Stokes and Byers:
Toxic waste must be removed from San Jac river
By Bob Stokes and Robby Byers | September 16, 2016
A sign warns fisherman and visitors not to eat contaminated seafood caught
from the water along Interstate 10 near the San Jacinto River east of Houston in
Channelview. (Chronicle file photo) Photo:
Michael Paulsen, Staff / © 2013 Houston Chronicle Photo: Michael Paulsen,
Staff
A sign warns fisherman and visitors not to eat contaminated seafood caught
from the water along Interstate 10 near the San Jacinto River east of Houston in
Channelview. (Chronicle file photo)
Recent attention to the deadly, cancer-causing dioxin wastes from the San
Jacinto River Waste Pits is sorely needed: These wastes need to be removed as
soon as possible because they pose a serious, looming threat to Galveston Bay
and those who consume its seafood. The pits, placed on the federal Superfund
list reserved for the nation's most toxic sites in 2008, are in the worst
possible location on the bank of this major tidal river made all the worse due
to subsidence. About half of the site is now in the river.
As your recent editorial noted ("Remove the Waste," Page A22, Sept. 3), the
Environmental Protection Agency has before it two general options to address
this mess: dig up and remove the waste from the site, or try to contain the
waste in place in a hurricane- and flood-prone area with an armored rock cap. We
believe the best solution is to remove the waste now, rather than pass on the
possibility of future contamination to our kids, grandkids and great-grandkids.
Some of the dioxin originally placed there in the 1960s has leaked out over
time and has been passed up the aquatic food chain into fish and crab,
presenting a serious health hazard to people who eat fish and crab from parts of
the river and Bay. The 200,000 cubic yards of dioxin-contaminated wastes that
remain still pose such a great threat that the EPA required the parties
responsible for cleanup to place a temporary armored rock cap on it in 2011 to
try to prevent further release. The cap has had repeated problems in its five
short years. Last December, a large hole was found in the cap's northwest
quadrant, exposing the river to the wastes. What makes this all the more
troubling is the fact that dioxin is extremely persistent. The EPA has
calculated that it will take 750 years for the dioxin in the pits to degrade to
a nontoxic concentration. Despite these problems, those responsible for the
wastes now want to convince EPA that they can make the cap permanent by simply
adding more rock in some areas.
As your editorial noted, the recently released U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
third-party report on cleanup alternatives did not provide a recommendation;
instead it answered questions posed by the EPA. One overarching point the Corps
report does make is that a hardened cap can work, but only if it remains intact.
This is key to the whole issue: Can a man-made cap can withstand the extreme
forces of nature in this vulnerable location until the Year 2766?
The Corps report is not reassuring at all. It states that 80 percent of the
cap would incur severe erosion under an "extreme hydrologic event." We know from
experience that it is only a matter of time before another major hurricane or
disastrous flood strikes this area. Conversely, a full removal alternative would
isolate the wastes from the river, using the latest industry-accepted methods,
to minimize and nearly eliminate any concern about re-suspending waste during
removal. This practice, which would take care of the problem once and for all,
has been successfully used in other cleanups across the nation.
This cap only needs to fail once for us to have an ecological and economic
disaster on our hands. A breach of the cap by a hurricane would lead to a
significant uncontrolled release of dioxin into the San Jacinto River and
Galveston Bay, and the seafood we love to eat and upon which thriving
recreational and commercial fisheries depend.
Rather than leaving the waste onsite forever, the EPA should insist that
the waste is removed. This solution, completed in a timely fashion, is less
risky than relying on a man-made cap to keep this waste in place in what amounts
to forever in this vulnerable location. All eight local congressional
representatives whose districts touch the Bay or tidal tributary waters have
called for removal - a strong showing of bipartisan support! The EPA needs to
call for removal, as well. Let's solve this problem now and not pass it on to
future generations.
Stokes is president of the Galveston Bay Foundation. Byers is executive
director of the Coastal Conservation Association Texas.
San Jacinto River Waste Pits
Superfund Site
Overview
The Galveston Bay Foundation wants you to be
informed about the cleanup of the San Jacinto River Waste Pits (SJRWP) Superfund
Site and learn how you can be involved.
Location and
HistoryThe 14-acre pits are located on the west bank of the
San Jacinto River immediately upstream of the I-10 Bridge in Channelview, Harris
County. An additional pit is located south of I-10 on an upland site, but it has
been characterized as not posing an immediate.
In the mid-1960s, the pits north of I-10
received wastes from the former Champion Paper mill located in Pasadena, Texas.
The paper mill wastes contained dioxins, which are extremely toxic and can cause
increased risk of cancer and other threats to human health such as liver damage
and birth defects. The abandoned pits, like the rest of the surrounding area
subsided (the sinking of land as the result of groundwater pumping) and the
dioxin-laden wastes have been exposed to the waters and sediments of the San
Jacinto River for decades. The pits are now partially submerged in the river and
are often completely inundated by high river flows or high tide
events.
