Wet Wheat in West U Stinks

"How often does the train go by?"
"So often you won't even notice."

West U residents would likely add "unless wheat spills from the train, gets soaked by inches of rain and then stinks up your backyard" to the above exchange between Jake and Elwood in The Blues Brothers.

A Union Pacific train spilled the wheat during an incident three weeks ago, but the clean up was halted due to the record setting amount of rain in July. The fermentation process has begun and the stench is unbearable for residents near the site.

Per Houston Chronicle, U.P. spokesman James Barnes sites unstable ground and safety risks as the reason the clean up has not continued.

"When the ground is firm enough to support the equipment, we will work as expeditiously as possible," Barnes said. "But we have to be mindful of the conditions because we wouldn't want to move in the equipment and then compromise safety or have stranded equipment out there."

Good point, Jimmy. Houstonians have already seen what happens when you move heavy equipment on to rain-soaked ground. We'll take a rain check (tee hee) on another industrial accident.

Rain, rain go away so clean up crews can come out today...and so we don't have to mow the lawn every four days.

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Photo: flickr user T. Lot.