Michael Young Charged With Illegal Dumping

By Lee McGuire / 11 News
HUMBLE – Houston Police have arrested a man and charged him with two counts of felony illegal dumping.


Police say Michael Wayne Young, 48, has been talking to investigators about actions on his property along the San Jacinto River in Humble.

According to a spokesman for the department’s environmental protection unit, Young ran a waste-hauling company that collected tanks and equipment from abandoned gas stations around the Houston area. Instead of dumping the debris and contaminated dirt at an approved facility, police say Young buried the equipment alongside the San Jacinto River tributaries that ran alongside his Humble home.

On Monday, the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers examined what are they described as “illegal dikes” lining the river. A spokesman says those dikes have altered the flow of the San Jacinto and pushed contaminated water into Lake Houston, the main source of drinking water for the city of Houston.

Houston Police have arrested Michael Young and charged him with two counts of felony illegal dumping.
"We have found a lot of gas station-type equipment hoses, nozzles, things that can't be buried here buried in this self-made dam," said HPD Officer Steven Dicker.

Teams from the City of Houston and the EPA are testing the water by d igging trenches into mountains of burned and buried debris.

"We got some black sludgy material. It did not look naturally-occurring," Dicker said. "There are some things that are naturally occuring, but this had a hydrocarbon smell to it."

The dumping had been going on for years, police say, but has never resulted in unsafe drinking water because the chemicals were heavily diluted before reaching Lake Houston.

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