Although the ship channel is a key maritime thoroughfare, it’s not a source of drinking water for Houston or its suburbs. After the wall failed, officials issued take-shelter warnings to neighboring companies and visitors to the San Jacinto battlefield, site of the 1836 fight that won Texas independence from Mexico.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been testing water samples from the so-called containment area surrounding the tanks that burned. Adam Adams, a coordinator for the agency, said earlier this week that results would be released Friday; several calls to the EPA’s regional office in Dallas were not returned.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board announced late Thursday it will be investigating the blaze. The Texas National Guard dispatched troops to assist local authorities with air monitoring after cancer-causing benzene wafted across the area, prompting take-shelter alerts and road closures.
Thick black smoke filled the sky surrounding the Houston suburbs last week as a massive fire burned at a petrochemical storage facility for four days. Residents of two Texas cities were told to shelter in place as hazardous chemical vapors escaped the foam blanket put in place to extinguish the industrial fire.
"We were held hostage in our own homes," longtime Deer Park resident Steve Michels said. "It's just been horrendous."
Concerns for the health risks facing residents of Deer Park were exacerbated over the weekend. A containment wall at the Intercontinental Terminals Company (ITC) facility broke Friday, sparking another fire and sending chemical waste into waterways that lead to the Houston Ship Channel. The Coast Guard shut down a stretch of that busy shipping channel, with no timetable for when it will reopen.
On Saturday, ITC officials and local authorities continued to assure Deer Park residents that the city is safe. "Our community-monitored programs generated no levels of immediate health concerns," said Alice Richardson, ITC public information officer.
Some area residents like Brian Williams don't trust these assurances. He lives 10 miles from the ITC facility that first caught fire a week ago. "I have a garden in my backyard. I'm about to take it up," he says. "I'm not going to eat anything out of it anymore."
Tests performed by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality over the weekend found nine specific chemicals that "exceed their health-protective concentration level," in water from a ditch at the ITC facility that flows into the channel. But TCEQ says there's no threat to the public drinking water.
'It's not good for you, we know it's not'
Last Tuesday, smoke blew over the roof of Williams' home. He started feeling ill by Wednesday and he vomited on Friday. He says he's confident the symptoms he felt "didn't have anything to do with the pollen in the air."
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality tested the air quality in the area over the weekend, finding low levels of benzene, one of the potentially cancer-causing chemicals they also found in the ditch water. The levels detected weren't high enough to cause health concerns, TCEQ says.
Nevertheless, Williams' skepticism continues. "They say we can't smoke cigarettes, it's bad for your lungs, it's bad for your health," he says. "So when you put heat on any type of chemicals it's not good for you, we know it's not."