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Speaking of the council’s Wednesday briefing and sewers and so forth …
There are a few things council will actually vote mid-week, seeing as how they’re on spring break next week. Among ’em: a resolution tsk-tsk’ing the Columbia Packing Company in Oak Cliff, infamous for having been caught turning the Trinity River red with pig blood.
It’s not much of a resolution, as you’ll see below. Short story shorter, the city wants the meat-packer to follow the City Code. Doesn’t say by when, doesn’t spell out how, only that this is something with which the Board of Adjustment will be tasked. From the backgrounder provided to council:
Columbia Packing Company is a slaughterhouse, meat packing, and distribution company. Columbia Packing Company operates under a certificate of occupancy for a industrial (inside) potentially incompatible use, and is nonconforming in the IR Industrial Research district. In December 2011, it was discovered that Columbia Packing Company was discharging pig blood into Cedar Creek, which is a tributary flowing into the Trinity River. As a result, the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, in coordination with the City of Dallas, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, executed a search warrant at the facility. Inspections of the property revealed numerous violations of the Dallas City Code. This resolution requests that the Board of Adjustment consider establishing a compliance date for the nonconforming use pursuant to Dallas Development Code §51A-4.704.
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As you no doubt recall, at the end of January First Assistant City Attorney Chris Bowers sent the meat-packer a letter outlining more than 18 code violations; Columbia Packing blamed the blood in the river on a clogged sewer line. Bowers said: Shape up, or face a lawsuit. Now — or after Wednesday, that is — it’s in the hands of the Board of Adjustment. For the time being, at least.
