ER Texas & Gulf Coast: Difference between revisions

  This article focuses on Houston’s Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens, historically Black neighborhoods affected by contamination linked to a rail yard. It connects the case to Houston’s long history of environmental racism and to Robert Bullard’s foundational research on race and toxic pollution.

=====How Port Arthur’s Oxbow Plant Is Damaging Nearby Black Communities=====

=====Benzene Emissions on Texas Gulf Coast Among Nation’s Highest, Report Finds=====

=====For the Third Time, Black Residents in Corpus Christi’s Hillcrest Neighborhood File a Civil Rights Complaint to Fend Off Polluting Infrastructure=====

  This article covers Corpus Christi’s Hillcrest neighborhood, where Black residents have repeatedly challenged polluting infrastructure through civil-rights complaints. It is useful for documenting how highways, refineries, ports, and industrial projects burdened a historically Black neighborhood.

=====Black Residents of Corpus Christi’s Hillcrest Back in Court Over Pollution=====

  This article examines Hillcrest residents’ legal challenges over a sewage treatment plant, bridge construction, and desalination infrastructure. It shows how a Black neighborhood already surrounded by industrial pollution continued to face new environmental burdens.

  This article explains how Corpus Christi’s Hillcrest and Washington-Coles neighborhoods were shaped by segregation, disinvestment, industrial pollution, highways, and port infrastructure. It is useful for documenting the connection between racial segregation and environmental burden.

[https://www.lawyerscommittee.org/historic-agreement-resolves-environmental-justice-complaint-in-corpus-christi-texas/ | Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law | Lawyers’ Committee | December 18, 2015]

  This article describes an agreement addressing the disparate impacts of a planned highway through Corpus Christi’s Hillcrest neighborhood. It notes that Hillcrest was already hemmed in by a ship channel, refineries, and an interstate highway.

  This press release reports that a Corpus Christi civil-rights and fair-housing complaint was referred to the U.S. Department of Justice. It frames the Hillcrest community’s struggle against polluting infrastructure as a fight against environmental racism.

=====America’s Dirty Little Secret: The Texas Town That Has Been Without Running Water for Decades=====

  This article examines Sandbranch, Texas, a historic Black freedmen’s community without running water. It is useful for documenting environmental justice issues involving water access, flood risk, government neglect, and racial inequality.

[https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/after-150-years-black-residents-of-sandbranch-texas-still-have-no-running-water/ | People’s World | People’s World | June 25, 2024]

=====Solutions

for Sandbranch and Deconstructing Environmental Racism=====

  This legal paper examines Sandbranch, Texas as an environmental justice case. It is useful for documenting the legal and policy issues behind a freedmen’s community’s lack of running water and exposure to environmental hazards.

  This report discusses racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in toxic air pollution along Houston’s Ship Channel. It is useful for documenting how industrial emissions from refineries and chemical plants disproportionately affect nearby communities of color.

=====Lives “Devastated� by Petrochemical Industry Pollution in Texas=====

=====A Case Study on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory in Houston, Texas=====