The wastewater used to put out the toxic chemical fires as a result of the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment will apparently be trucked to a Houston suburb according to Houston’s Coalition for Environment.
The agency 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.”
During a press conference, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo confirmed that 500,000 gallons (1.8 million liters) of the wastewater had already been delivered to Texas Molecular, a private company in Deer Park that specializes in injecting hazardous waste underground.
“I know that our community was taken aback by the news just as I was,” Hidalgo said. “I also want folks to know there are many things we don’t know that we should know. That doesn’t mean that something is wrong. And I want to stress that point.”
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality told ABC13, that the private Texas company “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.” Meanwhile, George Guillen, a biology and environmental science professor at the University of Houston-Clear Lake told the outlet that deep well injection of toxic wastewater is common practice and poses minimal risk to the current residents of Deer Park… yikes.
“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.”
Residents of Deer Park are obviously concerned about the obvious health ramifications the wastewater could pose and wonder why the hazardous material isn’t transported to a closer facility to East Palestine.
“There has to be a closer deep well injection,” Deer Park resident Tammy Baxter told ABC13 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.”
Meanwhile, the hazardous soil at the site will be delivered to a disposal facility in Wayne, Michigan a suburb of Detroit. According to FOX8, “thousands of cubic yards of contaminated soil from the site” will be transported via dump truck to U.S. Ecology Wayne Disposal. A water disposal facility in Romulus, Michigan (another Detroit suburb) similar to Texas Molecular was also apparently in the running to take the toxic water.
Nonetheless, aside from the environmental concerns associated with Deer Park and potentially Romulus, there’s also plenty of concern concerning the distance it will take to transport the toxic material across the country and the workers who’ll have to make it all possible.
Back on February 3, a Norfolk Southern-owned train that derailed and ignited near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border carrying vinyl chloride and other carcinogenic chemicals. As a result, there have been numerous questions as to the short and long-term environmental impact of the area as well as its livability as residents have complained of headaches and burning skin after taking showers.
