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The Environmental Protection Agency and Union Pacific Railroad began testing soil for contamination in Houston’s Greater Fifth Ward on Tuesday, marking the beginning of the second phase of testing linked with chemicals from the Union Pacific Railyard.
Teams from both the EPA and the railyard will test numerous spots throughout the community, including parks, schools, the community center before eventually moving on to residents’ yards.
Of the 342 properties in the area, 180 residents are allowing the teams to test their yards.
“This is a very important step as part of the overall environmental assessment that Union Pacific is conducting in the Fifth Ward. The community deserves accurate information based on scientific data to help answer their questions and address their health concerns,” said Kevin Peterburs, Union Pacific’s senior manager for environmental site remediation. “This is why all the work we are doing is conducted under the oversight of the US EPA.”
The soil testing is set to finish by middle of September and the EPA will begin publishing the results in the fall. The first set of testing – which tested the groundwater just north, west and east of the railyard – completed earlier this year with nearly all the results published. Once all the results are in, the EPA will put together a health risk assessment for the community by the end of this year or early 2025.
This assessment will determine how at risk residents may be to the chemicals embedded in the soil and groundwater. There are 41 chemicals associated with the Union Pacific Railyard, but an overall 400 that the EPA is testing for.
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From 1899 to 1984, Southern Pacific Railroad used a toxic substance called creosote for wood preservation at the railyard site in Houston’s Greater Fifth Ward. Union Pacific absorbed Southern Pacific in 1997 and took on the responsibility of the site – meaning more recently testing groundwater and soil throughout the community.
Creosote, a tar-like substance derived from coal and wood, is used to preserve railroad ties by coating the wood with chemicals. These chemicals – which contain several known carcinogens – leached underground and spread into the community, creating a contaminated groundwater plume under residential homes just north of the property.
In 2019, the state designated Greater Fifth Ward, along with Kashmere Gardens and Denver Harbor, a cancer cluster – which means a higher-than-average rate of cancer cases.
Casey Luckett Snyder, EPA project manager for the testing, said the contaminants from the site could have also moved into the neighborhood through the air, such as from burning chemicals, storm water or trucks that were coming to and from the property.
“In 1911, there were no environmental laws, there were no controls,” Luckett Synder said. “So for many, many years, this facility and every other creosote facility in the country operated with no environmental regulations and no controls.”
Testing in Greater Fifth Ward
Since merging with Southern Pacific, Union Pacific has worked with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to test and remediate the railyard. It wasn’t until this past year that the railroad began thoroughly testing the nearby neighborhood.
Peterburs from Union Pacific said the company never saw concerning levels of contaminants on the property or close to the edge of the property that warranted testing within the community. However, for years Greater Fifth Ward residents raised concerns about the unusually high rates of cancer within the area and cases of contaminated water and soil on their properties.
In 2022, the City of Houston, Harris County and a community group called Bayou City Initiative filed an intent to sue in seeking environmental justice for Greater Fifth Ward and Kashmere Garden residents.
Last year, the company voluntarily entered into a deal with the EPA to test the area – including testing groundwater and the soil.
The soil will be tested at different depth intervals, said Peterburs. With a shovel, the testing team will advance down a few inches into the soil and then use a spoon to collect a sample and place it in a laboratory supplied container. This is then shipped to the lab, where it is analyzed through EPA methods.
The EPA and UP will test soil at zero to two inches, two to six inches and then again at six to 12 inches. The team won’t go further down, citing that the closer to the surface, the more at risk residents would be.
New construction is still on pause in the neighborhood after the city implemented a halt last January. This pause is expected to continue until the testing is completed.
So far, testing of groundwater and vapor has shown only a few exceedances in chemicals related to creosote. In one case, Naphthalene – a probable carcinogen that has been shown to cause larynx and intestinal cancer – was detected in water as much as 283 times the EPA screening level. For spots where elevated levels were discovered, the EPA will test further to understand the extent of the contamination. This testing will be done at the same time as the current soil testing.
“This testing and the human health risk assessment will essentially inform whether or not cleanup is necessary for the residential off-site neighborhood,” said Luckett Synder. “If results indicate that there is a risk to human health, that property will be targeted for cleanup and Union Pacific and EPA will have a legal agreement that requires the cleanup.”
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