EPA orders completion of San Jacinto River Waste Pits cleanup

It's been described as a "ticking, toxic time bomb" — more than 230,000 tons of cancer-causing dioxin waste buried beneath and beside the San Jacinto River in far east Harris County.

For seven years, the "complete cleanup" ordered during the first Trump Administration has been stalled, but this week the Environmental Protection Agency instructed polluters Waste Management and International Paper to cease the delay tactics and finish cleaning up their mess at the notorious Superfund site known as the San Jacinto River Waste Pits.

Under constant pressure from community activists, the EPA announced it has accepted a plan to mitigate the challenging "northern impoundment" of the pits, 60% of which is submerged in the river.

The responsible companies have completed waste removal from the "southern impoundment" representing approximately a third of the toxic material at the dump.

"This is our home, our river, our future"

What they're saying:

For the past decade, Jackie Medcalf of the Texas Health and Environment Alliance has led the campaign for removal of the clear and continuing danger.

 "We have fought too long to accept anything less than the safest and most expeditious clean-up possible. This is our home, our river, our future, and we are determined to see that this cleanup is done right," said Medcalf.

FOX 26 spoke with Medcalf one-on-one about the long-term significance of the latest action taken by the Trump EPA to remove 230,000 tons of remaining toxic material.

 "This site is literally in the San Jacinto River, and the EPA has made the decision that they are going to move this forward and stop the delays, because as long as that waste is there, our communities are at risk. This contaminated material is known to be associated with almost every single type of cancer in addition to reproductive issue, auto-immune issues 
and so this is a very real and serious risk to our community's health but also to the whole Galveston Bay system. The recent cancer assessment showed that 257 square miles of the San Jacinto River's flood plain around this Superfund site is a cancer cluster," said Medcalf.

What's next?

To remove the remaining Dioxin waste the responsible parties will have to construct a "coffer dam" and then drain the water off of the currently submerged portion of the dump before digging out the contamination.

Medcalf estimates the process will likely take at least five years and cost the polluters untold millions of dollars.