Why is this man smiling?
Carlos “C.Y.” Benavides III, has tried to bamboozle the people of Webb County for decades, and now, he’s trying to do it again, posing as a waste management company, Rancho Viejo Waste Management.
And once again, he’s doing it with misinformation and fabrications. In other words, Benavides appears to be incapable of telling the truth about the Pescadito dump.
In this video clip, he claims there would be no toxic waste brought to his huge dump. But his permit application clearly states he will be bringing Class I industrial waste THAT IS TOXIC to his nearly 1,000-acre dumping ground … up to half a million tons a year, in fact. Click here to read more about the kind of POISONOUS waste Benavides has asked TCEQ to permit.
Significantly, the KCS rail lines also extend throughout the industrialized portions of Mexico.”
— Pescadito permit application
In his interview, he claims there would be no waste brought in from Mexico, but his permit application clearly allows maquiladora and other toxic industrial waste from Mexico. In fact, one of Benavides’ “selling points” is the use of the Kansas City Southern Railroad, the former Tex Mex Railroad. The permit application clearly states: “Significantly, the KCS rail lines also extend throughout the industrialized portions of Mexico.” The Mexican government doesn’t regulate the generation and disposal of industrial waste as tightly as the U.S., and maquiladora waste can be more than simply toxic. In fact, the waste that will be coming into this dump from Mexico will likely not even be inspected until it is already on our side of the river in the inland port.
One of the worst radioactive spills in U.S. history happened back in 1984, when radioactive waste was mixed with scrap metal in Juarez and melted down to be used in table legs. The tables were brought into the U.S. and sold to unsuspecting customers. Click here to read about it. Will that kind of industrial waste wind up in CYs dump? Will CY be able to protect us from that happening again?
In his interview, he claims there is no danger to our water, but his proposed site clearly is in the flood plain. It sits on the Pescadito Creek, which empties into the Rio Grande.
The story claims Benavides will be bringing in “experts in the field” to manage his dump, but refuses to say who.
Remember Camino Colombia?
Benavides, who has run unsuccessfully for numerous public offices and has been involved in even more lawsuits, is the same person who convinced the somehow got us to take a $90 MILLION leap of faith on the Camino Colombia toll road project. As you recall, the assets of that FAILED boondoggle were sold at auction. We invested $90 million in his bankrupted toll road … $75 MILLION of which went down the drain when his toll road went broke. It’s now operated by the Texas Department of Transportation.