In Manchester’s Hartman Park, a children’s mural depicts a park full of families and surrounded by industrial buildings.
The streets along the edge of the park are lined with chemical storage tanks and other facilities.
Robert Bullard, for whom the Center for Environment and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University is named, said on Saturday’s “Toxic Tour” attended by former Vice President Al Gore, “Houston is in quarantine. “And so does the pollution,” he explained.
When the bus passed over the Fifth Ward tracks, Bullard told tour participants that the city of Houston and Harris County were threatening to sue Union Pacific for years of soil and groundwater contamination in the Fifth Ward and Cashmere Gardens. He said he was pressuring the railroad business to wipe out the have been found to have a high incidence of cancer.
TEJAS, a Houston-based environmental justice organization, hosts bus tours of toxic sites in minority neighborhoods, including the 5th Ward cancer cluster and industrial facilities in East Harris County.
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“They’ve waited years knowing this site was dangerous,” Bullard said. “Communities wait, wait, get sick and die.
Details of the 5th arrondissement: Houston, Harris County threatens to sue Union Pacific over 5th yard pollution
Gore had just hosted a few days of activist training in Houston through The Climate Reality Project, a nonprofit he founded. Part of the reason they held the meeting in Houston is because there are many strong grassroots organizations throughout the Gulf region, he said in an interview. Gore called the Houston climate activists “extraordinary.”
On Saturday he was on the bus with some people.
Gore has known Bullard for decades, serving on the non-profit board. Gore said Bullard, known here as the Father of Environmental Justice, was a key witness when he and John Lewis introduced the first environmental justice bill in Congress.
Gore believed that the issue of environmental justice was one of the most important topics for Houstonians to focus on, along with the transition of jobs to clean energy and the transition of the global economy.
For a long time the community felt like they were being victimized, but it “has become unbearable,” he said.
In his view, young people drawn to the civil rights movement were intertwined with a growing movement for environmental justice.
“We see the desire for justice pushing people, especially these young activists, to truly identify and focus on the systemic issues that must be addressed. fits like a glove, and I think we’ll see more activity in that area.”
Along the way, the Houston tour pointed out fertilizer plants within walking distance to homes, schools, the Houston port area, and industrial facilities that emit more than a dozen chemicals.
“If you look to the left, you have Manchester covered with industry on all four sides,” says TEJAS co-founder Ana Pallas. “And on the right side he has one of the biggest metal grinders.”
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More than 90% of Manchester’s population is Latino, according to Pallas.
Pallas began hosting Toxic Tours over 20 years ago.
Community advocates are fighting for language justice and are calling on the Texas Environmental Quality Commission state environmental regulator to give people who speak little English adequate notice and seek input. increase.
As a result, TCEQ will host two conferences in Houston on public engagement and language access: It will be held at Milby High School on November 1st and at Rayburn High School in Pasadena on November 2nd.
According to Pallas, the Harrisburg-Manchester neighborhood is one of Houston’s oldest neighborhoods, dating back to 1826.
“Manchester was here before refineries,” Pallas said. “A lot of people ask that question all the time. Cotton was the first to come out of here, and the oil industry was born.”
Several of Houston’s founders are buried in Manchester’s Glendale Cemetery.
“This tells us a lot about the area. It’s a historic area,” Pallas said.
A study by the University of Texas School of Public Health found that children living within a two-mile radius of the Houston Ship Channel were 56 percent more likely to develop leukemia than children living elsewhere, indicating that communities are now in the middle of the industry. face the health consequences of living in
