Geneva Industries/Fuhrmann Energy

Overview

The Geneva Industries/Fuhrmann Energy site covers 13.5 acres in Houston, Texas. It operated as a refinery that made polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other organic compounds from 1967 to 1973. The facility discharged contaminated wastewater and had frequent chemical spills before going bankrupt in 1973. Later operators continued on-site work through 1982. The site was added to the EPA's National Priorities List (NPL) in September 1984 and remains listed today.

Contaminants found at the site include PCBs, dioxins, furans, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), benzene, and trichloroethene. These contaminants are present in both soil and groundwater. The EPA determined that all of these pose unacceptable risks to human health or the environment and must be addressed through cleanup actions.

The EPA divided cleanup into two main areas, called operable units (OUs). OU1 covered contaminated soil. Work included excavating about 38,900 cubic yards of contaminated soil, building a 30-foot deep slurry wall barrier around the site, and installing a protective cap. That work finished in 1990, and OU1 was removed from the NPL in 1997. OU2 covers groundwater. A pump-and-treat system has been running since 1993 to capture and clean up contaminated groundwater. A new groundwater investigation started in July 2021 and is expected to wrap up between December 2026 and February 2027. The EPA and the U.S. Geological Survey are also updating a conceptual site model, with phases running through October 2025.

The EPA completed a Five-Year Review in September 2023. It found the site is currently protective of human health and the environment in the short term. However, several steps are still needed for long-term protection. These include additional soil sampling to confirm cleanup worked for off-site PCB, dioxin, and furan contamination, plugging four deep monitoring wells inside the slurry wall to prevent contamination from moving to deeper groundwater zones, and reevaluating which contaminants need ongoing groundwater monitoring. Human exposure is considered under control, and contaminated groundwater migration is stabilized. Deed restrictions recorded in August 2015 prohibit residential use, groundwater use in shallow sand units, digging on the cap, and drilling water wells on affected parcels.

Community members can review site documents at the University of Houston's M.D. Anderson Library at 4333 University Drive, Houston, Texas. The full Five-Year Review Report is also available at https://semspub.epa.gov/work/06/100029863.pdf. For questions, residents can contact the EPA's Community Involvement Coordinator or the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) representatives. The next Five-Year Review is estimated between September and November 2028.