The Texas Health and Environment Alliance hosted a community meeting Aug. 8 to share the results of its independent testing of 13 different wells near the Superfund site. THEA Assistant Director Rachel Jordan said dry cleaning contaminants were found in two of the wells tested with concentrations being between three and four times higher than the maximum level allowed in public drinking water.
“Anything above zero [parts per billion] can cause an adverse effect, but it's not to say that it necessarily will. Some people say, ‘Why do I have cancer and my neighbor doesn't?’ or ‘Why do I have cancer and my spouse or child doesn’t?’” THEA CEO Jackie Medcalf said. “It's because it depends on a lot of factors, but our children, the elderly and immunocompromised are absolutely the most vulnerable.”
Additionally, in partnership with THEA, The University of Texas Medical Branch tested 55 wells over the past several months. The chemicals were also detected in two of these samples, said Lance Hallberg, the university’s environmental and public health education and engagement program director.
“This was supposed to be a real quick snapshot to try and map whether or not the plume had gone outside of the original boundary,” he said. “Our findings are indicating that we have not found anything that is outside based on the Jones [Road] Superfund site.”
How we got here
Bell Dry Cleaners operated out of the shopping center located at 11600 Jones Road, Houston, from 1988-2002. The property was placed on the National Priorities List in 2003, which gave the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency the authority to clean it up.
Medcalf said because the polluting party is not funding the cleanup process, the property is considered an “orphan site,” making the cleanup process “incredibly slow and bureaucratic.”
A five-year review released by the EPA in September 2022 concluded cleanup goals were “not protective” because residents to the west in Edgewood Estates and Evergreen Woods continue to use private wells and therefore could still be exposed to contaminated groundwater.
“The reason EPA took a stand saying it's not protective [is] because there are people still using the water, and we are encouraging, strongly, and we are willing to give you the connections to protect you,” said Raji Josiam, a remedial project manager who oversees the site’s cleanup activity for the EPA, at the Aug. 8 meeting. “It’s not that we don't have a solution to protect you—we have a solution to protect you. Groundwater cleanup can take hundreds of years because it's so deep, and it's a lot of water.”
In 2008, one of the site remediation efforts included connecting 144 homes and businesses in the affected area to the public water supply. This was a voluntary measure, and only about half of property owners at the time agreed to abandon their private wells to access the safer option of the public water line.
The shopping center is safe to patronize because it has relied on public water since 2008, according to the EPA. The retail site is home to about 12 businesses, including restaurants, a bookstore, a dog groomer and a nail salon, among others.
Some context
Because dozens of property owners continue to rely on private well water, they could be risking chemical exposure. Josiam said the EPA has urged well users to connect to the public water line via multiple door-to-door visits, community meetings and mail communication over the years.
Despite these efforts, only two or three property owners have agreed to plug their wells and connect to the public water line in the next round of connections coming up this fall, Josiam said.
The affected neighborhoods are unincorporated and do not live within a municipal utility district, so the nearby White Oak Bend MUD services those who opt for the public water supply over private wells. Officials said to offset the tax revenue the MUD does not receive from these residents, they are charged 1.5 times more on their monthly water bill.
“A lot of them say, ‘We can’t afford the 1.5 times,’ and some of them say, ‘We have a large lot; we are watering that using well water that's free water for us,’” Josiam said. “So those are the kinds of concerns, and also the other thing is White Oak Bend MUD does want us to plug and abandon the well once we do the water line connections, and that's also a deterrent because some of them say, ‘No, we want to keep our well, but we also want the water line.’”
What’s next
In addition to the water line connections this fall, Josiam said the EPA is planning another round of bioremediation injections in September. Community Impact previously reported this approach helps degrade contaminants at the site and led to 97%-99% contaminant reduction in 2016 and 2018.
A soil vapor extraction system will continue to operate at the shopping center to mitigate contamination levels, and Josiam said the EPA will continue to monitor wells to which they have been granted access.
Hallberg also said air monitor testing will be the next phase of the UTMB’s work with the THEA. Residents will be asked to wear personal air monitors for about three weeks. These devices track residents’ location through GPS and share data about air samples with Hallberg for analysis, he said.
The THEA continues to analyze health surveys the organization has collected from residents over the past several years, Medcalf said, and will eventually ask the Texas Department of State Health Services to study the area for potential cancer clusters or high concentrations of other diseases to which the Superfund site may have contributed. The THEA is also planning a large gathering of experts this fall to help address concerns.
