"In Texas, environmental activists and experts raise the alarm about the impact on the state’s petrochemical industry."
"For the past four years, Jackie Medcalf has been testing the groundwater in northwest Houston where, decades ago, a dry cleaning facility had, over time, dumped hazardous chemicals used in the dry cleaning process into the stormwater drain, ditches and alleyways. The chemicals eventually seeped into the groundwater and migrated west to the community of Cyprus, where Medcalf and her team at the Texas Health and Environment Alliance are still finding contamination.
The Environmental Protection Agency placed the area, known as the Jones Road Ground Water Plume, on its Superfund National Priorities List in 2003 for cleanup.
“These chemicals are undetectable to the resident who lives above it. They’re strongly associated with different diseases, and the contamination can come up through the ground as a vapor,” Medcalf said. “And we’re still finding it in the water.”
This groundwater contamination was top of mind when Medcalf heard about a new draft bill crafted by the House of Representatives in January. The bill would amend large portions of the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act — a series of EPA regulations meant to police the manufacturing, processing and use of chemical substances, including such contaminants as those found at Jones Road."
