The Environmental Protection Agency is developing a plan to clean an industrial site leaking cancer-causing chemicals to dozens of Grand Prairie homes.
But a timeline for the abatement process is still unclear, with EPA officials unable to say when cleanup will start.
Speaking on a virtual call Thursday evening, both federal and state authorities acknowledged frustration with the slow-moving process, but said it is typical with this type of toxic site.
“We understand it’s frustrating,” said Ed Mekeel, who works in community outreach in the EPA’s Dallas office. “For those living around the site, it can be difficult.”
In 2018, the 1.1-acre Delfasco Forge property in Grand Prairie was placed on the Superfund National Priorities List, which includes some of the nation’s most polluted sites.
Roughly 80 homes in the largely low-income Burbank Gardens neighborhood are affected by the toxic chemicals. Yet a report last year by KERA found that many of the residents knew nothing of the toxic site or the ongoing health threat.
Residents who joined the call said they were angry that city, state and federal officials have not done more to clean the site. Some requested indoor air testing at nearby Fannin Middle School, which is just outside the toxic zone.
“This is my family. This is my home, my neighbors,” said one caller who did not identify herself, adding that several family members have fallen ill with various diseases. “We are citizens here being neglected. This is gross neglicence.”
Over the years, tests in the neighborhood have shown that Trichloroethylene, or TCE, contaminated the soil, seeped into the groundwater then vaporized into the air.
Defense contractor Delfasco Forge — which made practice bombs for Navy and Air Force pilots and other machinery during the 1980s and 1990s at the site — used TCE, a degreaser, to clean equipment.
In addition to causing cancer, TCE can cause heart defects in developing fetuses and damage the liver, kidneys, respiratory, immune and central nervous systems in adults. Pregnant women are among the most vulnerable.
The Grand Prairie plant at 114 N.E. 28th St., closed in 1998. In 2008, Delfasco Forge filed for bankruptcy, in part because of liabilities from the contamination.
To clean the site, the EPA said it will likely use a soil vapor extraction system, which is essentially a large vacuum equipped with carbon filters. The technology has been used to clean some 285 other Super Fund sites, project manager Hope Schroeder said.
First, crews must clean the source of the leak before addressing the rest of the neighborhood, Schroeder said.
“It’s cutting the head off,” she said. “If we don’t treat the source first, it will continue to spread.”
Agency officials said they will present a more detailed plan to the community this spring, then will begin a process to hire a contractor for the final design and implementation of an abatement system.
For now, officials with the EPA and the Texas State Department of Health Services urged resident to request a free vapor mitigation system from the EPA be installed in their home.
However, many in the neighborhood are renters, and homeowners must approve the mitigation systems.
The caller who did not identify herself said she feels like she and others in the neighborhood have been swept aside.
“This is irreversible,” she said of the toxins. “What is the immediate plan. Where is the urgency? Why is it taking so long?”
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Originally Appeared Here