The SJRWP was added to the National Priorities
List of hazardous waste sites in 2008. As a result the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) began overseeing the Superfund process cleanup of the
pits, which is being performed by International Paper (IP) and McGinnis
Industrial Maintenance Corporation (MIMC), the potentially responsible parties
(PRPs) for the pollution at the site. Given the immediate threat to human and
environmental health, EPA directed the PRPs to install a temporary armored cap
on the pits north of I-10. The cap was completed in July 2011.
Nature of the Toxins and Threats to
Human and Environmental HealthRather than easily dissolving in
water, dioxins tend to bind to soil and sediments. From there, they are ingested
by small animals feeding in the sediments, and through the process of
bioaccumulation, can concentrate in fish, shellfish and crabs. If humans have
been exposed to dioxins from this site, it is very likely to have been through
eating contaminated seafood. In fact, dioxins have been found in certain fish
and crabs at concentrations which have prompted the state health department to
issue seafood consumptions advisories in
Galveston Bay and its tidal tributaries, such as the San Jacinto
River.
Two other critical exposure paths have been
characterized at this site. Before the pits were temporarily capped, people
could come into direct contact with the dioxins through or dermal absorption
(absorption through the skin) as they touched the wastes with their bare skin or
through accidental ingestion (e.g. children placing there hands into their
mouths) of contaminated sediments.
Given the chemical nature of dioxins, including
its relative insolubility in water, and the characteristics of the SJRWP, people
are not expected to be exposed to contaminants from airborne dust, groundwater,
or surface water. For more information on the routes of exposure to SJRWP
dioxins, see the Public Health Assessment – Final
Version that was prepared by the Texas
Department of State Health Services.
The Superfund Cleanup
The
cleanup is being implemented by U.S. EPA and the Potentially Responsible Parties
(PRPs): McGinnis Industrial Maintenance Corporation and International Paper
Company. Here are the highlights of the investigation and cleanup actions have
been completed to date or are underway:
| Activity |
Description |
Start Date |
Completion Date |
| Discovery the Site |
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department became
aware of information suggesting the presence of waste pits in and adjacent to
the San Jacinto River and notified the Texas Commission on Environmental
Quality. |
April 2005 |
|
| Placement on National Priorities
List |
The U.S. EPA’s listing of the site on the NPL
made it a “Superfund” site, eligible for further investigation and
action. |
March 2008 |
|
| Time Critical Removal Action |
A short-term stabilization/capping of the waste
pits by the responsible parties. In this case, an armored cap was placed over
the waste pits to temporarily address the release of dioxin into the San Jacinto
River. The final method of cleaning up the site will not be chosen until the end
of 2013, but this cap was designed to stop the release of additional
contaminants into the river while the site was being investigated and the final
method of cleanup chosen and implemented. |
April 2010 |
July 2011 |
| Remedial Investigation / Feasibility Study /
EPA Proposed Plan for Cleanup |
The process of data collection and analyses of
the site problem, identification of cleanup alternatives, and the recommendation
of a clean-up remedy. NOTE: The latest information we have received from the
U.S. EPA indicates that they will announce their proposed plan for cleanup late
Summer 2016, which will kick off a 30-day public comment period. We will notify
those on our mailing list and update this page when the dates are
confirmed. |
December 2009 |
Late Summer 2016
(tentative) |
More information can be found on the U.S. EPA’s San Jacinto River Waste Pits
webpage.
Independent Review Findings
The Galveston Bay Foundation received a grant
from the U.S. EPA to hire scientists from the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) to serve as the independent technical advisors and
review site cleanup process reports, provide expert input, and communicate their
findings to the public. These findings will be posted on this webpage and
communicated to the public via meetings, electronic communications and print
pieces.
Technical Advisor’s Reviews of Key Document
Produced for the U.S. EPA Cleanup Process:
Jan. 24, 2013 GBF/HARC Meeting Summary
What Else is Being Done?
Not
all of the contamination in the San Jacinto River is from the Waste Pits site.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Houston-Galveston Area
Council have initiated total maximum daily load (TMDL)
projects for the Houston Ship Channel, San Jacinto River, Upper Galveston Bay,
and Galveston Bay to pinpoint different
sources of dioxins, as well as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), another highly
toxic family of compounds, and develop a plan to reduce their concentration in
the environment and seafood. General information about TMDL projects can be
found here. Specific
information on TMDL projects in the San Jacinto River Basin can be found
here.
Get on Our Mailing List
If you
would like to be added to our mailing/emailing list to receive San Jacinto River
Waste Pits Superfund Site updates and public meeting notices, please contact
Scott Jones of the Galveston Bay Foundation at 281-332-3381 x209 or e-mail
sjones@galvbay.org.
For More Information
For more information on the SJRWP and its
cleanup, please contact:
- HARC Technical Advisor: Jennifer Ronk at
(281) 363-7927 and jronk@harc.edu.
