December 2019 Volume 2, Issue 12

The Environmental Justice Team at Lone Star Legal Aid wishes you Happy Holiday and welcomes you to Environmental Justice News. We’re keeping communities updated on our team’s ongoing environmental law efforts throughout our 72-county service area in Texas.

In our newsletter, you’ll find an overview of the types of legal cases we’re currently handling for eligible individuals and organizations who are living in fence-line communities and other areas where environmental justice is a concern. If you have an environmental legal matter that concerns you, please call 713-652-0077 ext. 8108 for more information.

Our environmental justice team is part of a broader Equitable Development Initiative at LSLA, with additional teams focusing on fair housing and community advocacy. The Equitable Development Initiative’s goal is to provide legal assistance to foster community revitalization in low-income neighborhoods by fighting systemic discrimination and degradation, and by helping residents create safe, decent and equitable living spaces.

Please feel free to share Lone Star Legal Aid’s environmental watchdog newsletter with your friends, family and neighbors! To subscribe to our newsletter and/or receive updates about your neighborhood, click here .

Amy Dinn

Managing Attorney, Environmental Justice Team

Cancer Cluster Highlights Community's Concerns in Northeast Houston

A recent Cancer Cluster investigation conducted by the Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS) has shown a higher than expected rate of cancer including lung and bronchus, esophagus, and larynx cancers in 10 census tracts in Northeast Houston. The area includes a residential neighborhood near Union Pacific’s Englewood Yard, where railroad ties were treated with cancer-causing creosote for more than a century in Houston's Fifth Ward. The study is the first time the state has ever identified a cancer cluster within a specific area of the City of Houston.

Since the summer of 2018, the community advocacy group and LSLA client, IMPACT, has been raising awareness about an underground plume of contamination emanating from Union Pacific’s site into the nearby residential neighborhood. At monthly meetings co-hosted with Texas Housers, community members have been sharing their stories about the alarming number of cancers and other illnesses that have reduced their neighborhood to what some residents say is now a ghost town. “My whole street died of cancer,” shared IMPACT member Leisa Harris Glenn. Glenn’s mother died of cancer before she reached retirement age.

Beginning in the 1800’s through the 1980’s, railroad ties and telephone poles were treated with coal tar creosote in unlined, open pits at the former Houston Wood Preserving Works site, now owned by Union Pacific. Residual creosote from the hazardous operations permeated the ground through multiple spills and leaks over many decades, seeping deep into the subsurface soil and migrating into the surrounding residential community just north of the site. In the 1980’s, a huge explosion at the site led to the eventual shutdown of the facility, leaving a legacy of pollution behind. 

At its monthly meetings, IMPACT helps community members understand their legal rights and stay up-to-date on Union Pacific’s permit to manage the hazardous waste. Represented by LSLA EJ Attorney Rodrigo Cantú, the group submitted comments in December 2018 on the permit, which is administered by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) through the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). The group’s comments to TCEQ signaled major deficiencies in the permit, which has been pending in negotiations with TCEQ since December 2014. The permit was first granted by TCEQ's predecessor agency, the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, in 1993. 

“We want to see Union Pacific’s contamination cleaned up, so that our children and our grandchildren can grow up to be healthy,” shared Sandra Small, one of IMPACT’s founding members. “We want the contamination cleaned up so that people here will stop getting cancer and skin diseases from the creosote.”

Due to IMPACT and LSLA’s advocacy detailing multiple deficiencies in the permit, TCEQ has recently begun to take a closer look at the company’s data and science behind the permit.  In April 2019, TCEQ discovered that the underground plume of contamination had spread beyond Union Pacific’s acknowledged plume management zone (PMZ), impacting nine additional residential properties. Issuing a 4 ^th Notice of Deficiency (NOD) to the company on April 11, 2019, TCEQ requested that Union Pacific install additional extraction wells while also requiring that the company conduct soil volatilization testing to find out if the contamination has been escaping up through the soil as a gas.

In the same month, TCEQ requested that TDSHS conduct the cancer cluster investigation. While the study was completed by TDSHS in August, the report was not shared with community members or advocates until several months later. Upon learning of the state’s investigation in late November, officials with the City of Houston Health Department immediately shared the results with community members at a December 3 ^rd meeting hosted by IMPACT and the Reverend James Caldwell of C.O.C.O. 

