HOUSTON (Reuters) - Cancer-causing dioxins leached
from a Superfund site along a Texas river during Hurricane Harvey
flooding, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said, triggering
calls on Friday for the toxic waste to be permanently moved.
The
EPA ordered International Paper and Industrial Maintenance Corp, a
subsidiary of Waste Management Inc, on Thursday to conduct testing to
determine the extent of the leaching.
The EPA
said in a statement that divers found dioxins in a sediment sample in
excess of safe levels at one of 14 sites tested. Repairs were made to
the damaged cap over the paper mill waste, it said.
The
discovery is “frustrating and frightening,” said Richard Mithoff, a
Houston attorney representing some 600 residents and businesses who in
2016 sued International Paper and Waste Management, alleging their
failure to clean the site exposed residents to the cancer-causing
wastes. The lawsuit seeks $400 million in damages. “Some of these people
can’t just pick up and move,” said Mithoff.
International
Paper disputed any release of dioxins, saying the rock cap remains
“fully intact.” It is conducting additional testing “to confirm there
was no release around a small area where waste was accessible,” the
company said in a statement.
A Waste Management spokesman was unavailable for immediate comment.
The
former waste dump was declared a Superfund site in 2008 and a temporary
rock cap placed over the waste pits three years later. The EPA has
proposed removing about 150,000 cubic yards of waste deposited at the
site, which sits along the San Jacinto River.
A
sample taken by the EPA showed dioxin levels at one site exposed by the
storm at 70,000 nanograms per kilogram, more than 2,000 times the legal
limit of 30 nanograms per kilogram, according to the agency. The EPA
did not respo
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