HOUSTON – Congressman Christian Menefee is demanding answers from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over its handling of the long-running investigation in Houston’s Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens, saying residents deserve transparency, accountability, and timely information about potential health risks facing their communities.
On Wednesday, Menefee sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin requesting an immediate briefing on the agency’s investigation into contamination stemming from the former Houston Wood Preserving Works site, where creosote pollution spread into the soil and groundwater of surrounding historically Black neighborhoods.
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The request comes as residents continue waiting for the release of the EPA’s Removal Site Evaluation report, which community members had been told would be completed by late 2025 or early 2026 but has yet to be released.
“Community members in Fifth Ward, Kashmere Gardens, and nearby areas have been waiting for answers for years,” Menefee said in a news release. “They have watched family members get sick. They have sat through meeting after meeting. And they still have serious questions about how this process has been run. That is not acceptable.”
The contamination investigation follows years of community advocacy and legal action after the Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed a cancer cluster in neighborhoods surrounding the former Houston Wood Preserving Works site in 2019.
In his letter, Menefee recounted the lengthy history of the case, noting that residents had spent years raising concerns about elevated cancer rates before meaningful government action occurred.
According to Menefee, residents and members of the EPA’s Community Advisory Group continue to raise concerns about how the agency has conducted the investigation.
Some of their questions include how environmental testing locations were selected, how deeply soil samples were collected, which contaminants were included in testing protocols, how testing boundaries were established, and why additional residential sampling recently occurred with little public explanation.
“My constituents have been waiting a very long time,” Menefee wrote. “These communities have serious, longstanding questions about the testing that has been conducted, including how decisions were made about where to test, how deep to test, which contaminants to include, and how the testing zones were defined and bounded.”
Menefee also criticized the Trump administration’s changes to the EPA, arguing they have weakened the federal government’s commitment to environmental justice.
He noted that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin eliminated the agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and closed environmental justice offices nationwide, ended environmental justice as a factor in enforcement decisions, froze nearly $3 billion in grants intended for pollution-burdened communities, and proposed cutting the agency’s overall budget by more than half.
“This administration has made clear that communities like Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens are not a priority,” Menefee said. “They eliminated the offices that existed to fight for people in neighborhoods like this. They gutted enforcement. And now a community that has already waited years for answers is left wondering whether anyone at EPA is still in their corner. I am working to make sure the answer is yes.”
Information Requested from EPA
In his letter, Menefee asked the EPA to provide a comprehensive briefing addressing six key areas:
• The current status and anticipated timeline for releasing the final Removal Site Evaluation report, including whether Union Pacific Railroad has requested any extensions.
• The methodology used during environmental sampling, including testing locations, sampling depths, and contaminants analyzed.
• The purpose and rationale behind recent residential sampling.
• EPA’s plans to communicate findings clearly, accessibly, and promptly to affected residents.
• Any preliminary conclusions regarding potential health risks and anticipated federal actions.
• Access to relevant materials, including interim data summaries, quality assurance documentation, and draft materials related to the investigation where legally permissible.
Menefee stressed that effective communication with residents must remain a priority once the report is released.
“When the report is released, residents in these communities will need the findings explained in clear and understandable language, through channels that actually reach them,” he wrote. “Community members on EPA’s Community Advisory Group have raised this concern directly and repeatedly. I want to know what EPA intends to do to meet that obligation.”