Fifth Ward plan isn’t a simple fix
Mayor recommends a $5 million relocation program, but what if soil test results come back negative?
There was a simple question before a handful of Fifth Ward residents and advocates gathered around a wooden table in a small room tucked inside the East End office of Coalition of Community Organizations last Wednesday: stay or leave.
For years now, they’ve sat in meetings like this one to discuss the possible lingering contamination from a longrunning wood preserving operation in the Fifth Ward that ceased work in the 1980s. Now, finally, someone is actually offering the historically Black community some money, thanks to a proposed $5 million voluntary relocation fund put forward in City Council last week by Mayor Sylvester Turner. Up to $250,000 for homeowners and $10,000 for renters looking to relocate.
Leisa Glenn listens thoughtfully at the meeting. Nearly a decade ago, she helped organize the advocacy group IMPACT. Back then, they were asking for testing, community investment and a health clinic to help the family members and friends who had fallen ill. Thanks to IMPACT’s work, the state conducted a cancer cluster analysis between 2019 and 2021 that found elevated levels of five different types of cancer. It validated what families had suffered through for years. The community is still losing residents. In August, Barbara Beal, one of the longtime organizers, died of cancer at age 77. Seated at the table alongside Glenn, Robert Lewis is currently battling cancer. Who wouldn’t want out? But the question isn’t so simple.
“I’m not clear,” at-large Councilmember Letitia Plummer tells the group, “I can’t tell you what to do,”
The link between the railyard that once used creosote to treat railroad ties and the elevated cancer levels seems obvious. But so far, there’s no conclusive evidence. After the city health department conducted limited soil sampling in the area that found dioxins, the state reviewed the data and ultimately found there was no clear connection to cancer. That was back in January. The public didn’t see it until Union Pacific, the current owners of the site, released it in August. Around the same time, the company finally began gathering permission from residents for the EPA-approved testing plan that promised to offer the most comprehensive results of just exactly what lurked in the soil or had vaporized into the air.
The assumption behind the mayor’s program is that area is actively in harm’s way, and that the testing will bear that out when results eventually come sometime in 2024. That could trigger even more funding for remediation or even relocation.
But Plummer sees another possible outcome: “The research and data we’re seeing currently in the soil right now may not substantiate the funding.”
This catches everyone’s attention. It was easy to see Union Pacific’s release of the state report as self-motivated. But as Plummer, who reviewed all the current data with experts at the Morehouse School of Medicine, shares her own concerns, others begin to nod in agreement and speak up with their own questions.
Nobody wants to lose Fifth Ward. Development is already closing in on the area. Residents are concerned about what would happen to their property if they accept a buyout. It’s unclear. Generally, buyouts require that the property not be resold because of the present risk, but what if there isn’t one? Would the city change its mind and allow future development?
“Fifth Ward made my family,” Plummer tells the group. “We all know it is a key location in the city.”
Glenn’s home on Lavender Street just across from the railyard owned by Union Pacific has served as a kind of refuge for family members who needed it, where people recover after hurricanes or divorces or other struggles. She doesn’t plan to give it up.
“That’s the most beautiful site on Lavender,” she said. “You can stand there and look at downtown and see the fireworks.”
We understand the sense of urgency the mayor seems to be feeling. Beal felt it, too, according to her friends. But clearly many aren’t sure. Without sufficient data, how could they be?
At City Council’s public session Tuesday, several residents expressed their gratitude to Turner but reiterated their ongoing concerns. One asked for a possible community benefits agreement to guide the use of the funds after he leaves office.
As the council prepares to vote Wednesday, we urge them to pass the allocation but to push for a plan that incorporates community desires, is protected against the changing winds of a new administration and has a proposal for how to use the funds if it turns out only a few people want to move.