Mission community leader Ester Salinas recalls her work investigating the Hayes Sammons Cancer Cluster
MISSION, Texas - Mission community leader Ester Salinas has announced that final settlement in the long-running lawsuit filed by families impacted by the highly toxic Hayes Sammons agricultural pesticides mixing and receiving plant against numerous chemical companies has been reached.
“We won. After 25 years, we’re finally getting the final settlement letters from the Hayes Sammons contamination lawsuit. You know we started this case in 1998 and filed our lawsuit in 1999. We've been fighting this for 25 years,” Salinas said.
Salinas said 1,300 letters have been sent out as part of the final settlement. She said people have been asked to read the letters and notify the special master in the case - Gil Perales - if their addresses or phone numbers have changed.
“I can report there were 1,905 original plaintiffs. Ninety of these were dismissed. An additional 450 are deceased. But, there is still a lot of confusion among the plaintiffs. Many have a lot of questions. The letter says do not make contact with the attorneys.”
Salinas said the first settlement, which came through around 18 years ago, resulted in payments to residents totaling between $4 million and $6 million. She said the second settlement was worth between $5 million and $8 million.
Salinas is regarded as the Erin Brockovich of the Mission Superfund story, one of the darkest stains in the city’s rich history. She first learned that chemicals from the Hayes Sammons site could have seeped into the water system on the south side of the city when she saw men in white Hazmat suits conducting surveys at the mixing and receiving plants.
Determining that there was a cancer cluster around the Hayes Sammons plant, Salinas led a team of church goers and community activists in signing up 3,500 residents who either worked at or lived closely to the agricultural pesticides plant, which was situated on the Mexican side of the railroad tacks. The residents signed affidavits that they had family members who had either died of cancer, had brain tumors or miscarriages.
In the course of her investigation, Salinas learned the Hayes Sammons plant was listed as a Superfund site at both the national and state level. “In other words it was highly toxic,” Salinas said.
Salinas took her evidence first to Mission attorney Mauro Reyna and later Edinburg attorney Ramon Garcia.
“Mr. Garcia gave me 30 minutes to pitch my case. After 30 minutes he told me stop. He got three other attorneys and a clerk to come in and start taking notes. The meeting went on for about three hours. He said, I can't believe what you're telling me. I said, I can't believe what I'm witnessing, what I'm learning now.”
Garcia filed the lawsuit, which was known as Alicia Acevedo, et al vs. Union Pacific Railroad Company, et al. It was filed in the 332nd Judicial District Court of Hidalgo County in 1999. It was settled out of court a few years later.
“I cannot understand why it has taken so long to get the final payments out to the long suffering families of Mission. I think we all need, and deserve, an explanation, either from the judge, the special master or the attorneys, ” Salinas said.
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