Prepare To Be Shocked - +/- 100 Planned TX Chemical Plant Expansiions Will Hit Poor Black & Brown People The Hardest
Ed. - Startling, I know - but there appears to be solid evidence of environmental racism!!
Researchers at Texas Southern University in Houston have analyzed demographic data around the locations of almost 100 industrial facilities proposed statewide and found that about 90 percent are located in counties with higher concentrations of people of color and families in poverty than statewide averages.
In a report released this month, the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern also found that nearly half of those proposed industrial sitespetrochemicals plants for manufacturing plastics, coastal export terminals, refineries and other facilitieswere already above the 90th percentile for pollution exposure under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys Toxics Release Inventory, a measurement of harmful industrial emissions.Texas and other states must end decades-long industrial facility siting where economically disadvantaged fenceline communities serve as dumping grounds, the report concluded.
Robert Bullard, the centers director and lead author of the report, first came to prominence as a young sociologist at the university when he produced a 1979 study showing that all five of Houstons city-owned landfills and six of eight city-owned incinerators were located in Black neighborhoods.
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Most plant workers commute in and out, leaving nearby neighborhoods to bear the impacts of toxic emissions without the economic benefits, said Bullard, 79, who has been called the father of environmental justice for his pioneering research. Airborne emissions associated with petrochemical production include known human carcinogens, such as benzene, ethylene oxide, vinyl chloride and 1,3-butadiene, as well as soot and other harmful chemicals. Wastewater from petrochemical production often contains heavy metals or acids. The Bullard Center considered 114 projects related to oil and gas in Texas proposed at 89 different locations as of February 2024, including coastal export terminals, refineries and seawater desalination plants that would supply water for petrochemical production.
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30112025/texas-petrochemical-expansion-will-fall-heavily-on-communities-of-color/