In spite of consistent protests by Kashmere Gardens community members and Houston-area environmental justice activists, state environmental officials approved the permit for a new concrete crushing plant close to Houston’s LBJ Hospital.
Harris County will appeal the permit approval in an attempt to block the plant’s construction.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) granted the permit on Jan. 12 to Texas Coastal Materials, over the objections of residents and hospital officials concerned about air pollution.
‘TOXIC BUS TOUR’ POINTED OUT DANGERS
In November of last year, seeking to raise awareness of this clear and present danger, Houston Ethnic Media in partnership with Air Alliance Houston, sponsored an “Ethnic Media Toxic Bus Tour” of Houston. One of the stops on that tour was Kashmere Gardens; more specifically, in front of LBJ Hospital where AAH members and community activists spoke on the clear and present dangers of a concrete batch plant being built across the street.
“The TCEQ is not calculating for the cumulative impact effects that already exist within this community,” said Crystal Ngo, AAH’s environmental justice coordinator. “Again, I have to emphasize that there are already six concrete batch plants in this community, and one is trying to be built right across from a trauma three hospital with about 80,000 patients that can be seen per year.”
ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM’S PERSONAL IMPACT
Ngo then broke it down on a personal level.
“My mom personally goes to this hospital. I was just here a couple of months ago. So, while community members are trying to heal, they’re gonna get more long-term exposures [to toxic air pollutants] while they’re healing at this hospital.”
Josefa Najera, a 54-year-old Kashmere Gardens resident whose son suffers from chronic asthma and whose grandchildren have been tested for lead poisoning, spoke of the onslaught of illnesses impacting her and her neighbors.
“People are just getting sick every day: our infants, our newborns, our elderly, our children,” she said. “We hear so many stories about people getting this sickness, that sickness, their lungs. If it’s not cancer, it’s pulmonary disease, it’s asthma, it’s other things that are just making people sick.”
KASHMERE GARDENS UNDER ASSAULT
Kashmere Gardens is a community that’s 96% people of color (73% Black, 22% Hispanic, 1% other). Roughly 33% of the population speaks Spanish and 64% of this community is low income. Kashmere Gardens is home to six concrete batch plants. According to Rice University’s Kinder Institute, concrete batch plants produce “a kind of air pollution called particulate matter that can penetrate deep into the lungs,” and is “just one part of the problem that concrete batch plants present.”
Because TCEQ grants them 24-hour permits, heavy diesel trucks line up as early as 2 a.m. to idle noisily on local streets, waiting to pick up as many as 150 loads every day, emitting even more pollutants like black carbon and nitrogen dioxide.
On the day TCEQ granted the permit Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee called the TCEQ’s decision a travesty.
THE STRUGGLE NEVER CEASES
“Just yesterday the Carverdale community was celebrating, with me and Mayor Whitmire, about Waste Management withdrawing their application to expand a landfill in that historically Black community,” said Menefee. “So, that’s a group of folks celebrating a rare win in the environmental justice movement. And less than 24 hours later, here we are having to gear up for another fight in another predominantly African American and Latino community.”
Menefee said he’ll be working with State Senator Boris Miles’ office and Lone Star Legal Aid to file a motion to overturn the TCEQ’s decision.
“That motion is filed with the TCEQ commissioners. These are direct appointees of Governor Abbott. We don’t expect that that’s going to be granted, given who we’re dealing with, and so the next step is we’ll be working with Harris Health to explore the possibility of filing a lawsuit,” said Menefee, who believes his office should hear something about the status of the lawsuit with two-to-three months.
“This is going to be about ensuring that people who live there and who are going to be walking in and out of this hospital have access to clean air and aren’t going to go to get their health issues fixed, and while they’re there, have to continue suffering with increased pollution and even more health risks, as a result of it,” he said.