Announcing its support of the community, Houston Health Department officials are planning additional investigations including a door-to-door survey to look more closely into the cancers impacting this historic community of color. “This is the worst example of environmental justice I have ever seen,” said Loren Hopkins, chief environmental science officer for the Houston Health Department. “It’s tragic.”

Following the devastating news of the cancer cluster investigation, resident and IMPACT member Andre Small spoke passionately about his experiences to the Harris County Commissioners’ Court on Tuesday, December 17. Speaking before the Commissioners on his 52 ^nd birthday, Small addressed the pervasiveness of creosote in his neighborhood growing up, as the vast open pit of creosote near his home was not fenced off during those years. A rainbow sheen could be seen in puddles and ditches where neighborhood children played, not knowing of the dangers. “We played in all that kind of stuff,” Small said. “We just want to see it cleaned up.” 

Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis signaled his support for the community, while the Commissioners unanimously approved the Harris County Attorney's request to conduct investigations into whether Union Pacific has violated state environmental laws in its management of the site.

“LSLA will continue to advocate for a more thorough cleanup of this legacy contamination that has impacted community members' lives," shared LSLA's Cantú. " We are also concerned about the community receiving the information they need about the cancer cluster report. We will be following up to encourage more transparency, so that this community in need gets the resources it deserves.”

Above: Community members talk with LSLA's Rodrigo Cantú at an IMPACT meeting in 2018 / Photo: Sal Giovanni Solis, Lone Star Legal Aid

UT Law Civil Rights Clinic Presents on Eminent Domain Issues for Residents of Freeport's East End

On October 10, 2019, over the objections of many residents in attendance including LSLA client, Manning Rollerson, and resident of Freeport's historic East End, Ms. Jessie Parker, the Port Commissioners for Port Freeport voted to adopt a resolution that would begin the process of eminent domain in Freeport’s historic East End neighborhood. Before the Port Commissioners’ vote took place, Port Freeport Executive Director and CEO, Phyllis Saathoff, stated that the Port plans to use the East End properties for warehousing and other related port operations. 

The recent vote by Port Commissioners triggers a new concern for East End residents and property owners, who fear that their property will now be condemned for the port’s expansion plans through forced sales.

Since the summer of 2017, Lone Star Legal Aid’s EDI team has been supporting current and former residents of Freeport's historic East End to document the community’s displacement while pointing to the improper process adopted by Port Freeport in its acquisition of East End properties over the past decade.

LSLA’s work with the community has involved filing a civil rights administrative complaint with various federal agencies under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, as well as filing a federal lawsuit seeking review of the civil rights complaint, which details Port Freeport’s intentional discrimination against East End property owners in a campaign to acquire the historic Black neighborhood of East End wholesale. "The history of Freeport’s East End began in racism, and unfortunately, Port Freeport’s intentional destruction of this community one property at a time will be its legacy," the complaint states.

A recent dismissal of the federal lawsuit in November is leading LSLA to appeal its client’s claims to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Court, hoping to receive further hearing on the discriminatory practices of the Port that are impacting community members’ lives.  

On November 2, two students from the Civil Rights Clinic of the University of Texas School of Law, Natalie Willis and Chloe Kempf, supervised by Professor Ranjana Natarajan, prepared and presented a detailed overview of the eminent domain process for East End residents and concerned community members to provide a better understanding of what it will mean for the residents’ homes and additional East End properties.

The students' presentation focused on the three-step process for eminent domain triggered when a property owner does not agree to the price offered by the acquiring entity or the condemnor - here, Port Freeport. If the property owner cannot come to an agreement with the Port during the negotiation stage, the owner is entitled to an administrative hearing that will set the value of the property. The property owner has the right to appeal the decision to a court action if there is still disagreement over the value. 

Willis and Kempf shared important property rights that residents can exercise under Texas eminent domain law to ensure a fair acquisition process. The presentation highlighted the importance of having an attorney and an appraiser during the process, in order to ensure the owner can maximize the value of their property and properly assert objections to the offered valuation throughout the process.

