WAXAHACHIE -- A Waxahachie man has filed a complaint to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, alleging city officials are allowing a high school to be built on a contaminated site.
Craig Monk said he is concerned because the new high school is being built on more than 81,304,764 gallons of toxic sewage sludge called biosolids.
“This is happening right now in Waxahachie in Ellis County just below Dallas,” Monk said in his complaint. “Waxahachie city official seem stunned they picked a contaminated site for a school, and we will all see how the TCEQ and state legislature deal with this toxic exposure to our youth, teachers and parents.”
Monk said the chemicals are especially dangerous for youngsters who participate in athletics at the contaminated site.
“There is a large amount of evidence showing that this is dangerous,” Monk told the SE Texas Record. “I have a real concern about this many people over time being exposed. These chemicals don’t just go away. It dries out, it gets dusty. The dust blows, it has contaminates in it.”
Monk said the name “biosolids” was made up to lull the public into a false sense of safety. “Research shows biosolids, now and in the past, to be a health hazard but our EPA made it ‘safe’ by manipulating data,” Monk wrote.
He adds that the EPA is afraid to admit the dangers of biosolids because it wants to avoid lawsuits.
“If they did anything about it at this point, there would be lawsuits to the EPA from the sewage industry because they backed out of what they have been telling them for 25 years,” Monk said. “There would be lawsuits by farmers who put this out thinking it’s safe, and it’s not.”
Monk said he has researched the subject for many years but the EPA has been trying to make sure the public is misinformed.
“The rest of the community is ignorant,” Monk said. “That’s by design. The EPA did this.”