport, treat, store, or dispose of antimony-containing material must comply with regulations of the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).

Gutierrez said, "That if it was dangerous in 1998, what changed?" She said she is concerned about liability to Webb County if the road material is contaminated and a danger to public health. “I talked to Smitty Smith, the manager of Trinity Consulting Company, and when he heard this was on a roadway and was being blown around by the wind and by traffic as children walked through it, he said, ‘This is bad stuff. Someone has to clean it up. It just can't stay there like that,'” Gutierrez said, adding that she wanted the TCEQ to sign off on the safety of the material. “I want them to tell me with certainty it can't pollute groundwater or contaminate the half-million dollar public well and water system at Los Arcos which has an open pond for aeration,” Gutierrez said.

“This whole scenario is kind of creepy,” Gutierrez said. “The day after we get the results back from Trinity, two guys from Anzon show up at the County Engineer's office. I hang up the phone with Trinity and a few minutes later a man from Anzon named Sullivan calls me. If there's nothing wrong with this road fill, what's all the excitement about?”

Large sandy chunks of the material that line the Camino Bolivar roadway are characterized by a heavy tan colored soil riddled with white flecks and easily identifiable pieces of black antimony slag.

That which has been mashed into the roadbed and dried is immediately airborne with the passage of vehicles and school buses, something about which the residents of Los Arcos have expressed concern to Gutierrez.

They began expressing their concerns long before the origin or contents of the road material was known, concerns about the quality of the work being done, the choice of an unrecognizable material that wasn't caliche.

The whole story, of course, is bigger than this narrative. The March 14 Commissioners Court meeting puts things into sharper focus.

No doubt Judge Bruni expected thanks and support for the spreading of “400 yards” of road material “on five miles of road” in the colonias as he waxed magnanimous over his own corporate largesse and that of Resendez and “a corporation who wishes to remain anonymous.”

Yet despite all that feel-good rhetoric you could still smell blood in the air as the Judge delivered the first lash at Road and Bridge Superintendent José Luis Rodriguez, telling him that he and Resendez were out “to show Road and Bridge how to build a road.”

Edith Hinojosa, an articulate resident of Los Arcos, addressed the court. “We are here to solicit your vote so that the roads of our colonia can be fixed. At an earlier meeting we were met with votes against us from Commissioner Sciarrafa, Commissioner Brunner, and Judge Bruni. I think how easy it is to vote against fixing our roads from your seats,” Hinojosa continued. “It's true there are companies working on our roads. I'd like to thank you for the work on the road, but what you have done is darle un polvazo a las calles. This is not caliche. It won't pass the state test for caliche. I am surprised to hear from you about how good those companies are. We ask you to support Road and Bridge so they can do the work with professional standards,” she said.

“The work you are doing will end up hurting us,” Hinojosa told the Judge of his free labors. “They mixed this material with the mud that was there. When it rains, cars will sink. It is time to stop treating us like political objects. We want to be treated with dignity and respect. We want you to know we have needs for the handicapped who need access to health services, we have needs for ambulances to be able to drive on our roads. We have children who have to go to school. Señores comisionados,” Hinojosa said, “Put your hands on your heart.”

Bruni took umbrage with Hinojosa's comments, calling her back to the podium. “Those companies have built highways. It's not possible that you would know in just a couple of days how the work will end up,” he said. “We are working on the sub-grade. They will be bringing crushed asphalt.”

“I want to ask the Secretary of State, apoyador de las colonias, to come see how you've fixed our roads, to see how you have treated us,” Hinojosa said.

“I ask you for the chance, free of charge, to finish the project. If you don't like our work, we'll give it to José Luis,” the Judge said with another measure of disdain lobbed at the Road and Bridge Superintendent. The Judge digressed on his own generosity and said he was following his mother's legacy of kindness, referring to the water line from which colonia residents drew water and for which she paid, making good he said on a bad decision his brother-in-law made.

As to the conditions of the roads in the colonias, Bruni pointed at the R&B super and said, “If you want to fault anyone, fault that guy right there.” He added, “Maybe my companies ought to take over his department.” Later he told Rodriguez, “Don't even bother to debate me. I've seen the quality of your work.”

Returning from a recess, the Judge alluded to his courtroom outbursts as “a little meltdown.”

At a subsequent meeting on a motion made by Judge Bruni R&B Superintendent Rodriguez was terminated.