The students also shared their presentation and a one-page summary handout for community members to refer to and consider as the process moves forward. The presentation and summary are available on LSLA's Environmental Justice Resources page.

“We approached this presentation for East End residents with the mindset that community members know best what their goals and feelings are on the process,” shared Kempf and Willis. “We hope that the knowledge and tools shared can empower community members in this process to help them make the decisions that they feel are right for them.”

Lone Star Legal Aid’s Amy Dinn also discussed the City of Freeport’s current ownership of approximately 46 lots in the East End including Lincoln Park, and the implications for eminent domain on this public property. “Under Texas law, residents are entitled to public notice and a hearing before the City sells any public park land, and LSLA intends to ensure that the City follows Texas law in any conveyance of the park to the Port,” shared LSLA’s Dinn. 

“It was a blessing to have Lone Star Legal Aid and the UT students come out and share this valuable information,” shared longtime East End resident, Ms. Jessie Parker. “I feel really good about that - it made a lot of things clear.” A semi-retired registered nurse of 50 years, Parker grew up in the East End neighborhood, where a long history of love and labor invested by community members, for their community, led its blossoming despite the City of Freeport's strictly enforced segregation ordinance of 1930 that first established the East End as the sole neighborhood where Black residents were allowed to live.

Above: A flow chart showing the three-step eminent domain process, shared with residents of Freeport's East End by Chloe Kempf and Natalie Willis of UT Law Civil Rights Clinic / Image: Courtesy UT Law Civil Rights Clinic and Lone Star Legal Aid

Houston Gardens Civic Association Focuses on Truck Yards with Presentation by UT Law Environmental Clinic

On November 12, 2019, Katie Jeffress, a student with the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, spoke to a full house at the November meeting of the Houston Gardens Civic Association (HGCA). Jeffress presented her research related to truck yards, a commercial activity that has been encroaching with alarming speed into residential neighborhoods near Houston Gardens over the past several years, including the nearby Trinity Gardens and Rosedale Gardens neighborhoods (the “Gardens”).

Attracted by large lot sizes, low land prices and proximity to major highways, the increase in light industrial activity in the residential area has been a concern for many residents who have endured nuisance conditions caused by the truck yards. Residents report diesel engines running all hours of the day and night next to homes and unsafe road conditions from increased dust and mud stirred up by the trucks, which residents say can turn out of the truck yard driveways quickly onto residential streets, endangering neighborhood children. In addition, the heavy truck traffic has impacted infrastructure in the area, tearing up neighborhood streets that were not designed for heavy use.

Jeffress’ presentation included a summary of City of Houston regulations required for local truck yards, along with the results of her own investigation specifically on truck yards in the vicinity of the Gardens neighborhoods. In a shocking revelation, Jeffress found that, out of fourteen truck yards under review, only one appeared to be in compliance with most of the City’s regulations. “Only two of the properties had even attempted to comply with all of the City's requirements, and only one had actually followed through and fixed the problems,” shared Jeffress.

A vast majority of truck yards surveyed appeared to be out of compliance in multiple ways: Most lacked basic required plans and permits including Site Plans, Storm Water Permits, and Dumpster Permits. Many of the sites did not appear to be properly paved or graded, causing drainage issues and excessive dust pollution in the residential area – an issue that residents say is an ongoing concern. Most truck yards did not meet met landscaping requirements, such as required buffer zones of trees and fencing to minimize visual impacts on the neighborhood. Many of the truck yards were found to have RV’s hooked up to utilities on site, another violation of City code. Some of the truck yards were found to have more than a dozen outstanding citations from the City. With several truck yard owners in attendance, the meeting spurred a lively discussion, initiating a conversation between the truck yard owners and concerned residents.

Providing a comprehensive guide and a one-page summary for the residents, Jeffress shared educational information on how to identify and report violations, as well as information on how to follow up with the City of Houston in order to encourage enforcement of regulations by the City. The guide and summary can be found on LSLA’s EJ Resources page. “Putting these truck yards on the City's radar starts with citizen complaints to Houston 3-1-1,” shared Jeffress. 

