EPA cleanup order renews hope for San Jacinto River waste pits cleanup

A new EPA cleanup order has put International Paper and McGinnes Industrial Maintenance Corporation under fresh pressure to finally move dirt at the San Jacinto River waste pits, where contaminated sludge has sat near east Harris County for decades. Families in Channelview, Highlands and Baytown have waited through caps, plans and delays while the site remained one of the county’s most notorious pollution problems.

The pits were built in the 1960s to hold solid and liquid waste from a Pasadena paper mill, and NOAA says the material was later abandoned in the late 1960s. River changes partially submerged the northern impoundments, allowing contaminants to escape into the San Jacinto River and beyond. EPA added the site to the Superfund National Priorities List in 2008, then covered the impoundments with an armored cap in 2011 as a temporary containment measure.

The latest order, issued in April 2026, requires the two companies to remove more than 230,000 cubic yards of toxic waste and meet safety standards at the Northern Impoundments and sand separation area. EPA warned that violations could trigger civil penalties of more than $71,000 a day. The agency has already approved the northern remedial design, on Sept. 9, 2025, but it has not yet given residents a clear start date for the excavation work.

That uncertainty matters because the cleanup has already been promised before. EPA’s 2017 Record of Decision called for excavation and off-site disposal of almost 212,000 cubic yards of dioxin-contaminated material, with the remedy estimated at about $115 million. EPA later raised the estimated cost for the northern impoundments to roughly $210.9 million to $262.3 million in 2025 dollars. International Paper completed remedial action construction for the Southern Impoundment in 2023, but the northern work still has not begun.

The cleanup fight now overlaps with a public health warning that has intensified community anger. Texas health researchers found elevated cancer rates in a 65-census-tract area of east Harris County between 2013 and 2021, including leukemia, cervix uteri cancer, lung and bronchus cancer and lymphoma. One report said the affected area covered about 250 square miles and roughly 330,000 residents.

For longtime residents like Gene Hennigan, the cancer findings only deepened fears that have followed the site for years. Local officials including Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsey and Texas Health and Environment Alliance founder Jackie Medcalf have pushed for faster action and more transparency, while NOAA says the site still threatens surface water, sediment, soil, vegetation, wildlife and recreation. Fish-consumption advisories remain in effect for fish and blue crab, leaving the community to measure progress not by promises, but by whether the river finally starts to heal.