It's your biggest treasure, your house, and it may be sitting on top of someone else's trash. The city limits are dotted with more than 400 closed landfills.
Dr. Georgia Zannaras with the Alamo Area Council of Governments, AACOG, is one of the few people in town who know exactly where all those sites are located. AACOGmaintains a map of every site, but the problem is the map isn't very accurate.
Zannaras said back when most of the information was recorded, no one kept very detailed records.Zannaras said the physical description may be south of Culebra road at Gilbeau near the tree.
However with all the development and road construction, that tree may no longer be there.
Also, with all the new home developments which have gone up, not every developer has done what they're supposed to.
According to Zannaras, if a developer thinks there's a problem with a site, they are supposed to do boring samples to find out what is below. Not every developer does that.
Another way of monitoring for possible issues is the monitoring of creeks and rivers.
Historically, according to Steve Schauer with the San Antonio River Authority, people would shore up river and creek banks by finding a low spot and dumping trash along them.
That practice is no longer allowed, but that doesn't mean people don't still try to sneak by and do it.
Schauer said proof of that is two recent illegal sites very close to the San Antonio River, south of town.
While doing a fly-over inspection of the watershed, SARA found an illegal tire dump and an illegal oil pit. The property owners were fined and forced to clean them up.
Homeowners, like Gerald Holloway, own homes which sit directly over old dump sites on the AACOGmap.
Holloway says after he bought the home and moved in, he had heard rumors of an old dump. He never actually saw the map until KENS 5 pointed it out to him.
Even then Holloway said he wasn't worried. He says he has lived in his home for the past 25 years and except for the usual mis-aligned door striker plate, he hasn't had any problems.
Holloway said if the house splits in two and starts to fall in, then he might worry.
