Trying To Find Out What This Used To Be Off Spears Rd.

[billyf]

I came across this today and can not figure out what used to be here. It's located east of Spears Rd, between Rushcreek Dr and Rankin Rd in the Greenpoint district. The buildings show up on the 1978 aerial on Google Earth, the 1981 aerial on Historic Aerial, but not the 1989 aerial on Google Earth or the 1973 aerial on Historic Aerial. The driveway off Spears Rd has a gate with a no trespassing and a keep out sign. Anyone know what used to be here? Looking at the aerials there are several buildings. What I find odd is how they were hidden back in the woods.

I would like to go check it out, but don't want to get arrested for trespassing.

[sevfiv]

It's currently owned by Quantum Tech, Inc. (since 1992), then William VanCleave (1990-1992), and Enercon Holdings (?-1990). Before that associated names were Intenco, Inc., Ithaca Carbon Co., and Houston Carbon Co.

It's not much but maybe researching those names/companies is a start..

[kylejack]

12102 Spears

[LTAWACS]

Prolly some secret lab.

[kylejack]

Chronicle, 1995

Scrapped tires causing threat to city's health

RAD SALLEE Staff

MON 08/07/1995

HOUSTON CHRONICLE, Section A, Page 11, 3 STAR Edition

Scrap tires intended for recycling are piling up in some storage yards and heightening the threat of mosquito-borne disease, including the deadly St. Louis encephalitis.

The problem is worsened by illegal tire dumping along roadsides and bayous, said R.P. Jones, an insect expert with the Harris County Mosquito Control District.

Adding to the problem, Jones said, is the increasing number of oversize tires from heavy trucks and equipment.

These are nearly always stored in the open, he said, since they "won't stay buried"in a landfill and cannot easily be shredded into usable scrap.

Jones also said the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission has reduced the bounty it pays tire processors from 85 cents to 80 cents per shredded tire.

This makes the recycling business less profitable and increases the share of tires stored intact, which are much more likely than shredded tires to hold rainwater and breed mosquitoes.

Current uses for shredded tires include burning as fuel in kilns, paper mills and electric power generators; burial around septic tanks in place of gravel to disperse treated waste; ballast to hold down vinyl liners in sanitary landfills; and mixing with asphalt for use in paving.

Barry Price, a TNRCC inspector assigned to tire storage facilities in Houston, said a smaller-than-expected market for recycled tire scrap has local processors pushing their storage capacity.

TNRCC officials said two of the five tire processors here have been told by the regulatory agency that their payments are suspended until storage facilities are expanded or some of their inventories are sold.

Officials of the companies, Tire Recyclers Inc., 3615 W. 12th, and Safe Tire Disposal Corp. in Cleveland, could not be reached for comment. But the problem is not limited to these firms, said Jennifer Sidnell, who heads TNRCC's automotive waste program statewide.

In the past year, she said, the other three had been warned or cited as well.

Under the program, consumers pay a fee of $2 to $3.50 on each tire purchased. Eight cents of each dollar generated pays overhead and the rest goes to processors for shredding the tires to recycle them.

Beginning Jan. 1, 1996, Sidnell said, processors will not be paid for merely shredding tires; they must have an approved final use for them as well. This requirement, plus the rising inventories, could put the processors in a further squeeze.

A state study released in November found that demand for material claimed from recycled tires was limited - as it was for compost, green glass and mixed paper.

But Sidnell said that 38 percent of waste tires in Texas are already being recycled.

It will be up to scrap tire processors here, she said, to develop local markets for their product or ship it to customers out of state, she said.

One local processor, Waste Recovery Inc. of Baytown, ships tire chips to Arkansas for use in a paper mill, and is able to move all that it takes in, TNRCC officials said.

L.C. King Sr., manager of another processor, Quantum Tech Inc., of 12102 Spears-Gears Road, said the company has kept abreast of the industry technologically and can meet the needs of specific markets.

"Some recyclers may not have the machinery to shred (tires) to specifications," King said. "Some markets need 2-inch chips, some 4-inch, and some may want the materials without any wire in them."

http://www.chron.com...y-s-health.html

[kylejack]

In 1983, Intenco at this address got a European patent for "Method and apparatus for removing hydrocarbons from discarded tires by pyrolysis."

https://register.epo.org/espacenet/application?number=EP82107012

So it seems like it was a tire reprocessing factory for quite some time.

[Pleak]

Sounds like a future SuperFund site.

[billyf]

Wow you guys are awesome. I couldn't find the address or the ownership history anywhere! The address doesn't show on HCAD website.

So it appears from the information you guys provided that they did tire recycling in both 1983 and in 1995. It looks like the site was still under construction in the 1978 aerial, but the buildings appear to be gone by 1989. However the news article that kylejack posted is from 1995 which has me confused. There's no doubt that they were gone by 2002. I just wonder why the building except for one were torn down. They were only 20 or so years old. It's possible that they caught fire, but I can't find any news articles that suggest this.

Thanks for the info.

[sevfiv]

The address in HCAD is technically "0 SPEARS (OFF) RD" - makes things difficult!