Flood Aftermath: Is the Trinity Poisoned?

There seems to be some difference of opinion about the danger posed by that recently publicized chemical waste dump near Grand Prairie. After the dump site was revealed in an ABC News documentary, local EPA officials and the state Department of Water Resources denied it constituted any imminent hazard. “We’ve made every test we can think of, ” Water Resources supervisor David Gill told the Dallas News, “and we’ve found no problems.”

Maybe so, but more recently another EPA spokesman told us that the dump site, formerly the property of the now-bankrupt Bio-Ecology Systems Inc., was at least a “potential hazard.” Because the site includes some flood plain area, the spokesman said, much of the grease, gasoline, and deadly solvents dumped there could be spread by heavy rains and flooding. And since early May brought what many believe to be the worst flooding in the area in a decade, we’re curious about how the fish in the nearby Trinity are faring these days.