Texas Commission on Environmental Quality fines
Bonugli dump operators, Roy & Ramon Soliz,
Brothers Paving for operation of unauthorized landfill on river vega

By María Eugenia Guerra

A person may not cause, suffer, allow, or permit the collection, storage, transportation, processing, or disposal of municipal solid waste in such a manner so as to cause discharge or imminent threat of discharge of municipal solid waste into or adjacent to the waters of the State, the creation and maintenance of a nuisance, or the endangerment of human health and welfare or the environment.
Texas Administrative Code Section 330.4 (a) & (b), 330.5 (a) & (c)

The ever-growing and ongoing environmental hazard of the Bonugli Dump on the vega just above the Río Grande, where Meadow Street connects to Hwy. 83, has finally met with legal action that calls for penalties and corrective measures for the operation of an unauthorized landfill, a violation of state environmental law.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (formerly the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission) has named Reola M. Bonugli, Brothers Paving, Inc., Roy Soliz Backhoe Service, Inc., and Ramon Soliz dba R&R Materials in an enforcement order handed down August 16, 2002.
Bonugli, Brothers Paving, Inc, and Roy and Ramon Soliz are cited with violating the State's Water Code, the Health and Safety Code, and the Administrative Code. Administrative penalties of $12,500 each have been assessed against Bonugli, Brothers Paving, Roy Soliz Backhoe Service, and Ramon Soliz dba R&R Materials.
The Soliz brothers, who recently received the Entrepreneurial Success Award from the Small Business Administration, have operated a sand and gravel company at the Meadow Street property that fronts the illegal landfill site and the river vega at Segment 2304 of the Río Grande Basin. Mrs. Bonugli took title of the property upon the death of her husband, Cabure A. Bonugli, who, according to investigation information provided by Ramon Soliz, operated a landfill and sand and gravel excavation pit at that location.
Cabure Bonugli was cited by the City of Laredo on April 11, 1994 for allowing illegal disposal on his property. Eduardo Navarro, an employee of R&R Materials, was cited on April 12, 1999 for the same practice.
The TCEQ acted in February 2001 on a complaint filed by Laredo Police Department environmental officer Enrique Mendoza who had concerns for the illegal disposal of solid waste in close proximity to the Río Grande.
Facing the prospect of further administrative penalties of $10,000 a day if the violations continued, the illegal landfill operators ceased using the site just after the TCEQ's initial visit on February 22, 2001. According to Gerardo Pinzon, director of the TCEQ's Laredo office, the operators were ordered at that time to take all surface debris and construction rubble to a registered landfill and to cease dumping it over the edges of the dump site as had been the practice for decades. "We were looking at a pile 75 feet high on five acres with waste protruding from the walls of the heap," Pinzon said.
"It was the operator's practice to just add to the outer perimeter of the dump by moving it from where it had been dumped and out over the sides," Pinzon said. "We took pictures at our initial site inspection that documented that the material included tires, furniture, concrete with rebar, PVC, pieces of steel machinery, brush, aluminum siding, asphalt, clothing, and construction tear-down. It has been a pretty brazen operation of an illegal landfill, and what we saw that day was red-handed, illegal dumping," he added. According to information Ramon Soliz gave Pinzon on the day of the February 2001 site inspection, neither he nor his brother have a written lease or rental document with Mrs. Bonugli. He also stated at that time that the general public and other businesses had access to the Bonugli property and that they entered after hours to dump. He said he had no means to keep them out, but proposed to Pinzon that he would install a gate. According to the inspection document, Mrs. Bonugli said she had no way of controlling the illegal dumping of waste.
The TCEQ enforcement order includes straightforward language that calls for the removal of all waste and its disposal at a facility registered with the TCEQ and documentation from the respondents for manifests that show proper disposal of the contents of the illegal landfill on the river vega, something that could cost Bonugli and the Soliz brothers between half a million and a million dollars in remediation.

Laredo attorney Frank Saldaña, speaking on behalf of his clients, Rogelio and Ramon Soliz said, "There's no question that one of the Brothers entities at the request of Mr. Bonugli did dump some con crete at the site, which is not illegal. They had nothing to do with the dumping of other materials. Mr. Bonugli insisted that they not lock their premises because he wanted the people he was charging to dump to have round-the-clock access."
According to Saldaña, the Soliz brothers will not pay the TCEQ fine. "If it reflected a fair share of the total fine, they would have paid, but proportionately, the Bonuglis were responsible for 90 percent of what has been dumped, and in terms of the bad stuff that was dumped, they were responsible for 100 percent," he commented.
"When it was clear that the payment of the fines would not resolve the issue of the cleanup or terminate the proceedings, our clients opted not to pay, especially if the payment of the fines could be construed as some kind of admission of guilt that would force them to undertake the cost of the cleanup," Saldaña said.
"The TCEQ needs to realize that it was the Bonuglis who were operating it as a public dump," Saldaña said.
"We are in the process of resolving the order with all parties concerned," Pinzon said. "They are going to have to take responsbility for the operation of an illegal dump and for the clean-up. All parties have been offered the opportunity to pay fines and to settle in a manner that would behoove all concerned. Mrs. Bonugli submitted documents to substantiate that it would be a hardship for her to pay the fine, but her statement of income negated that claim," Pinzon continued.
"The TCEQ and Mr. Pinzon and his staff are to be commended for their investigation and the levying of fines, which sends a clear message that there is consequence for conducting business at the expense of the environment and the water supply of millions of Texans and Mexicans," said environmental activist Dr. Jim Earhart of the Río Grande International Study Center. "What is of great importance at this point is that the site be tested by the TCEQ into the depth of the dump to determine what is leaching out into the vega, which drains into the river. The quality of the water of that little pond on the vega at the base of the dump next to all the illegal concrete dumping could be a real indicator of what is inside the mound of garbage," Earhart said.
"This is an international matter over which the International Boundary & Water Commission also has jurisdiction," Pinzon said. "The IBWC sees such violations as a criminal act on international waters. It is up to the State of Texas to enforce its laws on the watershed and to safeguard a river that is shared by two countries."
According to Pinzon, the Soliz brothers were cited for two other non-compliance matters by the TCEQ, once for the failure to operate a rock crushing operation without a permit and on another occasion for operating an asphalt plant without a permit. They were fined $10,000 for the latter.
The TCEQ, Pinzon said, is now formulating compliance histories of industrial operators in Texas. Operators with high violation histories will run into the denial of permits and unannounced inspections of their facilities. "It's a list you don't want to appear on," Pinzon said, adding, "An individual or a company can look at a business' environmental report card and decide if or not they wish to do business with that company."
The TCEQ investigation of the Bonugli Dump has been conducted over the last year and a half. Among the Laredo TCEQ staff members who were instrumental in the investigation and compilation of data, in addition to Pinzon, were Laura Valenciano, Hipolito Cabrera, and Bobby Caldwell.
The dump has been photographed by LareDOS over the last several years, up close and from the air, and those photographs have appeared in the journal over time in an effort to chronicle unfettered environmental degradation in the city and to perhaps prompt the action of state and federal agencies charged with environmental vigilance.
Since the dumping ceased at the time the investigation began in February 2001, new grass growth now crowns the soil-capped dump, barely masking the construction rubble and filth that lies beneath the surface and forms the girth of a mess 75 feet tall and a couple of football fields in width.
The Soliz Brothers have recently relocated their business a little further south onto Zacatecas Street.