News Release: If The EPA Is Serious About Cleaning Up Old Superfund Sites, Start With the San Jacinto River!
Recently, we sent a new release to the media alerting reporters that the San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund Site may be one of the first big tests of whether the EPA is serious about taking care of old, neglected sites. The EPA Administrator has said too many Superfund sites have waited years to be cleaned up and the agency’s priority would be to address the backlog.
The San Jacinto River site is one of those locations. The EPA ordered the cleanup eight years ago, but has been wrangling with the companies responsible for the site ever since. Right now it is at an important decision point and EPA officials will need to decide whether to finally force the companies to move forward with the clean up.
That means this may be one of the first decisions the EPA makes about whether to enforce the law or simple delay the decision.
Here’s our statement to the media.
News Release - The San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund Site: Early test of EPA Administrator Zeldin’s commitment to clean up existing toxic sites.
New research shows home values near Superfund Sites fall by 27% when hurricanes threaten. The head of the EPA can fix that by ordering the cleanup.
HOUSTON, TEXAS — August __, 2025 — Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin is on record saying that, despite cuts to the agency’s workforce and budget, his priority is to clean up existing Superfund Sites. "Each Superfund site has its own unique circumstances and challenges," Zeldin said. "But the overall posture of the Trump EPA is that we want to expedite every timeline possible."
The San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund Site will be an early, if not the first, test of that commitment. “The EPA ordered the cleanup of this site in 2017 during the first Trump administration,” said Jackie Medcalf, CEO and Founder of Texas Health and Environment Alliance (THEA), “and we are still waiting for the dioxin to be removed from the site’s Northern Pit. The community, the river and Galveston Bay have continued to live under the threat this toxic site poses. Meanwhile the costs of delay continue to rise.”
A newly released study pinpoints the impact delays have on property values for the surrounding community. The study, which was published earlier this year, looked at the combined impact that Superfund sites have on home values in the Houston area, especially in areas that experience flooding. It found that property values drop by 27% for homes that are within a half mile of a site and are still felt by residents living a mile from the site. “Residents near this site already pay a price in cancer and other illnesses,” said Medcalf, “What this study shows is that failure to clean up the site has robbed the community of more than 15 years of growth and prosperity since it was first added to the Superfund Priorities list in 2008.”
Ironically, delays even cost the two companies responsible for the cleanup, International Paper and McGinnes Industrial Maintenance Corporation, a subsidiary of Waste Management, Inc. The original price tag for the San Jacinto cleanup was estimated at around $115 million and was supposed to take 27 months. However, developing a construction plan has dragged on for eight years, in large part because the companies have requested and received delays and have engaged in protracted negotiations with the EPA. Meanwhile, inflation has driven up the costs.
“At this point, the delays may not even be the best interests of the companies or their shareholders. Waste Management and International Paper don’t talk about how the cost of the project has gone up, but you can compare it to other major construction projects, like roadbuilding, where inflation has doubled costs since 2017. Just looking at Waste Management’s shareholder reports, that means the cost of delaying this project is rising faster than the company’s profits or shareholder stock prices,” Medcalf says.
Administrator Zeldin has stated, “My goal is that if a dollar is spent, that the dollar is spent on directly remediating the environmental issue.” That’s what makes San Jacinto such an important test of whether the EPA is serious about cleaning up the backlog of Superfund sites. Years of staff time and hundreds of thousands of pages have gone into the San Jacinto Northern Waste Pit project with little to show for it, except the reduction of the public’s faith in the Superfund program.
“The rising cost of delay hurts everyone,”Medcalf said. “Administrator Zeldin can send a strong message by ordering the cleanup of the San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund Site.