Highlands, Texas is a small community on the outskirts of Houston that sits beside the San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund Site. The two pits, just shy of 34 acres combined, were originally built in the 1960s to house waste materials from a paper mill.
Last month, based on a request from The Texas Health and Environment Alliance (THEA), the State of Texas released a cancer rate assessment that determined that a 250-square-mile area along the San Jacinto River, including the Superfund Site, is a cancer cluster.
“Highlands, Texas, is on the banks next to the Superfund Site and has just been gutted by one environmental problem after another,” Jackie Medcalf, the founder of THEA, told EHN.
The waste pits are contaminated with cancer-causing dioxins and furans, resulting in the areas becoming classified as a Superfund Site by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2008. Former EPA Administrator Earthea Nance called the pits “one of the most complex Superfund sites in the nation.”
In addition to the waste pits, the San Jacinto River is situated within the nation’s petrochemical corridor along the Houston Ship Channel. The 52-mile long channel hosts more than 600 petrochemical plants that produce products like plastics, fertilizers, and pesticides. Pollution from these industries pose numerous environmental health concerns, including increased exposure to other carcinogens like benzene.
The Texas Health and Environment Alliance (THEA) was founded by former Highlands resident Jackie Medcalf to provide communities with the technical and regulatory expertise needed to make environmental laws work for them.
THEA produced this video op-ed to highlight the cumulative impacts of multi-source pollution on environmental health in Highlands, Texas.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect an attribution error. THEA founder Jackie Medcalf provided the quote about Highlands being gutted by environmental problems, not Ken Wells as the story originally stated.
- Cancer rates rise near toxic waste site in Texas ›
- EPA poised to overtake 'deficient' San Jacinto toxic waste pit cleanup ›
- Plastic chemicals are more numerable and less regulated than previously thought: Report ›
- Petrochemical plants send millions of pounds of pollutants into waterways each year: Report ›
- Texas has more chemical emergencies than any other state and they’re disproportionately affecting Latino communities ›
- Houston area has more than 100 unauthorized air pollution events already this year ›
