Fecal Distraction

The Monday-morning commute makes lots of Houston drivers feel like crap. But most don’t expect to actually drive through it. Which is exactly what happened to several motorists last week when a Mack truck toting 25 tons of what’s politely known as “remnants of the wastewater treatment process” braked suddenly and dropped a, um, load.

In cruder terms, three to five cubic yards of human poop was dumped at the intersection of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Van Fleet the morning of February 1. The sewage had been cleaned and processed at the Sims Bayou Wastewater Treatment Plant, but it was poop nonetheless. And now the truck’s driver, who panicked and fled the scene, is in deep doo-doo.

The whole mess started when the driver, whose name has not been released, left his usual route to pick up two packs of Kools at a convenience store on Martin Luther King. As he was approaching the light at the intersection with Van Fleet, a fire truck running hot crossed his path, causing him to hit the brakes. He left behind more than tread marks.

Leonel Alvarado had dropped his daughter off at nearby Jesse Jones High School a little after 8 a.m. and was on his way up Van Fleet to turn onto MLK. An electrician who works the night shift, he was looking forward to heading home and getting some sleep. Those plans went down the toilet.

“I made a left out onto Martin Luther King, and the car just took off straight toward the curb and crossed all the lanes,” says Alvarado. “This stuff was worse than ice.”

Probably smelled worse, too, right?
“Ooh yeah, funky,” says Alvarado. “We knew it wasn’t just mud.”
Alvarado’s front passenger wheel was pushed inside the wheel well, and the car wouldn’t move.

A few minutes later Linda Popham, who’d also just dropped a child off at Jones, met a similar fate when her car slipped across the poop and rammed into the curb so hard it felt like she’d “just been shot out of a cannon.” The car’s axle was busted.

Alvarado ran to a pay phone and called the cops. Before they arrived, two other cars suffered accidents; one of those was also rendered undrivable by the slick, smelly mess.

No one was sure what to make of the situation. “I have a sinus infection, and I couldn’t really smell anything,” says Popham. “But one guy goes, ‘You know, this smells like shit,’ and the cop goes, ‘You know, I think that’s what this is.’ “

Traffic was halted for nearly six hours while workers from Eagle Construction & Environmental Services donned protective suits and masks and cleaned the streets.

The truck driver will be charged with one count of water pollution. “This guy did the wrong thing, and we have suspended him without pay pending a full investigation,” says Walter Lynch, regional vice president of CDR Environmental, Inc., which hired the driver. According to Lynch, the company’s insurance will cover the city’s cleanup costs and pay for the damage done to the cars involved. “We regret that this happened,” Lynch says.

After a short search, Houston police department Sergeant Mike Walsh of the Environmental Investigation Unit located the driver at CDR’s headquarters, where he admitted the dirty deed.

“I confronted him about it,” says Walsh, “and he broke down and started to cry, afraid he’d lose his job. And then, of all things, he said, ‘I want to come clean.’ I said, ‘That’s a fine choice of words.’ “