WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — Union Pacific Railroad officials met with current and past residents of the 29th and Grove contamination area to give updates on testing and remediation efforts during a community open house Saturday afternoon.
This is the 7th public meeting held in recent years, regarding the contamination that the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) says was first discovered in 1994 during a road construction project. In 1998, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment identified the source as the Union Pacific Rail yard. It’s believed the contamination happened decades before that, but most of those who lived in the area, including community leaders, were unaware of the contamination until 2022, following community meetings.
The KDHE did a study that found that liver cancer and low birth rates were more common in the contamination area than in other populations in Kansas, although the agency said it could not determine if the health outcomes were the result of the contamination…