Houston officials on Wednesday approved $5 million for a fund to help relocate residents from neighborhoods located near a rail yard polluted by a cancer-linked wood preservative that has been blamed for an increase in cancer cases.
Residents and local officials have long blamed the high number of cancer cases on contamination from a Union Pacific rail yard near two historically Black neighborhoods, Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens. The wood preservative creosote, which has been associated with an increased risk of contracting cancer, was used for more than 80 years at the site until the 1980s. City officials say the contamination has reached the groundwater in the neighborhoods.
