Harris County Public Heath recently warned people
living near the San Jacinto River Waste Pit Superfund site to avoid
drinking tap water after dioxin, a known carcinogen, was detected in
groundwater wells near the Channelview site. Along the way, the county
became the first government agency to actually test the area groundwater
wells for dioxins.
The
moment was a small victory for Jackie Young, the head of San Jacinto
River Coalition, and a former resident of Highlands, the town where most
of the contaminated wells are located.
The San Jacinto River
Waste Pits have been nestled on the edge of the San Jacinto River for
decades, a forgotten remnant of the toxic sludge pumped out of a
Pasadena paper mill that was packed into barges, shipped downriver and
stored in pits dug on the lip of the river throughout the 1960s.
In
2005 state officials discovered – or maybe just finally noticed – the
pits. Then the federal Environmental Protection Agency followed up and
determined that tons of hazardous waste, including dioxin, a highly
potent known carcinogen that has also been tied to various health issues
and birth defects, had been slowly leaking out of the pits for years.
The EPA put caps on the toxic mess and proclaimed the 14-acre area a
Superfund site in 2008. EPA officials say there's no safe level of
exposure to these chemicals, which include a large amount of dioxins.
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