THEA HOLIDAY DINNER MEETING
By David Taylor
Managing Editor
For years, members of the Texas Health and Environment Alliance (THEA) and community have filled out health surveys turned over to the Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS) regarding cancer types and asked them to study the rates of cancer here. Last Tuesday, Jackie Medcalf, founder of THEA, announced that the state has agreed to do an updated study.
“The last study covered a very large area with the map,” she said. “They studied 17 types of cancer back in 2014 that we most commonly saw, and they found that 14 of them were at abnormally high rates.”
The organization and community weren’t completely happy with the data because it lagged so far behind. The TDSHS agreed to do the study, but instead of going back to when the cancer registry started, they’re simply doing an addition to the previous study, according to Medcalf.
“It’s going to pick up in 2013 where the data from the previous study stopped. “Now we have some new cancer types that you all have reported,” she told the crowd gathered for the meeting.
The study was intended to be released in late summer and Medcalf has been sending them emails weekly asking for the results as the tardy results have now pushed into late fall.
“They’re telling me that the study is in executive review. Last time the original study was in executive review, that state tried to squash it,” she said, but the toxicologist who wrote the study insisted that it be published as he wrote it.
Medcalf urged followers to watch their email inboxes over the coming weeks for an update.
The group also discussed the San Jacinto Waste Pits, a long drawn out process by the government to clean up the Superfund site.
The southern waste pit was remediated as outlined in the Record of Decision down to 10 feet that was completed earlier this year. Now they turn their attention to the northern site.
“Most of you probably know that what they’re proposing is outlining the structure with this double Cofferdam wall, and then excavating the material within it,” she explained.
On July 17, the responsible parties submitted a 100 percent design for the cleanup to the EPA.
“We reviewed those documents, thousands of pages of technical writing, and submitted the most intense and lengthy comments and questions ever before to the EPA,” she said.
The group received good news that they were being heard.
“Fast forward to October 25 and the EPA submitted their comments to the responsible parties. In those comments, they incorporated many of the things we asked about, and a lot of that was incorporated,” Medcalf reported.
Some of the concerns were what happens when a truck leaves the site and it hasn’t been cleaned on the inside, and the trucking company hires a third-party company to clean that, does that person know that they should be protected from the dioxins or what they’re about to come in contact with?
THEA members had hoped that the entire site would be taken over by the EPA but that didn’t occur. Now the responsible parties have until November 25 to address the comments and resubmit a design.
Medcalf said she and her staff found numerous inconsistencies in the responsible parties’ comments that the EPA picked up on. The agency submitted 138 comments in total to the 100 percent design. One of those concerned testing at the site.
“One of the other items that was really important to us that we saw get picked up by the EPA was the type of test that will be done on the material before it goes to the disposal facility, which will determine if it is going as hazardous or non-hazardous,” she said.
As of now, the EPA conceded that it would go as non-hazardous, but there’s the caveat that it must be tested before it goes.
“The responsible parties were not even saying that they would test for dioxin. Well, that’s the primary contaminant at this site,” she exclaimed.
The EPA reiterated in their comments to the responsible parties that they have to require that dioxins be tested before the waste is disposed of.”
TxDOT is finally getting more involved in this process. Medcalf said TxDOT is saying maybe they can use that structure to protect the bridge and their construction.
“TxDOT is saying, either we have to reconfigure what is called the BMP, the wall, the cofferdam wall, either we have to reconfigure it, or consider that in the outer structure, staying there, or being there in part to also protect the bridge construction, which isn’t half that idea, if it’s designed to work,” Medcalf said.
The EPA responded that “the pylons are not designed to absorb the full impact of a drifting barge moving at 3.14 feet per second or two miles per hour.”
The report states that a barge moving at that speed would break through the pile barrier, but with substantially dissipated energy.
“The only positive thing I have to say about that is that they’re (EPA) listening. They’re not getting it done quick enough for any of us, but they are listening.”