The School That Disappeared: I Was a Weber Kid

The Weber Kid: Growing Up in the Shadow of Brio

By Gabriel F. Gonzales II

If you grew up around Sagemont, South Belt or Clear Lake in the early 1990s, three names may still mean something to you: Brio. Southbend. Weber.

For everyone else, they probably require an explanation.

Brio was a former chemical-processing site on Dixie Farm Road in southeast Harris County. Southbend was the residential subdivision beside it. Arlyne S. Weber Elementary was a Clear Creek ISD school serving children from the surrounding community.

I was one of those children.

I was a Weber kid.

Before I Knew What Brio Was

To me, Weber wasn't “the school near a Superfund site.”

It was simply my elementary school.

It was classrooms and teachers. Friends and backpacks. Lunch and recess. All the ordinary pieces of childhood that don't seem historic while you're living them.

Nearby, however, was the 58-acre Brio Refining site. EPA records show that chemical reprocessing and refining took place there from the 1950s until 1982. Disposal practices contaminated groundwater and soil with hazardous chemicals. The Southbend subdivision bordered the property.

The adults around us were dealing with questions about contamination, health, property values, lawsuits and whether their families were safe.

We were children.

Then their world became ours.

Fourth Grade

Memory can compress childhood into a handful of images. That's one reason I wanted to compare what I remember with the historical record.

I was in the second semester of fourth grade when Weber closed in March 1992.

I didn't finish fourth grade there.

We were moved to Brookwood Elementary, where I finished fourth grade and then spent all of fifth grade.

Contemporary reporting confirms the larger event. United Press International reported in June 1992 that the controversy surrounding Brio had led to Weber's March closing and the transfer of its students to another school.

For a fourth grader, there was no National Priorities List, remediation plan or environmental litigation.

There was simply the realization that the school you had been attending wasn't going to be your school anymore.

We Didn't Keep Moving

There's another part of my childhood that can sound completely different on paper than it actually was.

I attended Weber, Brookwood, Wedgewood, Webster Intermediate, Brookside Intermediate and Clear Brook High School.

My family wasn't constantly relocating.

We didn't move.

After Weber closed, I finished fourth grade at Brookwood and spent fifth grade there. Then came Wedgewood. Later came Webster Intermediate, Brookside Intermediate and eventually Clear Brook High School.

For me, those names form a map of childhood:

Weber. Brookwood. Wedgewood. Webster. Brookside. Clear Brook.

Different buildings.

Same kid.

Same home.

Same community.

That distinction matters because a list of schools can look like instability on paper. For those of us who lived through this chapter of southeast Houston history, it was simply how our education unfolded.

Our School Was Already Part of the Brio Story

Years before Weber closed, the school itself had become a gathering place for a community confronting Brio.

On February 9, 1988, the Environmental Protection Agency held a public meeting inside Weber Elementary to discuss proposed remedies for the Brio site.

Approximately 350 people attended.

EPA's own Record of Decision says residents expressed serious concern about whether the proposed remediation would go far enough.

Think about that setting.

During the day, children walked those halls carrying books and worrying about homework.

At night, hundreds of adults filled their school to talk about hazardous waste and the future of their community.

I couldn't have understood the significance of that as a child.

As a historian, I do now.

When a Community Disappears

Brio was much larger than the story of one elementary school.

EPA records document extensive contamination at the site. The federal government ultimately undertook a Superfund cleanup, while residents pursued litigation connected with Brio.

Eventually, Southbend itself disappeared.

EPA now describes the neighboring subdivision as abandoned, with its homes removed.

That's easy to write.

It's harder to comprehend.

A neighborhood isn't simply streets and property lines.

It's someone's bedroom. Christmas morning. Learning to ride a bicycle. Knowing the neighbors. It's children walking into a neighborhood school knowing exactly where they belong.

Then the houses disappear.

The school disappears.

Eventually, somebody drives down the same road who never saw either one and has no idea they were ever there.

That's how local history can disappear in plain sight.

The Name Came Back

The original Weber never reopened.

But the name did.

A later CCISD history lists Weber Elementary as reopening in 2003, more than a decade after the original campus closed.

The building I knew didn't come back.

But Weber did.

For those of us who attended the original school, there is something meaningful about that.

What a Teacher Understands

More than three decades later, I stand in a classroom myself.

I'm the teacher now.

Every day, young people walk through my door carrying lives I can only partially see.

That has changed how I remember Weber.

I remember teachers who helped me. Coaches who pushed me. Adults at school who cared about the kid standing in front of them.

As a child, I didn't fully understand how important those people could be.

As a teacher, I do.

Because a child can be living through history without knowing it.

I was.

Going Back as a Historian

I eventually became a historian too.

History has taught me something important about memory: memory matters, but it should also be tested against the documentary record.

Memory tells us what an experience felt like.

Documents help establish what happened and when.

I remember leaving Weber during fourth grade.

Contemporary reporting confirms that Weber closed in March 1992.

I remember being sent to Brookwood and spending fifth grade there.

I remember Wedgewood, Webster, Brookside and Clear Brook.

Those memories are mine. But now I can place them within the larger documented history of Brio, Southbend and Weber.

That's one of the reasons I wanted to tell this story.

Brio Isn't Only Past Tense

Brio was removed from the federal Superfund National Priorities List in 2006 following cleanup. But EPA continues oversight of the property.

In its August 2023 Five-Year Review, EPA determined that the remedy remained protective of human health and the environment in the short term, while also identifying an issue involving remedy performance. EPA's current site information notes elevated contaminant concentrations in part of the groundwater system and continuing investigation to determine whether additional remedial action is necessary.

That distinction matters.

This isn't an urban legend from southeast Houston.

It is documented history.

And people who lived through it are still here.

The Building Is Gone. The Place Isn't.

The original Weber is gone.

The hallways and classrooms where our voices once echoed are gone.

Southbend is gone.

But the place never completely left those of us who grew up there.

I left, learned and grew. Eventually, life brought me back to education—only now I'm standing at the front of the classroom.

And I've returned to this story as a historian, not to romanticize what happened, but to document a piece of southeast Houston history before more of it disappears.

Because my memories are only one part of this story.

There were hundreds of Weber kids.

There were parents who attended meetings. Teachers and staff who entered that building every morning. Southbend residents who watched their neighborhood disappear. Families throughout the South Belt area who remember what happened.

They remember things that aren't contained in EPA reports.

Those memories deserve to be preserved too.

If you attended the original Weber, lived in Southbend, worked at the school, attended the Brio meetings or simply remember what happened, I want to hear your story.

Government records can tell us what happened to a Superfund site.

Newspapers can tell us when a school closed.

Court records can tell us what was litigated.

But only the people who were there can tell us what happened to a community.

I was there.

I was in fourth grade.

I was a Weber kid.

And this is our story.

Sources

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Brio Refining Superfund Site Profile and Cleanup Information.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Brio Refining Record of Decision, March 31, 1988.

United Press International, “Monsanto Agrees to $39 Million in Brio Superfund Case,” June 16, 1992.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Priorities List Sites: Texas, including Brio Refining site documentation.

CCISD historical campus chronology reported by The Citizen/Houston Chronicle, including the 1992 closure and 2003 Weber campus opening.