Tucson leaders move forward with a resolution reaffirming support for TCE contamination survivors

Tucson’s mayor and City Council are backing a resolution that ramps up community support for ongoing trauma and medical issues caused by water contamination from a jet engine cleaner containing trichloroethylene, or TCE.

TCE seeped into groundwater used by southside Tucson communities years ago, after being used at military installations nearby. Contamination was so severe that the area was eventually declared a Superfund site by the EPA, which makes polluters responsible for cleanup.

During a Sept. 9 Tucson mayor and council meeting, Councilmember Lane Santa Cruz said that trauma lives on in Southsiders like her, even today.

“Younger generations often don’t know this history, because it hasn’t been taught, shared or acknowledged at the scale it should be. That silence creates risk. And as I’m thinking about this now, I continue to only drink filtered water,” Santa Cruz said.

The resolution reaffirms funding and support for community members dealing with ongoing health issues from contamination, an effort Santa Cruz said was born out of a letter penned by the Tucson Human Relations Commission.

“The letter grounded in years of community engagement and lived experience makes clear, TCE contamination is not just a historical event, it’s a continuing public health environmental justice issue,” Santa Cruz said.

City leaders voted to update the document to include Pima County’s health department. They’ll next vote on whether to officially adopt the new version.