HOUSTON -- A southeast Houston neighborhood has been flooded with mountains of mulch, and a Local 2 Investigates report on Thursday prompted state legislators to consider changing to the law to keep it from happening elsewhere.

"When the pile started getting a lot bigger, it started causing a lot more problems with the smell," said Elvis Mayberry, while standing in his flooded back yard off Selinsky in the Golden Glade Estates neighborhood near South Acres.

He and other neighbors have complained to Houston city hall and to state officials, saying their back yards began flooding with every rainfall since hundreds of semi trucks began dumping mulch in a property that adjoins their back yards.

"The mulch is blocking where the water can't run toward the street," said Mayberry as he trudged through water left standing in his back yard.

His neighbor, Jackie Miller, said, "I've been here 12 years. I never have been bothered with flooding, but now the flooding is completely covering my back yard."

Their problems started when Federal Emergency Management Agency contractors began trucking in hundreds of semi truckloads of pungent smelling, steaming mulch. Local 2 Investigates cameras and Sky 2 helicopter footage show some mounds stacked taller than nearby homes, covering acres of land less than 100 yards from some homes.

A FEMA official told Local 2 Investigates that FEMA had nothing to do with choosing the site for the temporary storage of mulch from Hurricane Ike. Debris removal crews under contract from FEMA are chopping up storm debris from a central dumping site and then trucking it to more than a dozen storage lots until a use can be found for the mulch. The contractor is leasing the land from the property's owner.

"FEMA may have had good intentions, but FEMA should have come out and talked to the neighbors to see if we were OK with this, and we're not," Miller said. "Health-wise, we're not OK with it. It's a nuisance. Safety … we're not OK with it."

She said dozens of trucks roll by her home each day, bright generator lights are shining into her home from nighttime work near the mulch piles, the smell is triggering asthma and allergies and neighbors worry about the fire hazard.

A Houston Fire Marshal's inspector issued a notice of violation at the lot, writing that the contractor was required to maintain pathways that would support fire trucks between each mulch pile.

Aside from that violation, the fire department and the Houston Mayor's Office said the lot is in compliance with the law and no regulations are in place to keep such a thing from happening in other neighborhoods.

State Rep. Garnet Coleman (D-Houston) reacted to the Local 2 Investigates report, saying, "I think it's horrible."

"It's a horrible thing to tell somebody they're in compliance because there really isn't much to be in compliance with," Coleman said. "That is the problem."

Coleman said he would draft legislation to keep such a thing from moving into other neighborhoods after future storms, or at any other time. His legislation would impose tougher requirements for getting permits for such a storage lot, and it would require neighbors to be notified anytime something was proposed within a certain distance of someone's home.

"I think most Houstonians, and people who live in the area out in the county, would like to have some assurance that they won't wake up tomorrow living next to a mulch factory," Coleman said.

He said poor and minority neighborhoods are falling victim to such issues too often.

Houston City Councilwoman Wanda Adams told Local 2 Investigates, "If I lived there, I would have concerns."

After learning of the Local 2 Investigates report, she visited the site and contacted the City of Houston Solid Waste Department's leadership. That office then pushed for trucks to be routed further away from the homes. The contractor was also told to spray down the mulch piles in a manner that would keep dust and fumes under control.

Mayor's office spokesman Patrick Trahan said the site is not managed by the Houston Solid Waste Department, so there is little else that can be done.

"We are holding them to the letter of their permit," Assistant Houston Fire Chief Rick Flanagan said

Flanagan said inspectors are making sure that pathways are kept open for fire trucks and water is kept nearby in case of a fire.

"What we should do is redouble our efforts to look to see if there is anything that can be done to shut this down and/or move it ASAP and not wait for the legislative session," Coleman said.