“It was an awesome presentation,” shared Kathy Gunter, president of Houston Gardens Civic Association. “I’m still talking to other Civic Clubs about it – they were really excited and wanted to learn more.  Just the knowledge that many of the truck yards don’t have site permits gives us encouragement that these sites can be enforced for a safer, healthier community in the future.” 

“LSLA is appreciative of the excellent work Katie has done in highlighting the problems in the Gardens resulting from the City’s ‘no zoning’ policies and lack of enforcement on its own permitting regulations,” shared LSLA Managing Attorney, Amy Dinn. “LSLA is actively working to address these City policies, which disparately impact communities in the Houston Gardens/Trinity Gardens Super Neighborhood.”

Gunter and fellow Houston Gardens Civic Association members look forward to continuing the group's work with LSLA to address systemic concerns in their neighborhood in the coming year. Impacted by repeated flooding and infrastructure inequities in their neighborhood, HGCA has recently been advocating for an elderly couple whose plumbing is still in need of repair after flooding from Tropical Storm Imelda. "We have to take care of our community," shared Gunter, "especially the elders."

Above: Truck parking on mostly mud and grass surfaces; puddles indicate a lack of grading and draining / Photo: Courtesy UT Law Environmental Clinic and Lone Star Legal Aid

Above: Metal fence of a truck yard adjacent to a single-family residence / Photo: Courtesy UT Law Environmental Clinic and Lone Star Legal Aid

LSLA EDI Team Presents at 2019 Preserving Communities of Color Conference

On November 1, 2019, LSLA’s Equitable Development Initiative (EDI) presented at the fourth annual Preserving Communities of Color (PCOC) Conference. Responding to the need for a community-centered approach to the preservation of historic communities of color, PCOC was founded in 2015 as a national movement comprised of a coalition of people and organizations lending their expertise and background in preservation, history, research, community development, and social & cultural entrepreneurship to support place-based leaders with strategies, tools and ideas to preserve communities of color by revitalizing them into inclusive places and cultural destinations. “PCOC really empowers people on the ground,” shared PCOC founder, Tanya Debose.

The 2019 PCOC conference, Community Culture and Collaboration, focused on topics related to Health Equity, Housing and Environmental Justice. LSLA EDI Attorneys Amy Dinn, Kim Brown and Rodrigo Cantú shared EDI's collaborative efforts to holistically address decades of racial disparities and systemic discrimination threatening to erase historic communities of color in and around the Gulf Coast of Texas.

EJ Managing Attorney Dinn presented an overview of the kinds of advocacy work LSLA’s the EDI team has been engaged in since its founding in early 2017. Dinn also touched on her work with the Independence Heights Redevelopment Council (IHRC), advocating for the historic Independence Heights community as it faces potential impacts from TxDOT’s North Houston Highway Improvement Project (NHHIP). Represented by Dinn, the IHRC submitted comments to TxDOT that point to the cultural and historic expected impacts of TxDOT’s I-45 expansion plan, which threatens to compound impacts due to prior infrastructure projects including decades of flooding and property losses from the construction of I-610 in the early 1960s. TxDOT’s current expansion plan threatens to remove dozens of additional properties from Independence Heights including the Greater Mount Olive Baptist Church, a pillar of the historic black community dating to 1915.

EJ Attorney Rodrigo Cantú focused on LSLA’s work to address soil and water contamination concerns threatening historic communities of color along the Gulf Coast, presenting ways that communities can advocate for the remediation of contaminated sites in their neighborhoods by engaging in the public participation process through cleanup programs like the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), Superfund, and Brownfields redevelopment programs. Cantú also talked about his work over the past three years advocating for Houston’s Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens communities after a decades-long creosoting operation contaminated the soil and groundwater beneath residential homes.

Kim Brown, Managing Attorney for LSLA’s Fair Housing team, discussed her recent work advocating for residents of Arbor Court, a HUD-subsidized complex near Greens Bayou in North Houston where residents faced multiple health and safety concerns after Hurricane Harvey. Mold contamination, repeated flooding of the residents’ apartments since Harvey, lack of repairs, poor management and unsafe conditions threatened the residents’ safety and well-being. Represented by Brown and fellow LSLA Attorney Velmir Rasic, the residents are suing HUD for relocation assistance associated with tenant protection vouchers they received to move to decent, safe and sanitary housing. 

