Toxic Town: Contamination in Somerville Schools

During his interview last fall with the Houston Press, Camarillo said he didn't know if the lawsuits against the owners of the wood-treatment plant were legitimate. Last Monday, while driving his pickup truck outside the elementary school, he told a Houston Press reporter he now believes the studies showing contamination in the schools were "plaintiff-driven."

Camarillo declined to answer any other questions. He also did not respond to a list of questions submitted in a March 19 e-mail by the Houston Press, including whether the district plans any remediation or additional testing in the schools.

Camarillo instructed the Houston Press to contact his Houston-based attorney, Jeffrey Horner, a partner at Bracewell & Giuliani LLP, to answer these and other questions. But Horner's assistant said Camarillo did not authorize Horner to speak.

The Houston Press asked Camarillo in an e-mail to give Horner permission to speak, but Camarillo did not respond.

Stooped beneath the weight of a heavy backpack, Herbchelle Plumber last Monday was walking in the street in front of the Behavior Management Center on her way to class. The 11-year-old sixth grader at Somerville Junior High remembers having to spend a couple days in the little building "as punishment for acting up."

Plumber never wanted to go back. And it wasn't just because she didn't like the sting of being isolated from her ­classmates.

"The ceiling is all molded," she says. "It stinks so bad it makes you want to throw up."

Plumber's family is among the plaintiffs in the lawsuits against the current and former owners of the wood-treatment facility. Her great-grandfather worked at the plant for three decades. Many of her seven siblings suffer from learning disabilities and neurological disorders.

"Teachers say it's all a fib," she says. "They say people are just trying to get money out of the school."

But Plumber isn't so sure.

"The kids are scared," she says. "I am so scared. I mean, if [contamination levels are] higher than the World Trade Center, I mean, God."

Barbara Nichols, the music teacher at Somerville Elementary who has worked in the school district for five years, says she isn't at all concerned.

"If it was a major problem, somebody would tell us," says Nichols, standing next to her car in the school parking lot during a cigarette break. "We have no problem in this school unless we go crawling around in the attics."

Another teacher, who asked to remain anonymous, saying she feared retribution from the school district, says she is "very worried" about her health and "can't understand" why her colleagues aren't.

"Nobody cares," says the teacher, who plans to leave the district or retire. "Other teachers aren't even bothered, like it's nothing, like it's a joke."

Justin Faust, a 15-year-old freshman at Somerville High, says his teachers don't talk about it: "But most of us students believe that there's poison in the schools."

Still, the school-band member says he is conflicted about transferring.

"I have a lot of friends here," he says. "I kind of want to go to a different school, but I kind of want to go here where I know everybody."

Justin Faust's grandmother, Linda Faust, sued Koppers and BNSF, alleging that emissions from the plant caused her stomach cancer at age 40 in 1998. A Fort Worth jury ruled against her in February; she plans to appeal.

Other trials are slated to begin this summer.

In the meantime, parents such as Carolyn Johnson, whose grandson attends third grade at Somerville Elementary, complain that they haven't heard anything from the school district.

Another grandparent with a child in the elementary school, who asked not to be named because he doesn't want his local business affected, said more needs to be done.

"The school district has been dragging its feet," he says. "They ought to clean this mess up. If not, let's get these kids out of here."

todd.spivak@houstonpress.com