Texas AG sues owner of South Side dump site with 1 million tires

A video posted to YouTube on August 8, 2016 by Marcus Wennrich shows a rare aerial look at a massive tire dump site on San Antonio's South Side. Watch the full video here. A video posted to YouTube on August 8, 2016 by Marcus Wennrich shows a rare aerial look at a massive tire dump site on San Antonio's South Side. Watch the full video here. Photo: YouTube/Marcus Wennrich Photo: YouTube/Marcus Wennrich Image 1 of / 14 Caption Close Texas AG sues owner of South Side dump site with 1 million tires 1 / 14 Back to Gallery

The state Attorney General’s Office sued a mysterious company last week over a South Side tire dump that investigators call a fire hazard and mosquito breeding ground.

The AG’s petition against Eclipse Renewables LLC over the site at 11150 Applewhite Rd. is the third such lawsuit since 2002, when it first sued the previous owner, Safe Tire Disposal Corp. of Texas, which effectively abandoned the dump in 2005. It sued Safe Tire again in 2008.

State environmental investigators say at least 1 million tires remain, according to the filing. Eclipse Renewables purchased the 36-acre property in 2009.

Little information is available about Eclipse. The company’s only listed officer is no longer involved, according to Eclipse’s attorney Brian Bro of Houston. Bro declined to comment on Monday.

During yearly inspections of the property, mostly recently in April, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality investigators found “overgrown vegetation, ponding water and swarms of mosquitos present at the facility.”

Citing fire hazards and storage of tires without a permit, the AG’s office asked that Eclipse be required to stop transporting any tires except those it removes from the site, cut the grass, remove the brush near the tires and do something to control the mosquitoes. It asked that all tires be removed within 180 days except for 500 on the ground or 2,000 in locked containers.

State law would allow a judge to issue a penalty of least $129,850, though the maximum would be nearly $65 million, according to the filing.

State Rep. John Lujan, R-118, who urged the state to clean up the site last month, praised the AG’s office in a prepared statement.

“I am glad to see the state is holding the current owners of Applewhite Safe Tire accountable for their negligence,” he said. “I hope the owners will take responsibility for this mess and begin the process of cleaning up the site."