Chemical Plant Dilemma Traces Back to 1950s

Jul. 18–MISSION — Residents living near the site of an old chemical plant have traveled a long road that might have reached a turning point this week.

Representatives of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality did a “site walk” Tuesday and Wednesday at the old Hayes-Sammons Chemical Company plant on Holland Avenue at Perez Street. The purpose of the visit was to determine how to take samples of the area to test for possible pollutants.

The investigation began after U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, wrote a letter June 14 to the EPA urging the agency to begin testing the site. Doggett wrote that he was told in May 2004 that the EPA planned to begin its investigation within two months, but more than a year later the testing had not yet begun.

EPA spokesman Dave Bary said the agency was in the process of renewing a contract for sampling and analysis services.

“We did finally find a new contractor,” Bary said. “That was the primary reason for the delay.”

On Thursday afternoon, Scott Harris, on-scene coordinator for the EPA, said the agency planned to test all areas of the site.

“We are going to coordinate that with the TCEQ,” he said. “We are going to assess the entire site, sample in and under the building, at the old cap site area, old parts of the site. That was the plan all along.”

Harris said he believed contractors would return to the site within “the next few weeks” to begin taking samples. He said that phase of the operation would take about a week. Once the samples are in the lab, analysis would take about three weeks.

Harris would not speculate on possible options once the analysis is complete.

“That would be kind of premature,” he said. “It depends on what the problem is. We don’t know what the hazard is, what kinds of chemicals are there, how bad it is and how much is there.”

This is only the latest in a long saga that began many years ago, when local residents made top dollar for mixing chemicals that would one day be blamed for causing cancer and numerous other maladies. Those chemicals are believed to still linger in residual amounts around the old facility, and that’s what local residents want removed, once and for all.

In the 1950s and ’60s, the area’s main economic base was agriculture, and the Hayes-Sammons Chemical Company was a major employer in the city’s primarily Hispanic part of town, according to Monitor archives. Many local residents worked in the plant’s storage and mixing plants, handling DDT and other compounds with their bare hands. Hundreds of agricultural compounds at the site sent up clouds of toxic dust during that time while workers prepared and packaged the chemicals, many of them pesticides. However, they made good money, and they were able to buy good homes and have a better life than many ever dreamed.

Decades later, this prosperity exacted a heavy price. People began dying of cancer, babies were born with serious medical conditions. In the surrounding neighborhood, many homes even today have someone who has suffered from lymphoma, pancreatic cancer, liver disease or other ailments.

Hayes-Sammons became Mission Chemical Company in 1966, but that company went out of business two years later. Frank Dusek purchased the mixing facility in 1973 and used it to sell industrial and farm equipment until he died last year, according to Monitor archives.

However, controversy about the site has raged for decades.

The EPA tested the area around the facility in 1980 and found at least 10 different chemicals, including DDT, chlordane and toxaphene. Those chemicals were present in amounts several times higher than what is considered safe for human exposure, and the EPA placed a cap of caliche and asphalt on the site.

However, fears about possible contaminants lingered in the community, and TCEQ did a removal of pesticide-contaminated soils in the surrounding neighborhoods in 2002 to 2003, said Kelly Cook, TCEQ project manager.

“We started the cleanup in November 2002 in residential properties around the mixing plant and various properties across the street from the mixing plant,” Cook said.

In response to continued health concerns, the EPA took soil samples in 2003 from around the capped area and found no excessive levels of chemicals, said Greg Fife, federal on-scene coordinator.

“What they showed was traces of pesticides, probably the same levels you’d find just because it’s used there,” Fife said earlier this year. “We’re not making a lot of decisions based on that, it was such a short handful of samples. If our decision was based on that, we wouldn’t be going out there and doing anything.”

Fife said the EPA had very little information on the facility at this time.

“We don’t show anything coming out of the cap and nothing in the building,” he said. “We have no data on the building for us to condemn it or protect it or anything else.”

Bill Rhotenberry, former on-scene coordinator for the EPA, said last year that, during the past 20 years, the cap has worn off in several places, revealing the bare caliche. The EPA, he said at the time, was looking at findings of the soil and water samples, the condition of the cap and considering its options. He suggested at the time one of the options was to recap the site. However, nearby residents scoffed at the idea, saying it was just a temporary solution.

A lawsuit filed in 1999 claimed that Hayes-Sammons and 27 other companies caused a grim list of health problems and made the land in the area unusable. One of the companies, Helena Chemical Company, settled with plaintiffs in April. However, the case is far from over, said attorney Ramon Garcia, who is representing almost 2,000 people.

Garcia, who is also the Hidalgo County Judge, said he plans to continue the lawsuit with the other companies involved. It was scheduled to go to trial in May; however, defendants in the case petitioned the Texas Supreme Court in early May, arguing the lawsuit should be tried one case at a time. The court issued a stay that same month, saying it would review all the issues of both parties and then make a decision. Garcia said he hopes to get an answer anytime. He feels the cases should be tried all at once.

“We are entitled to that,” he said. “We should do that many at one time. We are trying to speed it up. Otherwise, it will be time consuming and expensive. It’s not practical to try them one at a time.”

Garcia said his experts have shown evidence that chemicals used at the plant have presented medical hazards to residents living nearby.

“It’s abundantly clear that the chemicals caused health problems,” Garcia said. “Different chemicals and different exposure levels cause different health problems.”

It’s also abundantly clear to Ofilia Wright, whose mother has lived on West Second Street since 1952.

“I don’t think we all inherited conditions like lupus and kidney disease,” said Wright, 54, who grew up in the house but has lived in California for many years. She has been lucky, suffering only from arthritis and other complications which she considers normal. Her 10 brothers and sisters, however, are another story.

One 61-year-old sister in North Carolina has lupus, another living in the Mission area has a blood disorder, another sister has had cancer of the stomach and numerous other health problems. Her son, 34, has poor vision in one eye and has suffered from high blood pressure since he was 18.

Her mother, Ofilia Flores-Cortinas, 84, has had heart surgery, diabetes and several strokes.

She’s glad the EPA inspectors are visiting the area.

“They should have done that a long time ago,” she said.

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