Raw sewage spills in Houston draw federal scrutiny

Most found to occur in area’s poorer locations.

Federal regulators have raised concerns about water quality because of raw sewage spills after storms in Houston, as repair estimates reach several billion dollars.

The city’s roughly 840 annual overflows have drawn scrutiny from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Houston Chronicle reported.

The Chronicle reviewed city data since 2009 in 46 ZIP codes with above-average rates of sewer overflows.

The analysis shows that two-thirds have higher poverty rates and larger concentrations of Hispanic or blacks than the city as a whole.

Houston — the nation’s fourth-largest city, with nearly 2.3 million people — is negotiating a consent decree with the EPA.

The agreement would specify projects aimed at reducing spills by upgrading pipes, increasing maintenance and educating the public on not clogging Houston’s 6,700 miles of sewers.

The cost could top $5 billion, the newspaper reported.

City officials declined to comment, citing the EPA negotiations.

Public Works and Engineering officials have previously said that many of the city’s sewer pipes were upgraded under previous state or federal decrees and that their primary focus now is on better maintaining and cleaning the pipes to prevent blockages.

Robert Bullard, dean of the school of public affairs at Texas Southern University, recently looked at a map of Houston’s sewage spills and shook his head, ticking off the struggling areas he has studied as a voice for environmental justice.

“The same neighborhoods we’re talking about are the neighborhoods where, historically, the services have bypassed them. This is not a new phenomenon. But what makes it a real story is we’re talking about 2016,” Bullard said.

“It reinforces this whole concept of environmental injustice and the impact of unequal distribution of resources, and the allocation of dollars based on race and class. You can predict where the worst problems are.”

Mayor Sylvester Turner has acknowledged the ongoing EPA talks, but it’s unclear whether the negotiations have explicitly addressed overflows in Houston’s poor and minority neighborhoods, the newspaper reported.

Two men have been arrested in connection to the stabbing that occurred early Saturday morning in North Austin — including the man who was stabbed.

Christopher Oneal Houston, 23, and Brandon Strawn, 25, were charged Sunday with aggravated robbery and aggravated kidnapping. According to an arrest affidavit, the victim in those incidents, Raymond Rico, stabbed Strawn on Saturday at the Mandalay Apartments on Tech Ridge Boulevard.

Rico, 20, told police he did so to escape captivity after the two men took him at gunpoint, drove him around town and robbed him.

According to Rico’s statement to police, the three men had met up earlier in the day to do drugs. Houston and Strawn confronted Rico about a previous robbery, then stole his money, keys and phone at gunpoint, beat him repeatedly and held him at a motel along the interstate, according to police.

The men eventually returned to the Mandalay Apartments, where Rico said he grabbed a knife, stabbed Strawn and escaped.

Shortly after 6 a.m. Saturday, police responded to a report of a man bleeding from the neck at a Shell station on Braker Lane and Interstate 35. Strawn was taken to University Medical Center Brackenridge with injuries that are not life threatening.

Houston was taken into custody at the gas station and confirmed Rico’s account of events, police said. Both Houston and Strawn are being held at the Travis County jail on $150,000 bail.

Portions of U.S. 183 in North Austin were closed Sunday morning as police responded to two unrelated incidents — one involving a man on top of a Shell station and another involving a man on top of the highway overpass, both refusing to come down.

The first incident occurred around 6 a.m. Police said an intoxicated homeless man climbed to the roof of a Shell station east of I-35 at U.S. 183. He started throwing rocks and refused to respond to officers. About two hours later, he climbed down and was taken into custody.

A block away, at 6:48 a.m., police received calls about a distraught man on the upper deck of U.S. 183 eastbound at I-35. Officers attempted to talk the man down from the 20-foot-high overpass, and both the upper and lower decks of U.S. 183 were closed for more than an hour.

The man was safely taken into custody around 8:15 a.m., police said.