Past Incineration - Present Tragedy

As previously noted, I have made a year long study of DIXICO, INC, formerly of Polk St in Oak Cliff, Dallas, using publicly available documents from EPA and TCEQ (Texas Water Commission and Texas Air Commission); and records from 1989, which were obtained and stored for twenty years by a citizen interested in Dixico's incinerator. Basically, I learned that Dixico used and burned hydrocarbons and solvents of various sorts; and at times, discharged chemicals into Cedar Creek, which runs along their site, through the Elmwood residential area.
Citizens opposed Dixico in 1989, with its chemical run-off into the creek, and its ink spray discharged into the air coating cars, and its incinerator with ash covering neighbor's property-eventually leading to the closure of the facility. Also troubling - soil contamination and a hydrocarbon water plume came to light as "closure" of the facility was occurring, leading to lawsuits and perhaps questionable agreements about final closure. (More contamination was allegedly found in the closure process, which caused denials and dispute.)
From what I can tell, and records tell a convoluted tale, Dixico was let off the hook for environmental damage to the land, water, and air of Texas; YET....I see that official online EPA records show an "INCOMPLETE" clean up or RCRA status.
Hopefully, the status question will be rectified, though I dare not anticipate that anyone will ever figure out what happened to the hydrocarbon plume that moved around underground, hopefully dissipating - but possibly expanding under people's homes.
Yes, that is a lot of emphasis on HOPE, friends; not much emphasis on knowledge and science!

But backing up a bit to tell the Dixico story....
In the 1980s, environmental laws were forcing industry, including Dixico, to report chemicals used, and to report the official burial/disposal places for waste-especially toxic waste. Further, Dixico was forced to put lids on storage barrels, label its waste and solvent tanks, keep records, find invoices for raw materials purchased, provide a flow chart for operations, and identify the contents of the bottom of the nasty incinerator, report leaks from the storage tanks-the list goes on....
After reading about NUMEROUS Dixico violations, I realized that as bad as chemical leaks into the soil and water were-AND THEY WERE BAD; the incinerator really was the most worrisome.
To this day, citizens do not know exactly what was burned in that incinerator, in what amounts, and where all the particles of hazardous waste fell. Particles from incinerators can cover a 65 mile radius around the burner and depending on the chemicals/elements burned can be lethal to persons absorbing those substances.
For example, a woman in her fourth week of pregnancy can produce a defective baby due to chemical exposure; while another woman in her twelfth week may be unaffected. This is playing Russian roulette with human life - because a mother-to-be takes walks in her neighborhood or works in her yard? Because a neighborhood industry got a burn permit? What a ridiculous risk of birth defects.
As for cancer, toxins will alter the DNA of one person causing cancer to form years after exposure, when no industrial endeavor could ever be blamed, yet not obviously impair another person in the same time frame.
Toxins can knock out human immunity allowing cancer and many other diseases to take hold in virtually every organ system-in a percentage of a population.
Chemical exposure ups risk - with certainty.

To discover what was burned at Dixico, we must look at the contents of storage tanks and the metals (chromium) in inks, lead and hydrocarbons - including benzene -which saturated the soil; and understand plastics with dioxin, which coated paper. All that survived the manufacturing process-all waste, specifically solvent waste, was burned and flew like Forrest Gump's feather out into the Oak Cliff night (without equipment that could have possibly trapped dangerous vapor).
What a picture...and a destructive gift to sleeping neighbors who would awake to find white ash covering their home environment!
What was in that ash? Chemicals, metals, and other elements that had formed toxic by-products in the burning process.

So why study this now? What good will it do?
I hope that in studying Dixico, Elmwood residents learn why loved ones got sick, and how citizens were and were not protected by agencies charged with public safety. I would like to know the precise condition of the soil and water in this area now; and I would like to see the parent company of Dixico make restitution for harm-if harm honestly occurred.
Also, if more true clean up has been done than my records show, I would like to know what happened; and if toxic areas have been capped/covered with asphalt/concrete, which seems evident in current photos, I'd like to know that for sure.
Yes, these processes and violations happened 20 years ago, maybe 30, maybe more....but as long as someone is alive who lost a parent, a child, a spouse, a sibling to poison that killed as surely as an assassin's bullet, this travesty is, in my opinion, present tense.
We would be wise to distill important lessons from the story of Dixico.