‘A clear way forward’: Free health screenings offered for contaminated site in Wichita
Free health testing for Wichita-area residents who spent time around groundwater contamination near 29th and Grove is now available through a coordinated initiative that will connect them to clinics and community partners.
Clearway Testing, which officially launches March 9, will provide free health screenings this year through several Wichita health organizations for people who lived, worked, attended school, went to church or otherwise spent time near the northeast Wichita area from the 1970s to the present.
“Clearway is a targeted push to clarify things like, ‘What is testing?’ and ‘Why should I get tested?’” said Ryan W. Gates, CEO of PANO Marketing. “There’s a lot of murkiness around that, and so the idea behind Clearway is to clarify a clear way forward.”
The testing effort is tied to a decades-old groundwater contamination plume in northeast Wichita, which originated from a chemical spill at a nearby rail yard sometime in the 1970s.
After the city of Wichita discovered the contamination near 29th and Grove in 1994, testing revealed hazardous levels of trichloroethylene, commonly known as TCE, and tetrachloroethene, an industrial solvent and known carcinogen that can harm through inhalation, ingestion or skin contact.
The contamination spread through a groundwater plume roughly three miles long affecting parts of northeast Wichita, from 27th to Murdock. Many residents in the area said they were unaware of the spill until a public meeting in 2022 brought renewed attention to the issue.
In recent years, millions in funding have been distributed to local organizations to provide free testing and outreach efforts for people who may have been exposed. Supported by
A December $3.5 million grant of local, county, state and private dollars to the local health providers resulted in the establishment of the Clearway Testing initiative, which aims to make it easier for residents connected to the area to access testing and understand possible health risks.
“Part of the reason that we created Clearway as a brand was because you’ve got these five testing partners and another seven or so community or communications partners,” Gates said. “We wanted to create this centralized brand ... to get to a point where there is very clear information about what it (testing) is, and what to do, that’s written in verbiage that we speak.”
Testing through Clearway is now available through five organizations: GraceMed Health Clinic, HealthCore Clinic, Hunter Health, Love Clinic & Med Spa and the Wichita Black Nurses Association. Each has its own community and can connect with new ones — whether through location, accessibility or existing relationships — but all will offer the testing for free.
“Everyone’s trying to figure out how to make this as accessible and easy as possible,” Gates said. “They’re large clinics and health centers that are in the community and have been working on this issue for years and years and years and years. So there’s a level of trust that’s already there — ‘Okay, I can go get this health test from some place I may have been before.’”
The launch also includes a public awareness campaign intended to help residents understand whether they may have been exposed, how to access testing and the importance of routine testing. That means meeting people where they are through churches, neighborhood groups and other community partners, like Progressive Alliance of Churches Together (PACT), Project Access, Sistahs Can We Talk, The Center and the Wichita Medical Research & Education Foundation (WMREF).
“We don’t want to just say, ‘Here, do this,’” Gates said. “We want to go and hear from the community, and they tell us what they want: How do they need testing to be? What can we do to make it more accessible? What are the things they’re fearful of? How can we help be a solution toward justice for this area?”
Health screenings provided through the program are free through Dec. 31, 2026. The Clearway Testing website currently features participating testing partners and information about groundwater contamination involving trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE), another harmful solvent.
In addition to testing awareness, Gates also stressed the initiative’s importance in building community trust, which leads to routine testing and, as a result, better health overall.
“Success looks like getting as many people tested,” Gates said, “but then from that, being able to establish the trust for people to say, ‘I should come back and continue to have established health care with a licensed medical professional, and I should continue to get tested regularly.’”
The Clearway website will continue to expand over the next several months to include additional resources and is intended to become a central information hub about the contamination and related health concerns.
“The grant, in my opinion, is not meant to solve what’s happened at 29th and Grove,” Gates said. “But it can be the first really good step in health justice and justice for that community.”
Residents can learn more or connect with testing providers through the initiative’s website, ClearwayTesting.org.
Why getting tested matters
According to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, TCE is a known carcinogen that’s harmful to humans through all routes of exposure — whether it be through skin contact, inhalation or ingestion. Evidence shows that depending on the extent, duration and means of exposure, it can cause kidney cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and other serious health conditions.
The testing process is brief, and requires two vials of blood and a urine sample in order for lab tests to identify specific, and potentially hazardous, markers of exposure.
“We’re not just testing your TCE or PCE,” Gates said. “We’re testing your general health and some of the things that are linked to exposure.”
Testing should also be done routinely. Gates likened its importance to two children growing up with heavy secondhand smoke exposure.
“One kid grows up and develops emphysema, lung cancer, who knows what, and the other kid never has a single lung issue,” Gates said as an example. “So if somebody lived in that area, regardless of how long their exposure was — even if they say, ‘I lived in the area, but I wasn’t on well water’ — it doesn’t matter. They need to get tested.”
More information about the 29th and Grove spill, as well as the effects and risks of TCE exposure, can be found on the KDHE and county’s websites.
