UP calls for collaboration on environmental cleanup of Houston site

Union Pacific Railroad yesterday announced it received the results of the city of Houston's dioxin study, which shows dioxin levels in the city’s samples are well below the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s cleanup standards for dioxins in residential areas.

UP requested the data as part of an initiative to remediate the former Southern Pacific Houston Wood Preserving Works site. The Class I is calling for "accuracy and collaboration in response to the dioxin study," UP officials said in a prepared statement.

In June and July, the city's health department collected soil samples from around the UP's Houston rail yard, which came under scrutiny after higher-than-usual levels of some cancers were found in adults and children in the surrounding neighborhoods, The Houston Chronicle reported.

"These test results raise an added level of concern," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a prepared statement, according to the newspaper. "No longer are we just talking about a dangerous plume beneath the surface, but a cancer-causing substance, dioxin, at the surface level."

Attributing widespread dioxin only to operations at the former wood-tie site is "unreasonable and inaccurate," UP officials said, noting that nearly 100 businesses operated for more than a century in the highly industrialized area by the site.

Manufacturers, metal foundries, auto shops, electrical contractors, printing plants, laundromats and other businesses all operated in the area near the former Houston Wood Preserving Works site, UP officials added.

In addition to dioxins, the chemical remnants those types of businesses may have left behind include arsenic, vinyl chloride, lead, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds, they said.

Until the 1980s, Southern Pacific spent decades using creosote to treat wood for rail ties at the Houston facility, affecting soils and groundwater. UP took responsibility for remediation activities when it merged with Southern Pacific, which was 13 years after the facility closed in 1984, UP officials noted.

Over the past 25 years, UP conducted cleanup activities under the oversight of state regulators. The railroad has met with city and county officials and local community advocates to discuss more aggressive cleanup measures, containment and remediation activities.

Houston is an essential hub for UP, and the company aims to work with the city, Harris County and the Bayou City Initiative to collect data and formulate a sound, science-based plan for moving forward, UP officials said.