Common Dreams “It’s foolish to put it on the roadway,” said one Houston-area resident. “We have accidents on a regular basis. Do they really want to have another contamination zone?”
Residents and officials in Harris County, Texas have expressed alarm since learning that contaminated water used to extinguish a fiery train crash in East Palestine, Ohio has been transported more than 1,300 miles to a Houston suburb for disposal.
Houston’s Coalition for Environment, Equity, and Resilience tweeted Thursday: “We are disturbed to learn that toxic wastewater from East Palestine, Ohio will be brought to Harris County for ‘disposal.’ Our county should not be a dumping ground for industry.”
The Norfolk Southern-owned train that derailed and ignited near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border on February 3 was carrying vinyl chloride and other carcinogenic chemicals. After ordering evacuations, authorities released and burned hazardous materials from several tanker cars to avert a catastrophic explosion. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of water used to put out the flames have been collected and trucked to Texas Molecular, a private company in Deer Park that specializes in injecting hazardous waste underground.
“There has to be a closer deep well injection,” Deer Park resident Tammy Baxter toldABC13 on Wednesday night. “It’s foolish to put it on the roadway. We have accidents on a regular basis. Do they really want to have another contamination zone? It is silly to move it that far.”
ABC13 reported that Baxter “first heard that the waste may be transported to the city she lives in from a video circulating on social media.” After calling the mayor’s office in Deer Parkâone of 34 communities in Harris Countyâ”she expected a return phone call dispelling the rumor. Instead, it was confirmed.”
“I am disturbed,” said Baxter. “I am shook by the information.”
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality told ABC13 that Texas Molecular “is authorized to accept and manage a variety of waste streams, including vinyl chloride, as part of their [Resource Conservation and Recovery Act] hazardous waste permit and underground injection control permit.”
George Guillen, a biology and environmental science professor at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, told the local news outlet that deep well injection is a typical practice that poses minimal risks to the health of current Deer Park residents.
“This injection, in some cases, is usually 4,000 or 5,000 feet down below any kind of drinking water aquifer,” said Guillen, who also serves as the executive director of the Environmental Institute of Houston. “Could it come up someday? Yes, maybe, but hundreds of years from now or thousands of years from now.”
But he shared Baxter’s concerns about the dangers of transporting toxic wastewater hundreds of miles across the country…
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE… (commondreams.org)
Home | Caravan to Midnight (zutalk.com)
We need your help to keep Caravan to Midnight going,
please consider donating to help keep independent media independent.