Posted on · The EPA’s Office of Inspector General issued two new reports last week that are part of a series assessing the weather-related vulnerabilities of the 157 federal Superfund sites, including in the Houston region, that are prioritized for cleanup due to the serious risk they pose to public health and the environment.
Posted on · In a letter last year, the agency threatened to take over the clean up of two waste pits in the San Jacinto River if International Paper Company and McGinnes Industrial Maintenance Corporation did not submit remedial designs and ramp up cleaning efforts.
Posted on · The Superfund site is located in the Cypress Shopping Centre strip mall off Jones Road. A former dry cleaners failed to dispose of its chemicals properly, contaminating the groundwater and soil.
Posted on · Fifth Ward residents have been fighting for years to get contamination in their neighborhood cleaned up.
Posted on · The waste pits were built in east Harris County on the San Jacinto River in the 1960s to store hazardous waste from a nearby paper mill.
Posted on · The waste pits were built in the 1960s to store hazardous waste from a nearby paper mill and contain dioxins, a group of chemicals known to cause cancer. Community advocates have been fighting for their cleanup for years.
Posted on · The pits were built in the 1960s to store hazardous waste from a nearby paper mill and have been on the EPA’s clean-up list since 2008.
Posted on · The companies say the protection offered by the cap now covering the site is sufficient, and are opposed to the expensive cleanup. The EPA's plan calls for ringing the site with a temporary dam and digging up 212,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediments, enough to fill about 16,000 dump trucks.
Posted on · The announcement comes two weeks after the federal agency said an unknown amount of dioxins — which have been linked to birth defects and cancer — may have washed downriver from the San Jacinto Waste Pits after floodwaters jarred loose a protective cap of fabric and rock designed to keep them from spreading.
