State officials have identified a cancer cluster in a north Houston neighborhood near a site contaminated over many decades by railroad operations that treated wooden ties with the hazardous product creosote.

Creosote, a preservative considered a probable cancer-causing substance, or carcinogen, by the Environmental Protection Agency, was used for more than 80 years in a railroad yard located in the historically black neighborhoods of Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens. Creosote treatments ceased there in the 1980s, but chemicals sank deep into the ground and created a plume that has moved beneath an estimated 110 homes in the area and contaminated groundwater.

Greater-than-expected incidences of adult cancers were identified near the site, according to a report by the Texas Department of State Health Services.

“Staff analyzed Texas Cancer Registry data available for a 17-year period spanning from 2000 through 2016,” according to the report. “Lung and bronchus, esophagus, and larynx cancers were statistically significantly greater than expected.”

The state’s health department said in a statement that the analysis cannot prove what caused the observed cancers in the area. But while the study does not directly link the creosote contamination to the cause of the cancer cluster, experts say the types of cancers identified are consistent with the chemicals, such as arsenic, that make up creosote. Exposure to arsenic, the Environmental Protection Agency has found, is linked to lung cancer.

“The contaminants in the plume are linked to those specific cancers (found),” said Loren Hopkins, the chief environmental science officer for the Houston Health Department. “It was a very severe situation before (the cluster was found), and now it’s tragic.”

In January 2019, the city of Houston — as a whole — was found to have elevated levels of intrahepatic bile duct cancer, a rare form of the disease that occurs in the bile ducts of the liver. But the cancer cluster in the Fifth Ward/Kashmere Gardens area is otherwise the first identified within Houston’s city limits in the last four years. There have been three cancer studies conducted by the state’s health department in Houston during that time.

The study of the Fifth Ward/Kashmere Gardens neighborhoods compared rates of cancers in 10 census tracts on both sides of the rail yard near Liberty Road to rates that would be expected in the state of Texas, holding demographic characteristics such as race, sex and age constant. The study found that the rates were significantly higher than what would statistically be expected.

For some residents, the study proves what they suspected all along.

“I knew I was right, I watched these people die,” said Sandra Edwards, 53, who grew on Lavender Street across the street from the rail yard. “Union Pacific needs to own up to it.”

On HoustonChronicle.com: Neighbors contend with rail yard after decades of contamination

Union Pacific Railroad of Omaha, Neb. became the owner of rail yard when it acquired Southern Pacific Rail in 1996, about dozen years after creosote operations had ended. In 2014, Union Pacific began sending letters to residents whose homes were found to be in the contamination zone.

The company asked residents to agree to never use their groundwater as a well source in order to obtain a renewal permit from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state’s environmental regulator. The renewal permit would largely have allowed the company to leave the contamination in the ground without pursuing more extensive cleanup efforts, which the company argued were both unnecessary and too difficult.

TCEQ in April asked the company to test the air in homes that might be affected by the contamination. After determining that Union Pacific’s well monitoring system was inadequate, the agency asked the company to install more wells to perform more frequent extraction of the contamination. TCEQ also requested a cancer cluster study be completed.

On HoustonChronicle.com: State asks Union Pacific to test air in homes affected by creosote contamination near Houston’s Fifth Ward

“TCEQ continues to oversee cleanup activities being performed at the site,” said Andrew Keese, spokesperson for TCEQ, in a statement.

The city has also tried to assist residents in the area. It is conducting its own health study to determine the methods by which residents may have been exposed to contamination.

Raquel Espinoza, a Union Pacific spokesperson, said Thursday that the company had just received the Department of State Health Services’ study and was still reviewing it.

For some residents, the news hit hard, suggesting that loved ones were victims of something larger than chance.

“I was crying and frustrated (after learning about the cancer cluster),” said Leisa Glenn, a resident of the area whose mother died of cancer. “My mother didn’t have to die. If we knew she would get cancer, you think we would have stayed there? No.”

Union Pacific, which has sent representatives to meetings with residents in the last year, has said that it understands the community's concerns and will comply with TCEQ’s environmental standards.

Kashmere Gardens is one of the oldest and poorest communities in Houston. The median income in the area is $26,644, compared to $49,399 for all of Houston. About 35 percent of families live in poverty, more than double Harris County’s 14 percent poverty rate, according to the Census. Residents said they believe Union Pacific does not care about their plight because they don’t have the resources to take on a multibillion dollar company.

Residents said they did not find out about the contamination until they started receiving the letters from Union Pacific. They subsequently organized a group, IMPACT, to pressure Union Pacific to conduct further cleanup efforts in the area. They also contacted city and state representatives to request further action.

In April, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee hosted a town hall in the community. It was at that meeting that TCEQ agreed to request a cancer cluster study be done on the area.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Houston residents push for study on rail yard contamination

Derek Jones, 64, who has lived in the community all his life, said that policymakers need to address environmental issues in general — not just the rail yard contamination, but pollution all over Houston.

“This is just one source,” Jones said. “There’s air pollution, we’ve seen what’s going on with the refinery fires. We’ve had flooding, and we don’t know what contaminants are coming from the Bayou. We don’t know what pollutants are being put into our environment.”

Hopkins, the city’s environmental officer, said the next step to address the creosote contamination would likely be an epidemiological study that would attempt to determine the cause of the cancer cluster. In the meantime, residents said they’ll keep fighting to bring attention to the issue.

“Someone needs to be held accountable,” said Richard Hudson, who lived in the area for 30 years, and whose mother and brother died of cancer. “I don’t want my family or anyone else’s to go through anything like this.”



The story was updated to reflect the time frame that the state's health department tracks cancer clusters.

erin.douglas@chron.com

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