Environment

HOUSTON (FOX 26) — The Texas Department of State Health Services is advising that no one eat any species of fish or crab from the Houston Ship Channel or from the San Jacinto River north of the State Highway 146 Fred Hartman Bridge, saying that "volatile organic compounds" in the water following the International Terminals Company Deer Park facility fire may affect the safety of seafood harvested in those areas.

It has been more than a year since FOX 26 News revealed what some now call "the most thoroughly toxic strip of land on the Texas Gulf Coast."

The Environmental Protective Agency’s dive team discovered that the protective cap at the San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund Site is missing and the underlying waste material was exposed.

The giant companies responsible for tons of dioxin waste dumped near, and now within, the San Jacinto River have agreed to a $115 million plan to completely remove the cancer causing material.

In Texas, it often takes a court house to jar loose the truth and such is the case with the decade-long battle over the San Jacinto River Waste Pits and the half a billion pounds of cancer-causing Dioxin waste dumped there.

Just when folks were truly believing a "dig and haul" solution was a done deal for the Dioxin waste pits on the San Jacinto River, voices of protest are emerging downstream.

Thirty-four days after personally inspecting the leaking, largely submerged Dioxin dump known as the San Jacinto River Waste Pits, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt returned to Houston to tell stakeholders exactly why he's ordered complete removal of the Superfund site and all the cancer-causing material within it.

The San Jacinto Waste Pits are getting moved after the EPA's plan was approved earlier today.

The cleanup plan to address highly toxic dioxin contamination at the San Jacinto Waste Pits Superfund site in Harris County, Texas has been approved. The selected remedy will protect human health and the environment by removing highly contaminated material from the site and securing less contaminated areas. The plan provides certainty to people living near the site by permanently addressing...

Destruction is everywhere. It was the same water which slammed over the Superfund Site where 15,000 truckloads of Dioxin waste have been stored for half a century. Residents like Greg Moss believe the toxin was likely lifted and left in yards and homes.

The San Jacinto Waste Pits are dark colored lagoons full of what some are calling cancer-causing dioxins. Representatives with the Galveston Bay Foundation say at one point the contents spilled into the water.

Partially submerged in the San Jacinto river lay 15,000 truckloads of cancer causing Dioxin waste.

Two weeks after Harvey floodwaters rampaged the notorious Dioxin dump known as the San Jacinto River Waste Pits, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt put his own boots on the ground and his own eyes on the problem, an inspection without precedent.

A raging river first hammered and then enveloped a toxic dump containing 17,000 truckloads of Dioxin waste. Drone video of the Superfund site confirms extensive damage to exposed areas of the so called "protective cap."

It's hardly a secret that a dark cloud of contamination has hung for years over seafood from Galveston Bay. Scientists view the notorious toxic dump known as the San Jacinto River Waste Pits as a major source of the cancer-causing Dioxin found in fish tissue.

From the air, the waste pits appear carved out of Galveston Bay's fragile coastline. Fox 26 has confirmed these "black lagoons"  are dangerously contaminated with the cancer causing chemical known as Dioxin.

Sludge pits feet from Galveston Bay contaminated with dangerous levels of Dioxin.