I live in Austin, Texas. More specifically, I live right next to the University of Texas, which is right next to Interstate 35. Many of you are my neighbors. We all curse the construction on Mopac. We’re all suckers for a good breakfast taco spot. We all know how to “correctly” pronounce “Guadalupe” and “Rio Grande” and “San Jacinto.” And we all look just over to the east side of the highway and see our other neighbors — neighbors that have been unfairly exposed to the adverse effects of environmental racism because of their status as members of a minority/low-income community.
In 1928, city officials drafted the “1928 Master Plan.” This plan allowed for the creation of a “Negro District” in East Austin. This district enabled the government to section off a part of the city (just east of I-35), making it the only area “where African-Americans could access schools and other public services,” (Zehr, 2012). This plan also caused the district to “have the city’s weakest zoning restrictions, allowing the development of ‘a number of slightly objectionable industrial uses,’” within the limits of the newly created minority community (Zehr, 2012). It is now nearly a decade later, and our neighbors to the east are still feeling the greater implications of what it means to have suffered generations of unfair zoning practices.
Mere blocks away from us, our neighbors suffer at the hands of environmental racism. The city of Austin continues to allow for higher levels of industrial use in the eastern parts of the city (including residential areas) than when compared to its western counterparts (Stensland, 2017).
This environmental racism can have both acute and chronic effects on people’s health, according to the study “Human health effects of air pollution.” The impacts of pollution range “from minor upper respiratory irritation to chronic respiratory and heart disease, lung cancer, acute respiratory infections in children and chronic bronchitis in adults, aggravating pre-existing heart and lung disease, or asthmatic attacks.” In any case, regardless of duration of exposure, researchers had also found a link between pollution and premature mortality and reduced life expectancy.
But what does this mean for us? It means that members of our community are losing their families and loved ones. Brothers, sisters, moms, dads, boyfriends, best friends, children. In 1991, East Austin residents located near Springdale Road and Airport Boulevard were living right next to six tank farms. This site emitted “gasoline vapors including cancer-causing benzene into the air in this area for several decades exposing residents to toxic gases,” (Sierra Club). Because of this, people fell sick. People lost friends. People still feel the health effects. Currently, there are still several brownfields (previously used land that may still be contaminated) in East Austin, including Plaza Saltillo and Festival Beach Food Forest. Communities, such as East Austin, located near multiple commercial hazardous-waste facilities are home to three times the amount of minority residents as communities that were far away from such dump sites, according to The National. If we do not solve this problem, low income and minority citizens will continue to die at the hands of pollution at an alarmingly disproportionate rate.
But, we can solve this problem. We can find unity in our role as Austinites. We can make significant changes to uplift and protect the most vulnerable members of our community.
The best way to do so is by petitioning our local and state government for ordinances that mandate effective, large buffer zones between the plants and nearby neighborhoods. According to the study “Residential Proximity to Environmental Hazards and Adverse Health Outcomes,” researchers found that one’s proximity to hazardous waste sites is directly “related to an increased risk of adverse health outcomes,” (Brender et al. 2011). Because of their results, the researchers maintain that “government agencies should consider these findings in establishing rules and permitting and enforcement procedures to reduce pollution from environmentally burdensome facilities and land uses,” (Brender et al. 2011). The Sierra Club, an organization that works to mitigate environmental racism with a chapter based in Austin, also suggests the proposal of new zoning legislature that offers a buffer to benefit the residents of our community. Without these rules and regulations in place to ensure a healthy distance between waste site and residential area, members of communities that have been systemically silenced by racist zoning practices will continue to quietly suffer.
Taking your concerns to the city government can be daunting, especially for people in my demographic (young, college students), but you must look introspectively and work for the greater good. I have full faith that the city’s government will hear out our concerns. After all, the city of Austin has proven time and time again its commitment to recognizing the city’s racist past and making an effort to better its practices. As of 2018, the city council published a document titled “Austin’s ‘1928 Master Plan’ Unleashed Forces Which Still Shape Austin Today” in which the council took an in-depth look at the holistically racist practices involved in the master plan, while vowing to do better for the community. They have proven that they are open to making a viable change to amend the city’s racist past, just as we are asking them to do by passing this piece of legislature.
Further proving that the city recognizes the necessity of their role in enacting meaningful change to the cities environmentally racist, Austin’s planning commission voted in favor of “rezoning a 30-acre brownfield site in East Austin to make way for Springdale Green, a proposed 800,000-square-foot, mixed-use development,” a month and a half ago (Lee, 2021). Though the rezoning of these properties are fantastic ways for the city to reconcile the adverse effects of their harmful zoning practices, this work will mean little if new hazardous waste sites and industrial plants continue to pop up in residential areas.
I love my city. I want to be proud of my city. But to do that, the city must put its best foot forward to truly condemn the environmentally racist practices of the past that continue to put its minority and low-income residents in danger. Hand in hand, we can urge the city to adopt an ordinance that would require a safe distance between hazardous sites and our neighbors to the east. Then, we can all take pride in being Austinites, unburdened by the environmental racism that once plagued our community.
Works Cited
Kampa, Marilena, and Elias Castanas. “ Human Health Effects of Air Pollution.” Science Direct, 10 June 2007, pp. 362–367.
Covert, Bryce. “Race Best Predicts Whether You Live Near Pollution.” The Nation, 10 Nov. 2017, www.thenation.com/article/archive/race-best-predicts-whether-you-live-near-pollution/.
Brender, Jean D et al. “Residential proximity to environmental hazards and adverse health outcomes.” American journal of public health vol. 101 Suppl 1,Suppl 1 (2011): S37–52. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2011.300183
“Austin Brownfields Tour.” Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, www.tceq.texas.gov/gis/austin-brownfields-tour.
“Environmental Justice.” Sierra Club, 21 Nov. 2019, www.sierraclub.org/texas/environmental-justice.
Lee, Jonathan. “Planning Commission Throws Support behind Springdale Green Development.” Austin Monitor, 30 Mar. 2021, www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2021/03/planning-commission-throws-support-behind-springdale-green-development/.
Stensland, Jeff. “Racism, Inequities Continue to Exist in Austin, Report Finds.” Spectrumlocalnews.com, 5 Apr. 2017, spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/austin/news/2017/04/4/racism — -inequities-continue-to-exist-in-austin — report-finds.
Zehr, Dan. “Inheriting Inequality: Austin’s Segregation and Gentrification.” Edited by Barry Harrell, Austin Statesman, projects.statesman.com/news/economic-mobility/.