22 May 2023
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — A crowded meeting Friday night left many people with more questions than answers about groundwater contamination near 29th Street North and Grove in Wichita.
Two weeks before the meeting, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment released a health study showing higher liver cancer rates in the 29th and Grove environmental site.
The site is roughly from Interstate 135 on the west, 29th Street on the North, Grove on the east, and around Ninth Street on the south.
The KDHE said the contamination in the area originated with a leak of chemicals at the Union Pacific rail yard approximately 30 years ago or even as far back as the 1970s.
Geologists say the primary contaminant is a volatile organic compound called trichloroethylene (TCE).
Around 100 people attended Friday’s meeting, hoping to learn more about the contamination and potential risks to their health.
Representatives from the KDHE and the Sedgwick County Health Department were at the meeting. The KDHE was hesitant to say that TCE was a direct cause of the higher rate of liver cancer in the area because other possible causes of liver cancer include hepatitis B and hepatitis C.
Many residents at the meeting were frustrated that they had not been kept informed about the situation. Before Friday’s meeting, the only public meeting about the 29th and Grove groundwater contamination was in 2003.
At least one person mentioned that Rep. Gail Finney, the state legislator who represented the area before her death last year, would have fought for the community if health officials had told her what was happening.
“Had she known this was going on, she would have let us know,” one woman said. “So you didn’t let them know because Gail Finney would have kicked on her high heels and put on her boxing gloves and come out to fight with these people.”
Ford Carr is the new representative for District 84. He was at Friday’s meeting.
“I can’t promise you that I will do or be capable of doing any more than someone may have done before me or after me, but what I promise you is that I’ll work like hell to get this done,” Rep. Carr said.
Some in the audience wondered why the KDHE or railroad officials did not put up signs telling people to stay out of the immediate spill area.
Carr grew up in the general area of the spill. He said the KDHE knew about the spill but has not done enough over the decades to keep people in the area out of harm’s way.
He and others want to know why signs were not put up.
Wichita City Council Member Brandon Johnson and Sedgwick County Commissioner Ryan Baty also expressed frustration about the lack of information, and they want answers about how far the contamination has moved over the years.
“There’s a lot of frustration, people wanting answers,” Johnson said.
“As I’ve been saying from the beginning, I think this is a real systematic failure of communication on a lot of levels, and right now, the focus is on 29th and Grove,” Baty said.
At the meeting, they said they are working to determine where the communication breakdown started. Baty said communication with the public must be improved.
“So that we can make sure that the people that are impacted by these contamination sites actually know what’s going on and know the plans to remediate,” he said.
“We’re fighting for our parents. We’re fighting for those of us who grew up in the area, born and raised and grew up in the area, played in well water, drank well water,” former Wichita City Council Member Lavonta Williams told KSN News. “I just want transparency. I want us to be able to communicate with those who live in that area. There’s just so much still that’s going on.”
KDHE says Union Pacific Railroad has been removing soil at the environmental site since 2004 and has been using monitoring wells in the area to track the contamination.
Rep. Carr said he would push the federal government to make the 29th and Grove area a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund site to bring in federal efforts to help clean the area.
The KDHE says it will hold another meeting about this issue in June.
To read the complete 29th and Grove health study, click here.
For background on the incident, information on the Corrective Action Plan, and frequently asked questions about the impacts of the contamination on public health, visit the 29th and Grove webpage.