by Joyce, Tatiana, Kenneth, Stephanie, and Torriane
Our central focus was on the environmental issues within the black communities of Houston, caused by Hurricane Harvey. We addressed the demographics of the community of Manchester in Harris County that are now marked as Superfund sites; affected by contamination. The air and water qualities were affected and brought environmental concerns. There have been efforts to help solve the climate change and clean up, by preventing carbon to be let out into the air by refineries and petrochemical plants. Yet, Manchester’s population of family households and non-households were affected, about 74.7 % of living residents and 25.3% are non-households. Some are businesses that were inflicted like restaurants, supermarkets, banks, etc. Despite that the percentages show that residential areas were mostly affected. Residents in the Harris County are a little over 70% are predominately white and 47.3 % of blacks. These residents are living near superfund sites. Superfund sites are lands in the U.S that have been contaminated by hazardous waste.
These superfund sites are sites that are responsible for cleaning up some of the nation’s most contaminated land. They are also responsible for responding to environmental emergencies like oil spills and natural disasters Although EPA responds to these kinds of situations, EPA’s response personnel did not visit the sites that were heavily flooded for days even though they had access to those sites. John Fleming, a scientist at Center’s Climate Law Institute, stated that, “These flooded sites are a toxic threat to people living nearby, and the EPA’s slow response to this crisis compounds the risks.” There are 87 % of the people living in an area with environmental issues. We also found that 60 out of 82 sites in the coast of Texas are located in communities of color or low income however, 50 of these sites alone are located in Harris County. There are 82 Superfund sites in the coastal counties in Texas that were affected by Harvey. Extreme flooding was also partly caused by climate change. The people living in these areas of Houston were deeply affected by these events because many of the people ended up getting sick.
Many people who are living in the area known as Cancer Alley either leave their homes or end up sick with asthma along with different types of cancer or they die of other illnesses. A doctor interview by MSNBC news said that, “People are talking about this economic recovery and the rebirth of clean energy and renewable energy, but what we have is energy apartheid, where poor communities and poor communities of color are still getting the dirtiest of the dirty energy.” (Lee) In other words, the changes in technology for a clean environment are leading to the exclusion of communities with low incomes families. This leads to all plants and factories to end up in areas where poor people live. In another article, an African American women says that “Poverty shouldn’t be a death sentence.” In other words, the poverty that these people are going through shouldn’t be dragged out to the extent that people are starting to die. People deserve to be helped in times like this. Some of the information that we found surprising was that if so many people live in these communities, why does the government not do something to help them? Also we found it surprising that they are so many superfund sites in one county. If one county has a generous amount of superfund sites, why is it taking so long for these people to get help? This shows a lack of effort and responsibility from the Superfund sites. Something we learned and did not expect to find out was that they are so many families suffering through these terrible conditions in a country that is so advanced compared to other places. We believe that many families could have been saved if there was more effort put in to help out the people who suffered through the toxic waste and pollution. Even though we were able to gather a lot of information about the aftermath of Harvey and Cancer Alley, we still had questions about our research. How many people are diagnosed with cancer or any other illness a year? What is the government’s plan on fixing this problem? How can people help increase more awareness of these situations? Will there be improvements to the superfund sites so that people can be better aided? How long will it take for Cancer Alley to be freshly refurbished?