The San Jacinto Waste Pits may be Houston’s best-known Superfund site. The chemicals they harbor are at constant risk of leeching out and poisoning both nearby residents and Houston’s seafood supply.
But the Pits are not the only toxic site. As my guest Jackie Young Medcalf will tell you, there is a noxious ground water plume on Jones Road in Northwest Houston and a creosote plume in Greater Fifth Ward. She is dedicated to getting all these sites cleaned up. Her goal is to bring justice to the communities they have poisoned.
It’s been close to a decade since she entered this fight. For the past five years she’s been able to count on support from her organization THEA, the Texas Health and Environment Alliance.
Find out how Young Medcalf found her way into the environmental justice movement and how she grew up within it. I bet you’ll walk away with this impression: When it comes to environmental justice, Young Medcalf is simply relentless.
Resources on the San Jacinto Waste Pits and other toxic sites:
- Environmental Protection Agency homepage for the San Jacinto Waste Pits.
- Environmental Protection Agency homepage for the Jones Road groundwater plume.
- A 25-minute video reportage by Al Jazeera on the Greater Fifth Ward cancer cluster.
- Report by the Government Accountability Office on the risk of storm surge to non-federal Superfund sites (such as the San Jacinto Waste Pits). Go here to view the report’s interactive graphic.
- Rice University’s Leadership in Action program.
- The tap water database of the Environmental Working Group. Enter your zip code to find out what lurks in your water.
Episode Transcript
To view the episode transcript, click here to open the pdf file.