Anyone have any experience dealing with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality?
Received word that they are wanting the County to pay to remediate a site that has some contamination on it that the County took for back taxes several years ago without knowledge of the problem. County did not contribute to the problem and was unaware it existed. I typically advise against taking a property we know has problems but this one slipped through. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Mike Hartman
scurryca@snydertex.com

We had a lawsuit here a couple of years ago involving the city, county, and school district over a piece of property taken back for taxes that had some underground gasoline storage tanks on it.

Briefly, it is my understanding that (1) a governmental entity does not have a duty to remediate such a site; (2) if the governmental entity starts remediation, it has to do everything necessary to complete the job; and (3) this is an area in which extreme caution is needed.

I was not a lawyer in the case; I was on the school board at the time. The city was trying to get us to commit to one-third of the cost of remediation, which could have been a boatload of money. If you want, I might be able to dig out my copy of the letter to the TCEQ that helped to end the case. My email is jtirey@halecounty.org.