Earlier in the conference, former Arbor Court resident Daija Jackson engaged in a panel discussion with Texas Housers’ Ericka Bowman and Zoe Middleton to discuss her experiences becoming a community advocate through the HUD case. A single mother of two, Jackson stepped out on a limb to help her fellow neighbors join in LSLA’s HUD suit, even in the face of retaliation by the HUD-subsidized complex. Supported through LSLA and Texas Housers’ advocacy, Jackson has been able to relocate her family to a safer, cleaner apartment complex. 

Pam Norman, President of Barrett Economic and Development Organization (BECDO), found the three-day event inspiring and informative. "Connecting with resources, being informed and understanding what's possible - seeing actual tangible achievements of the work people are doing in their communities - that's huge," shared Norman. "It's personal. It's passion."

Organized by Tanya Debose, PCOC founder and Executive Director of the Independence Heights Redevelopment Council, the annual conference has become a place where community members can come together to share and learn from one another. “PCOC allows community members to see that there are many other communities facing the same kinds of issues that their own communities are confronting,” said Debose. “And it allows community members to share the strategies they’ve used to address those issues. PCOC also lets community members know that there are agencies like Lone Star Legal Aid out there to help them advocate for what’s right and just and fair,” she added. “PCOC empowers community members to take ownership of their community and push back or join forces to achieve their goals.”

Aimee VonBokel, PhD contributed to this story

Above: Tanya Debose, founder of PCOC, talks with panelists Zoe Middleton of Texas Housers, Daija Jackson, former Arbor Court resident and community advocate, and Ericka Bowman of Texas Housers / Photo: Aimee VonBokel, Lone Star Legal Aid

Top: EDI team members Kim Brown, Amy Dinn, and Rodrigo Cantu at the 2019 Preserving Communities of Color Conference / Photo: Tanya Debose

Group Client Update: Port Arthur Community Action Network (PA-CAN) Responds to Community Needs

Responding to community needs in a time of crisis, the community advocacy group and LSLA client, Port Arthur Community Action Network (PA-CAN), hosted a town hall along with Lone Star Legal Aid's Environmental Justice Team on December 7 in Port Arthur to address the recent explosions and fire at TPC Group’s petrochemical plant in Port Neches, Texas on November 27. Intended to connect community members with resources and educational information, the town hall was well attended by residents of Port Arthur and neighboring communities that have endured impacts from the disaster.

Presenters included LSLA EJ Managing Attorney Amy Dinn and Stephanie Thomas, PhD, of the community advocacy group, Public Citizen. Chair of PA-CAN, John Beard, led the town hall with opening remarks, acknowledging the community’s concerns about the sufficiency of the response and the disruptions felt by the community over the Thanksgiving holiday.

LSLA’s Dinn shared results from air monitoring efforts of the disaster response team, including results from handheld monitors and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Aspect plane, which made daily flyovers of the surrounding area to measure levels of particulate matter and 1,3 Butadiene, a chemical of concern released during the event.

Creating a timeline to clarify known information about the impacts of the disaster, Dinn addressed ongoing community concerns about impacts to public health and neighborhood air quality.

Out of compliance with Clean Air Act regulations since 2017, the TPC Group Port Neches plant exploded in the middle of the night on November 27, breaking out residents’ windows and causing additional property damage to nearby communities. A little over 12 hours later, a second explosion at the facility forced a mandatory evacuation of 60,000 residents in a 4-mile radius. The related chemical fire raged for over a week, releasing cancer-causing 1, 3 Butadiene into the community at excessive levels, leading to additional shelters-in-place and the closure of nearby schools in Port Neches Groves Independent School District. Additionally, the response contaminated surrounding waterways with elevated levels of MTBE and benzene, while environmental regulators reported finding asbestos debris up to 7 miles away from the facility.

At the town hall, LSLA shared a comprehensive list of resources with community members including contact information for the Red Cross, medical and mental health support services and legal claims information. The resource list, as well as Dinn’s December 7 presentation, can be found on LSLA's Environmental Justice Resources page.

