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Fault Lines, the Emmy and Peabody-award-winning documentary programme by Al Jazeera English, is releasing a documentary, “Houston’s Cancer Cluster,” that follows the quest for answers and accountability by an African-American group after their Texas neighbourhood has been declared a cancer cluster.
Last year, the state of Texas found unusually high rates of certain types of lung and throat cancer in two historically black neighborhoods in East Houston, Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens. Many residents suspect that the nearby railroad, owned by the railroad giant Union Pacific, has something to do with it.
For almost 75 years, the railyard had been treating railway ties with a toxic compound called creosote, which the US Environmental Protection Agency has identified as a probable human carcinogen. The groundwater under more than 100 properties around the railyard is contaminated with chemicals found in creosote. And the cancers found in the cluster are associated with exposure to créosote.
Fault Lines focuses on the stories of three women, including Schrhonda Babineux, whose husband grew up in Kashmere Gardens and is dying from esophageal cancer. When we met her, Schrhonda was spending her hours outside of work caring for her husband as he fought for his life.
Andre West grew up in the Fifth Ward. Two of her sisters died from lung cancer when they were in their 60s. Neither smoked. Andre long suspected the chemicals at the railyard made them sick and has joined local activists to force Union Pacific to answer for the pollution in the community.
Sandra Edwards leads IMPACT, a community group that pressures the state to conduct an epidemiological study that could identify the cause of the cancer cluster. But nine months after the cancer cluster was discovered, Texas has not yet agreed to do one.
In an exclusive group interview, Fault Lines spoke to more than a dozen men who worked at the railyard, who described how carelessly-stored creosote flowed into the neighborhoods for decades whenever it rained.
Union Pacific declined to interview Fault Lines. It was stated in a statement that residents are not exposed to contaminated groundwater and denied access to a cluster of cancers.
The Houston outbreak of COVID-19 has reduced the organisation of efforts. But the pressure could work. The Houston Health Department has set aside funds for environmental testing and is investigating the feasibility of an epidemiological study.
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27/05/2020
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