Mother grieves son lost to cancer blamed on rail yard
‘People are dying’: Contaminated area in Fifth Ward linked to higher rate of disease
LaTonya Payne shouted from the street to everyone gathered in front of her house: “Y’all come over here!” It had been just over a year since her son died at age 13. The 50-yearold mother didn’t want the balloons they were about to release in his honor to get stuck again in the trees.
“Come in, come in,” she said, and her friends and family gathered around her in the road. They paused to pray, thanking God for their memories of Corinthian “Mister” Giles. Last Tuesday, he would have turned 15. Instead, a photo of him from his last birthday alive was taped to a table beneath a red and blue balloon arch.
“Happy Birthday Corinthian,” their baby-blue T-shirts said.
From where they stood, anyone could see the trains that passed through the Union Pacific rail yard. Giles’ death, in their minds, was connected to that place. Workers there for decades treated rail ties with creosote, a wood preservative that’s considered a likely carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency. It got into the ground and the groundwater beneath homes.
State researchers the same year that Giles died released a report saying they found higher rates of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children who lived in the area — the same
type of cancer Giles had. In a delineated spot adjacent to where he lived, scientists identified six cases of the cancer from 2000 through 2016 where they expected to see only one.
“It’s serious,” Payne said Saturday afternoon. “People are dying. People have died. We just want ... the environmental injustice to stop in our community.”
Technically, Giles was her nephew, but Payne raised him as her own. Her son Milton Parker Jr., 29, remembered when Giles arrived as a baby to their maroon-and-white family home northeast of downtown Houston in historic Greater Fifth Ward. As Giles got older, Parker tried to teach him to ride a bike.
That afternoon, Parker generously dished out the brisket, sausage and chicken they barbecued for the party. “Bless this kitchen,” said the mats on the floor. The room was crowded. “Happy Birthday” balloons floated at the ceiling. A plaque from Giles’ funeral sat on display.
Parker said he was taking it all one day at a time.
“It’s rough,” Parker said. “It’s definitely not easy.”
The family hadn’t just been processing grief, either. Payne was re-diagnosed with breast cancer after Giles died last year. She went through chemotherapy and radiation treatments at M.D. Anderson — the same place she’d gone with her son for his care. The mother, who works for a pharmaceutical company, knew Giles wouldn’t want her to give up.
Payne is now in remission, and yet, here she was throwing a memorial for her son. Today was supposed to be a celebration, her friend Valencia Burton said. A group came by, doing wheelies and other tricks on four-wheelers like Giles loved to watch. Life wasn’t normal again, but they had readjusted.
“It’s been really emotional because you learn to live without,” Burton said. “You just never forget them.”
The fight to get Union Pacific to clean up the contamination drags on. Residents and advocates don’t think the current plan goes far enough to get the chemicals out of the area. Payne is among hundreds who have sued the company. The city, Harris County and the nonprofit Bayou City Initiative recently notified the company that they intend to sue under federal law too.
Union Pacific has stood behind its cleanup proposal, which includes building wells to pull chemicals from the groundwater. Company officials in a statement regarding the pending lawsuits said they “look forward to continuing our commitment to transparency in our efforts to clean up the site.” They’ve said previously residents aren’t exposed to the creosote.
A spokeswoman didn’t respond immediately to an emailed request for comment Saturday afternoon.
While the group stood in the street, relative Marie Owens counted down. The group released their balloons into the sky.
Payne looked up as they flew away and smiled.