How did a toxic waste plant ever get approved in a residential neighborhood?
A community in Houston's south side is desperately seeking help after an abandoned toxic waste plant has
sickened an entire neighborhood for 15 years:
"Everyone on this street has had an ambulance ride - the elderly, the new born babies, the teenagers, the young people, middle age people, everyone. I and my neighbors don't want anyone coming out to our homes with the disastrous things we smell here. It's toxic. It's just dangerous," said Jones.
Bankrupt and abandoned since 2010, it wasn't until this past September that the Environmental Protection Agency seized the six acre site known as CES Environmental Services.
While it is a positive step that the EPA stepped in, residents say progress is
too slow:
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to spend at least $500,000 to remove containers with hazardous chemicals - such as cancer-causing benzene and methyl ethyl ketone, a nose- and throat-irritating solvent - from the CES Environmental Services site on Griggs Road.
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"We don't deserve to have to live like this," said Roselyn Johnson, who has led near the polluted site for 11 years and suffers from chronic lung disease. "The pressure will stay on and we won't stop" until the eight-acre property is fully restored, Johnson said.
The plant was permitted by the city of Houston in 2000 and residents are upset that a lack of zoning laws allowed the toxic waste site to be built in an area surrounded by homes, three schools and a church, something at least one city councilman is
questioning:
"This is a repercussion of having no zoning in the City of Houston," said Dwight Boykins, Houston CIty Councilman.
For residents of this community, let's hope the EPA accelerates the clean-up and the city of Houston begins addressing their harmful lack of zoning laws.
See an August 2014 video about the community and CES Environmental services:
CES Environmental Services say they don't have the money to clean it up and residents say they can't afford to move. It's time for the EPA to step up the clean-up and protect the residents of this community. It's also past time for the city of Houston to take action, change zoning laws and make sure something like this never happens again.