For the past four years, Jackie Medcalf has been testing the groundwater in northwest Houston where, decades ago, a dry cleaning facility had, over time, dumped hazardous chemicals used in the dry cleaning process into the stormwater drain, ditches and alleyways. The chemicals eventually seeped into the groundwater and migrated west to the community of Cyprus, where Medcalf and her team at the Texas Health and Environment Alliance are still finding contamination.
The Environmental Protection Agency placed the area, known as the Jones Road Ground Water Plume, on its Superfund National Priorities List in 2003 for cleanup.
