Nancy Webber still remembers the knock on the door that alerted her to a toxic waste site near her home.
Webber and her family — a husband, two kids — had lived in the South Bend neighborhood near Friendswood for several years and never noticed any problems. Webber liked the area. She and her husband were among the first to buy a lot in the new subdivision, where they build a modest two-story home. Webber grew up near South Bend and knew that’s where she wanted to start her family.
But Cheryl Finley’s door knock changed all that.
Finley inquired if Webber knew about the toxic waste site and asked if she or her family suffered any health problems. Webber told Finley that both of her children had been sick since birth. Her son had 18 upper respiratory infections since he was 2 years old, Webber told her.
Like Webber, Finley originally thought it was a great neighborhood. Finley and her family moved in in the mid-1980s and by 1986, they welcomed their daughter, Kelly, to the family. That’s when Finley first noticed a problem: Her daughter was born without reproductive organs.
“It was shock,” Finley says today. “I asked my OBGYN and he was shocked as well.”
Curious, Finley figured she should speak with her neighbors if they’ve had any strange health issues.
The South Bend neighborhood, which later became known as Brio, sat 20 miles south of Houston. From the 1950s to 1982, the Brio Refining Site, which sat off Dixie Farm Road, was used as a chemical reprocessing and refining facility. It also served as a site for dumping toxic chemicals. But in 1982, the companies that owned the site went bankrupt and it closed. But not before developers began building houses nearby. And when it finally did shut down, families like the Webbers and Finleys were already settling into their new homes.
As Finley spoke with neighbors, she said she noticed a disturbing trend: “There was one I found out that was like Kelly,” she said. “There were all kinds of birth defects and sick children.”
Webber later went to the doctor. She recalled a conversation in which he told her, “I can’t say for sure this is what’s causing it, but I have a lot of patients in the neighborhood and they’ve all been sick.”
That’s when Finley and Webber took their story to Marie Flickinger, the publisher of the South Belt-Ellington Leader newspaper. Flickinger had heard of the site, but never thought there was a problem. As more and more families with sick children walked into her office, speaking about the potential toxic problems at Brio, she began to take notice.
To understand the scope of possible toxic exposure, Flickinger, Finley and Webber began fighting what had become known as the Brio Superfund Site.
There are thousands of Superfund sites across the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These sites include former processing plants — like Brio — or landfills or manufacturing facilities where hazardous waste has been left.
To combat the health and environmental risks these sites pose, Congress created the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation Liability Act (CERCLA). According to the EPA, the act allows the agency to “clean up contaminated sites. It also forces the parties responsible for the contamination to either perform cleanups or reimburse the government for EPA-led cleanup work.”
As news spread in the beginning, many residents living in South Bend believed they were safe. Official reports at the time said there was “no significant risk” or “all tests have been negative.” Political ads ran in newspapers that told people “don’t you believe the media.”
One resident told KHOU 11 News at the time “so far I feel healthy as hell.” Another said, “I think it’s all a bunch of hype.”
But for Webber, Finley and other families who were living with health issues, the hype and effects were very real.
Flickinger fought to close the subdivision, nearby Weber Elementary School and a baseball field nestled next to the site. She recalled a conversation with an EPA spokesperson who she said told her, “Marie, we can’t be the guardians of the neighborhood children.”
“That frankly blew my mind because I thought the EPA was the government agency to protect me, the kids and the neighbors. And here’s the spokesman telling me they won’t take care of kids,” Flickinger said.
She recorded the 13-minute conversation with the spokesperson and paired it with video of black tar bleeding from the ground. She called it “Tarwars” and presented it to families with children playing on the baseball field.
Residents voted to immediately close the baseball field. Shortly after, the Clear Creek ISD school board unanimously voted to close Weber Elementary after saying for years there were no problems.
But it wasn't soon enough for Patricia Steinsholt. Her son, Jeff, went to Weber Elementary in third grade. She believes that’s where her otherwise healthy child developed health issues — it began with nosebleeds and later developed into kidney problems.
To this day, Steinsholt is still angry.
“It makes my blood boil,” she said. “They knew the problem. They knew the situation and the dangers they were putting our children in.”
In 1992, a group of mostly South Bend residents accepted a settlement after claiming injuries due to the Brio Superfund Site. Houston attorney Joe Jamail announced the $207.5 million settlement against two companies, including a $39 million payment from Monsanto Company, which owned the site and dumped most of the dangerous toxins.
But as part of the settlement, neither of the companies had to admit guilt.
Brio is no longer listed as a human health risk by the EPA. The agency said “long-term remedy included excavation and removal of contaminated soil, debris and drums; continued operation of wastewater treatment system; and maintenance and monitoring.” In 2006, the site was taken off the EPA’s National Priorities List.
In its latest report in 2018, the EPA said the remedial actions performed are acting as designed.
Today, you can drive near the site and see new homes being constructed against the fence line, just like South Bend in the 1980s.
But Steinsholt, Finley and Webber still blame the Brio Superfund Site for the effects their families are dealing with today.
Jeff Steinsholt died three years ago at age 34. He spent most of his adult life in the hospital suffering from kidney disease complications.
Finley’s daughter, now in her 20s, has grown without reproductive organs. Her son, born in 1986, is cross-eyed.
Webber still thinks back to that door knock and how her life changed. She and her family finally moved from Brio in the late 1980s. She later took her children to a doctor for testing. She said those tests revealed her children had carcinogens in their blood — 100 times acceptable levels.
“It was probably the worst day of our lives,” Webber said.
Then, in January 2018, Webber was diagnosed with kidney cancer.