HOUSTON (AP) — Texas health officials identified a cancer cluster in a north Houston neighborhood polluted by the wood preservative creosote from a nearby railroad operation, prompting calls from residents and the city for a more in-depth investigation of potential ongoing risks.
An assessment by the Department of State Health Services didn’t attempt to determine whether the cancers were linked to chemicals beneath homes in the city’s Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens. But the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality requested the assessment because of residents’ concerns that a plume of polluted groundwater from the Union Pacific site had made some of them sick, and city health officials said it underscored the need for a closer examination.
”I was crying and frustrated,” after learning about the cancer cluster, resident Leisa Glenn told the Houston Chronicle.
