Lawyers: Hayes-Sammons plant caused woman's cancer

EDINBURG — Guadalupe Garza grew up in the shadow of what her attorneys call a “ticking time bomb.”

The Hayes-Sammons Chemical Company opened a pesticide mixing plant in her Mission neighborhood in 1950, combining dozens of industrial-grade chemicals into their own special brands of bug-killing elixir.

For 17 years, nearby men trekked to the imposing factory on Holland Avenue each day for work. Their wives hung laundry downwind to avoid the thin layer of powdered dust that spewed from its fans. Their children turned their noses up at the stench of chemical compounds that became one the community’s trademarks.

And “Little Lupe” — as her family members called the then 7-year-old — spent her days playing in the dirt outside, making and sometimes eating mud pies and subsisting on a diet of chicken and eggs grown in her family’s front yard.

There’s no way Garza or any of her neighbors could have known that any of this was making them sick, her attorney Andy Taylor said Monday.

• Click here for more on the Hayes-Sammons history

“Unbeknownst to her she was living next door to a chemical plant that was polluting her whole neighborhood,” he said. “As a 7-year-old girl, she had no idea that she was being contaminated on a daily basis.”

On Monday, Garza became the first of nearly 1,600 former Hayes-Sammons employees and nearby residents to take her toxic exposure case before a jury.

Specifically, Garza, now 66, alleges that three chemical compounds used at the plant — DDT, dieldrin and toxaphene — built up in her body over time and triggered the cancer she developed later in life.

Her suit — against the companies that supplied the now-defunct pesticide plant — has taken nearly a decade to bring to trial and involves pages of medical reports, dozens of expert witnesses and study after scientific study.
And while the questions it will bring before a jury this week involve just one woman’s health problems, the panel’s decision could offer a glimpse at what awaits the hundreds that have blamed similar medical conditions on their proximity to the plant.

Their case is far from a slam dunk, said Edmundo Ramirez, an attorney representing the chemical suppliers Shell Chemical Co., Montrose Chemical Co., and Hercules Inc. in Garza’s case.

Her attorneys must prove not only that exposure to chemicals made them sick but also that the companies named in their individual suits are to blame for the contamination of the former Hayes-Sammons site.

“The (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) had all the authority to bring the responsible parties to the table and hold them accountable for the contamination – and that’s what they did,” Ramirez told jurors Monday. “The EPA has never sued Shell, Hercules or Montrose.”

TOXIC SOUP

Doctors diagnosed Garza with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, in 1998 — 18 years after the EPA first rang alarm bells about toxicity levels surrounding the old plant.

In 1980, the agency found samples of DDT — a powerful mosquito-killing compound — at the site exceeded federal standards by more nearly a billion times. Samples of dieldrin and toxaphene — pesticides used to target termites and boll weevils respectively — were also at near lethal levels.

Later studies by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality seemed to confirm the findings. And over a period of nearly three decades, various environmental groups spent more than $7 million to tear down and safely remove contaminated soil.

But nearby residents claim they don’t need scientists to tell them something was seriously wrong in their community.

In the years since the plant closed its doors, hundreds of locals have developed cancer and liver disease and have blamed their exposure to the toxins for a bevy of other medical maladies including miscarriages, genetic mutations and chronic migraines.

Specifically, Garza attorneys argued Monday that Shell, Montrose and Hercules failed to adequately train Hayes-Sammons employees on how to handle their products.

This lack of knowledge led the Mission pesticide plant to unquestioningly allow workers to shun protective gear and build a ventilation system that sucked chemical vapors from inside the plant and blew them out onto surrounding homes, Taylor said.

“When the EPA finally came out to clean it all up, they weren’t like Lupe — barefoot and eating dirt,” he said during his opening statement. “They were wearing respirators. They looked like they were walking on the moon.”

CONTAMINATION QUESTIONED

But attorneys representing the chemical companies challenged Garza’s claims at nearly every level Monday.

They questioned how her lawyers would be able to prove the compounds they sold cause cancer. No scientific studies have proven DDT, dieldrin and toxaphene cause cancer in humans, they said.

They defied Garza’s story of how she was exposed. Two separate TCEQ studies in 1981 and 1998 failed to show elevated levels of pesticides in blood samples of those living near the old Hayes-Sammons plant.

They disputed the representation of Hayes-Sammons as a mom-and-pop operation that didn’t know they were handling chemicals irresponsibly. During the ‘50s, the company became one of the largest pesticide suppliers in the United States.

And at one point, they even questioned whether a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma was as debilitating as Garza’s attorneys made it out to sound, pointing to a slideshow of celebrities including Mr. T and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis who had contracted and lived with the disease.

“The conduct of Hayes-Sammons is the reason we are here,” Ramirez said. “The three manufacturers at trial are not responsible for their operations. They are not responsible for her exposure. They are not responsible for her cancer.”

Garza’s attorneys have asked the court to reimburse her $1 million for medical expenses she has already incurred fighting off her cancer, $1 million more in estimated future medical costs and damages for pain and suffering.

Testimony in the case is expected to resume this morning.

Jeremy Roebuck covers courts and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4437.