The Contaminación Collection, or the McAllen Toxic Plume Case, documents the 180 Mexican American families in McAllen, Texas, who were impacted by toxic petroleum hydrocarbon (benzene leakage) contamination in an area of 1.5 million square feet.
The collection consists of original source material compiled by attorneys Scott McLain and Richard Roth, who represented the McAllen families. Materials include 300+ visual aids, 800+ boxes of plaintiffs and evidence, and 650+ hours of audio-visual testimonies related to the toxic plume recorded from 1991 to 2004.
The collection contains restricted material and is open for research on a limited basis.
The "McAllen Plume" refers to petroleum hydrocarbon contamination of properties on and around 23rd Street and Business 83 in McAllen, Texas. In 1992 land was purchased on 23rd Street to build an adult daycare business. In the process of evaluating and inspecting the land it was discovered that it was contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbon (unleaded gasoline).
The original lawsuit was brought against the bank that provided the loan to purchase the property, and a Coastal Mart, Inc. convenience store and gas station across the street. The bank claimed no knowledge of the contamination. Coastal Mart, Inc. claimed that the contamination was coming from the railroad north of their location, and that the Texas Railroad Commission should be held responsible. Samples were taken north of the original sampling location indicating that area contained higher levels of contamination than the southern area. The two locations were called the northern plume and the southern plume with a vein of caliche running between the two locations.
The northern plume was found to be larger, and included over 150 families in the lawsuit, the southern plume was smaller with 40 families participating in the lawsuit. When the bank learned of the northern plume, they joined with the attorney to bring suit for the northern plume which they believe led to the contamination of the southern plume. The sampling from the northern plume indicated that the contamination was condensate with traces of natural gas and benzene. Benzene is particularly important because it gives off vapors that can travel through the soil to the surface. It was determined that this plume was too large to be caused by a leak.
There were six wells that were tied into a gathering system. These wells lead to a separation facility. However, from the wells to the separation facility there was no monitoring that would indicate the amount that was traveling through the wells, how much should have reached the separation facility or how much was leaking.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) assumes responsibility over environmental issues. Because there was also gas condensate found in the sampling the Texas Railroad Commission became involved. The southern plume lawsuit was tried in court. The plaintiffs, the families residing in the area, won a verdict against Coastal. Coastal then appealed the verdict. The final monetary value is confidential. The northern plume lawsuit was settled out of court.
The Contaminación Collection also comprises hundreds of large format photographs, maps, and other visual aids used as case exhibits during the court proceedings. There are over 300 foam-core mounted case exhibits and nearly 70 rolled maps and exhibits. The inventory for these materials is currently in process. Digitized exhibits and visual aids are available online via our institutional repository.
Grant Funding: Digitization of the audio-visual materials, including recorded community and expert testimonies, was made possible by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Video recordings of testimonies and depositions are available online via Internet Archive.
