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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has nearly completed its first phase of groundwater, soil and sewer sampling at the Union Pacific railyard cancer-cluster site in Kashmere Gardens, EPA Project Manager Casey Luckett Snyder announced at a Thursday community meeting.
Before a crowd of about 100 people at the Carl Walker Jr. Multi-Purpose Center, Snyder outlined progress the EPA has made in its investigation into creosote and other potentially cancer-causing contaminants.
The EPA will spend the next month reviewing its data with plans to share the investigation’s results with community members in April.
That review and evaluation will include testing collected samples against pre-set screening levels to determine if and where more testing may be needed.
Some meeting attendees expressed frustration with the slow-moving nature of the EPA’s investigation process.
Both of Kourtney Revels’ grandfathers worked for Union Pacific. Both died of cancer before the age of 65.
“That’s the most frustrating part,” Revels said. “A lot of the people involved with this process might not live to see if anything happens. You’ll have an era of people that have been fighting for this die off before anything happens.”
In 2019, the state declared Greater Fifth Ward a cancer cluster after decades of resident complaints and more than a century of contamination from Southern Pacific Transportation Company’s wood preserving operation.
Creosote and other contaminants dumped by Southern Pacific seeped into the ground, sinking at various depths, mixing with groundwater and moving horizontally through sand and silt into the community north of the site – eventually creating a large groundwater plume of creosote, Snyder said.
In 1984, after Southern Pacific shut down its wood-preservation operations, TCEQ and prior Texas environmental agencies began overseeing the facility’s closure and remediation. But that only impacted the facility itself, not the surrounding community.
In 1997, Union Pacific absorbed Southern Pacific, taking over environmental remediation of the site.
After the city conducted testing in 2019, which found contaminants in the soil, the EPA stepped in to direct Union Pacific in testing and investigating the vapor and the soil.
Last October, the city of Houston set aside $5 million for the voluntary relocation of residents who live just northeast of the railyard, where 110 houses sit above the contaminated plume.
Depending on the outcome of the EPA’s new analysis, potential next steps have been identified:
- If the collected samples do not have creosote related chemicals above the EPA’s set screening levels, a second round of samples will be taken this summer at select locations.
- If samples do have creosote related chemicals that are above the EPA’s set screening levels, then EPA will determine if more sampling is needed.
Going forward, Snyder said, the EPA will use its data to determine if there is a health risk stemming from the Union Pacific site contamination, and whether an environmental clean-up is necessary based on those potential health risks.
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