The City of Dallas could wind up owning the lot where a giant pile of used shingles once stood.
Crews finished hauling away the shingles in February and removed the last loads of contaminated soil at the end of April.
"We started shingle removal on Thursday, December 17th, 2020 and actually we finished up shingle removal and a mixture of shingle and soil removal on Friday, April 30th," said Michael Gange, Director, Environmental Quality & Sustainability for the City of Dallas. "Tonnage removed to date is 152,774 tons of shingle material and a mixture of shingle and soil. There's still some concrete debris."
Crews are running some additional environmental tests on the site. City staffers expect to brief elected officials in the next few weeks about the city's option to acquire the property.
"The deal that we negotiated in this is that the city could aquire the property at no cost, other than what we've already spent," said Assistant City Manager Jose Zapata.
The site was the subject of a legal proceedings between the city and Blue Star Recycling. The City of Dallas eventually hired a company to remove the shingles.
City staffers are reviewing existing policies and regulations to see if any improvements can be made to prevent another "Shingle Mountain" from happening.
"We don't need to see another issue pop up like this in any part of our city. It's devastating to a community and to the surrounding neighboring communities, too," said City Council Member Paula Blackmon. "So we need to do everything we can to make sure that we are working to make sure that doesn't happen again."
City staffers could brief Council Members in June about the possible take-over of the property.