“We were happy to be there for the community to provide accurate information about the ongoing impacts from this event and to give the residents a chance to share their frustrations over these types of incidents that have impacted their health, their property, and their holidays,” shared LSLA’s Dinn.

Stephanie Thomas of Public Citizen discussed action steps that community members could take to voice their opinions on TCEQ's regulation of non-compliant facilities, including the opportunity to attend a TCEQ Commissioners’ meeting on December 18 ^th in Austin, Texas to address the agency’s failure to regulate the TPC Port Neches facility.

PA-CAN’s recent town hall is a continuation of the group’s steadfast commitment to community ever since Hurricane Harvey dumped over 60 inches of rain on the southeast Gulf Coast in 2017. PA-CAN has remained engaged with LSLA’s EDI team on a number of cases that address ongoing concerns for the Westside community, a neighborhood struggling to get back on its feet more than two years after Harvey. Unable to afford home repairs, rebuilding or relocation costs, many Westside residents have been living in mold-infested, damaged homes ever since the storm.

Working with LSLA Community Advocacy Attorney, Ashea Jones, PA-CAN recently filed a suit accusing state and federal officials of racial discrimination in the Harvey recovery process. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District, Houston division with co-counsels Daniel & Beshara, PA-CAN's lawsuit alleges that the Texas General Land Office (GLO), Texas Land Commissioner, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush discriminated against Black and Hispanic renters through systematic practices that prioritize the distribution of some $5.6 billion dollars in Harvey Recovery funds to wealthier, White homeowners over Black and Hispanic renters. 

“GLO’s State Action has not addressed the unmet needs of critical populations—the elderly, disabled, single parents, children, low-income families and minority communities,” shared PA-CAN’s Beard. “In the two years since Harvey, very few Port Arthur residents have been able to successfully rebuild. HUD and GLO’s disaster assistance process has been too slow and too cumbersome.”

Beard added that information from local, GLO and HUD officials has been inconsistent, making it difficult for community members to know how to proceed. “It’s as though the rules are being made up as they go along,” said Beard. “The rules are being used in such a way to help those who are financially able to rebuild on their own, while offering very little help to those are who financially disadvantaged.”

“Hurricane Harvey damaged area homes, and entire neighborhoods, without regard to race or ethnicity, and without regard to owner or tenant status,” said LSLA’s Ashea Jones. “The federally administered disaster relief funds will not be so randomly provided, however. Instead, the odds of receiving (HUD-administered) Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) assistance are heavily in favor of White, non-Hispanic homeowner families and heavily against Black and Hispanic renter and homeowner families,” shared Jones. “There’s a new policy, a new plan for each disaster – but we’re getting the same result after each storm.”

Above: John Beard, Chairman of PA-CAN, delivers opening comments during a December 7th Town Hall in Port Arthur / Photo: Heejin Hwang, Lone Star Legal Aid

Lone Star Legal Aid's Environmental Justice Team partners with a wide variety of community organizations and non-profit groups including:

Achieving Community Tasks Successfully , Air Alliance Houston , Barrett Economic & Community Development Organization (BECDO), Caring for Pasadena Communities , Coalition of Community Organizations (COCO) , Coalition for Environment, Equity, and Resilience (CEER) , Concerned Citizens for Accountability, Earthjustice , Environmental Community Advocates of Galena Park, Environment Texas , Environmental Defense Fund , Environmental Integrity Project, Environmental Law Clinic of the University of Texas School of Law , Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health , Independence Heights Redevelopment Council , Independence Heights Reinvestment Fund, National Environmental Law Center , Friends of Eastwood Park , National Resources Defense Council , Neighborhood Witness , Northeast Houston Redevelopment Council , Pleasantville Civic League, Old Tamina Water Supply Corporation, OST Community Partnership, Port Arthur Community Action Network, Public Citizen , Settegast Heights Redevelopment Corporation, Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter , South Houston Concerned Citizens Coalition, Super Neighborhoo d 48, Super Neighborhood 57 , Texas Campaign for the Environment, Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services , Texas Health and Environment Alliance , Texas Low Income Housing Information Service ,   Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law , UT Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health