Brazoria puts closed landfill up for sale

The Facts
By ANDREW TINEO andrew.tineo@thefacts.com
Oct 13, 2022

BRAZORIA — A landfill that has been untouched for more than 20 years is finally on the auction block for sale.

The city council approved the sale of a closed landfill at the end of Lonesome Dove on the west side of the city, Thursday during its monthly meeting.

“The landfill was last used in the 1970s and possibly into the 1980s,” Mayor Philip Ray said. “It was more of a burn pile they used to burn years ago and the city abandoned it and closed it somewhere in the late 1980s.”

The Texas Nature Resource Conservation Commission — now the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality — sent letters to all cities that had old landfills in the 1980s and the city was supposed to say it was closed, sign it and send it back to the commission. The city of Brazoria did not.

The landfill was considered as a place to build the Brazoria Little League baseball and softball fields during the 1990s, but the city did not send the proper papers in.

“In the early 1990s, we officially closed the landfills and went through the closure process, bringing in clay and everything to cap it,” Ray said. “Now we’re going to sell it and it has been leased as a cow pasture for the last 20 to 30 years.”

Ray reminisces about his childhood and how often he goes to the land.

“As a little kid, we used to take the trash out there. They had a burning pipe there and you stacked it on it. They like to pop off about lunch and burn it all up before night,” he said. “We spent quite a bit of money to officially close it when they would have had the letter in the 1980s, but we can’t rehash history, we just had to move forward.”

The city asked to get an appraisal and will be open for bids near the beginning of 2023.

In other matters, council discussed a request for a proposal for garbage service.

Before Ray joined the council, the city extended the previous contract with Waste Connections. They serve a weekly garbage pickup, alongside a weekly recycling process.

“It is up in January and we’re debating on what to do and we had some customers and citizens that spoke for the company,” Ray said.

They will gather more information and approach bids for the proposal for the garbage service again in November.