East Harris County Widow Blames Waste Dump For Husband's Fatal Cancer
337 Kilgore Avenue was meant to be a place where years, rich and long would be lived, happy children reared and loving memories built.
For David Marlow and his wife Candice that dream was cut painfully short in the space of a single year by a cancer called Multiple Myeloma.
"He was angry he wasn't given the time to see his children grow up, to watch them graduate, that's all he wanted was the time to be there, to be there for us, to help raise his babies," said Candice.
David Marlow was just 39. The cancer that took his life is ultra-rare among men his age.
Left alone to raise two kids, Candice Marlow is near certain the Super Fund Site known as the San Jacinto River Waste Pits and the Dioxin stored there is to blame for her husband's early death.
The dump is located not far from her home - a home where the soil has tested positive for the cancer causing toxin.
"Every day that that the waste remains in the river is another day somebody could be effected. Covering it up and putting rock on top of it is not good enough. You've got storm surge, you've got tide, you've got barge traffic," said Candice.
Two weeks ago Texas Health officials revealed a study confirming alarming levels of cancer in East Harris County near the San Jacinto River.
For Candice, who suspects her daughter’s life threatening seizures are also linked to contamination, the scientific findings offered a small measure of comfort.
"It was something that we knew in our hearts and to see it on paper that there really was a problem and that we are going to do something about it, it was a victory," said Candice.
The Environmental Protection Agency is scheduled to decide the future of the San Jacinto River Waste Pits in December.
Meantime, the State is bringing together disease experts in an attempt to determine what is the exact cause of the elevated rates of cancer.