- EPA SJRWP Project Manager: Gary Miller
at (214) 665-8318 and Miller.Garyg@epa.gov.
- EPA Community Involvement Coordinator:
Donn Walters at (214) 665-6483 and Walters.Donn@epa.gov.
- Texas Department of State Health Services
(for information on the Public Health Assessment): Richard Beauchamp at
(512) 776-6434 and Richard.Beauchamp@dshs.state.tx.us.
- Texas Department of State Health Services
(for information seafood advisories and shellfish harvest areas): Michael
Tennant at (512) 834-6757 and michael.tennant@dshs.state.tx.us.
- Texas Department of State Health Services
(for information on the Public Health Assessment and seafood advisories):
Tina Walker at (512) 776-2932 and tina.walker@dshs.state.tx.us.
- Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
Superfund Program: Satya Dwivedula at 1-800-633-9363 and Satya.Dwivedula@tceq.texas.gov.
- Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
Superfund Community Relations: Crystal Taylor at (512) 239-3844 and
crystal.taylor@tceq.texas.gov.
- Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
(for information on sediment dioxin concentrations in the bay system and other
potential sources): Linda Broach at (713) 767-3579 and Linda.Broach@tceq.texas.gov
- Houston-Galveston Area Council (for
information on the Total Maximum Daily Load projects): Steven Johnston at
(832) 681-2579 and steven.johnston@h-gac.com.
For more information about the Technical
Assistance Grant itself, contact Scott Jones of the Galveston Bay Foundation at
(281) 332-3381 x209 or sjones@galvbay.org.
http://www.galvbay.org/how-we-protect-the-bay/taking-action/sjrwp/
Thank You Galveston Bay Foundation !
In 1965 Champion Paper Mill, which was located
in Pasadena, contracted with McGinnis Industrial Maintenance Corporation to
dispose of Champion’s industrial waste. MIMC dug pits along the San Jacinto and
dumped toxic waste there until 1967, when the unlined pits reached capacity. The
following year, MIMC’s board of directors voted to abandon the site. Over the
next four decades, the riverbank that separated the pits from the river
gradually eroded, until large sections of them were submerged beneath the water.
The site was basically unknown to anybody else until 2005, when the Texas Parks
and Wildlife Department realized what was there. In 2008, the EPA granted it
Superfund status but initially did nothing to stop the flow of poisons—such as
dioxin, one of the most toxic chemicals known to man—from the pits.
Young came to suspect that her family’s troubles
could be traced back to the site; in 2008 Hurricane Ike struck just east of the
pits and flooded the Highlands area. Her health problems escalated after that.
“I try not to think about it,” she says, “but my dad may not be able to walk me
down the aisle. I may not be able to have kids.”
Young and her mother wanted to know if they were
the only family in the neighborhood experiencing these sorts of symptoms, so
they started knocking on doors. Nearly every opened door produced a story of
illness. “Every day I run into somebody who has leukemia, multiple myeloma,
lymphoma, lupus,” Bonta says. The Bontas knew they needed to move off the
property, but they couldn’t in good conscience sell it to someone else. Their
only option was to allow the bank to foreclose and to walk away from everything,
which is what they did. The Bontas moved to Cypress and Young left for Houston.
Young’s health slowly improved, though she is still being treated for
endometriosis. John remains in bad shape.
Convinced that others were suffering, Young and
her mother continued to visit Highlands, knocking on more doors. Not everyone
was receptive to their overtures. “People tell me, ‘You’re not going to get
nothing done in this town,’ ” Bonta says. But they discovered that there were
others who shared their concerns. In 2010 the nonprofit group Texans Together
had begun a campaign to inform Highlands residents about the dangers of the
pits. Young started volunteering for the nonprofit’s San Jacinto River
Coalition, eventually signing on full-time as the coalition’s
director.
Texans Together wasn’t the only organization
grappling with the issue of the waste pits. In 2011 the Harris County Attorney’s
Office filed a lawsuit against International Paper (which had merged with
Champion Paper years earlier), MIMC, and MIMC’s parent company, Waste
Management, for violating the Texas Water Code, Health and Safety Code, Solid
Waste Disposal Act, and Hazardous Substances Spill Prevention and Control Act
and conspiring with one another to violate these codes and acts.
The case finally went to trial last October.
Young knew that it would be tough going; the evidence was complicated and the
defendants had well-funded legal counsel. But she was encouraged by the example
of a new friend she had made several months earlier, a woman named Marie
Flickinger.
see map ;
http://www.texasmonthly.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/03/San-Jacinto-Waste-Pits-680_0.jpg
snip see full story ‘A Tail of Two
Sites’
http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/a-tale-of-two-sites/
What kind of
water are we going to leave our children and grandchildren?
The San
Jacinto River Wastepits - an environmental tragedy
Terry S. Singeltary Sr.
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