HOUSTON — U.S. Congressman Christian Menefee sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin on Wednesday, July 1, 2026, requesting an immediate briefing on the agency's investigation into contamination from the former Houston Wood Preserving Works site. The EPA's Removal Site Evaluation report, which community members were told would be completed by late 2025 or early 2026, has not been released as of July 2, 2026.

The former Houston Wood Preserving Works site is located in Houston's Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens neighborhoods. Creosote pollution from the site spread into the soil and groundwater of surrounding neighborhoods. The Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed a cancer cluster in these neighborhoods in 2019.

In his letter, Menefee stated that Zeldin eliminated the agency's Office of Environmental Justice, closed environmental justice offices nationwide, ended environmental justice as a factor in enforcement decisions, froze nearly $3 billion in grants for pollution-burdened communities, and proposed cutting the agency's overall budget by more than half.

Menefee requested the EPA provide a briefing on the current status and anticipated timeline for releasing the final report, and whether Union Pacific Railroad has requested any extensions. He also asked for details on the methodology used during environmental sampling, including testing locations, sampling depths, and contaminants analyzed.

The Congressman requested a briefing on the purpose and rationale behind recent residential sampling, plans to communicate findings to affected residents, any preliminary conclusions regarding potential health risks, and anticipated federal actions. Menefee also requested access to relevant materials, including interim data summaries, quality assurance documentation, and draft materials related to the investigation where legally permissible.

"Community members in Fifth Ward, Kashmere Gardens, and nearby areas have been waiting for answers for years," Menefee said in a news release. "They have watched family members get sick. They have sat through meeting after meeting. And they still have serious questions about how this process has been run. That is not acceptable."

"These communities have serious, longstanding questions about the testing that has been conducted, including how decisions were made about where to test, how deep to test, which contaminants to include, and how the testing zones were defined and bounded," Menefee wrote in his letter. "When the report is released, residents in these communities will need the findings explained in clear and understandable language, through channels that actually reach them. Community members on EPA's Community Advisory Group have raised this concern directly and repeatedly. I want to know what EPA intends to do to meet that obligation."