The environmental groups say the TNRCC's actions violate an Executive Order on environmental justice, which requires that federal programs and federally-funded projects not he allowed to increase "the disproportionate burdens of environmental hazards in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods."
The complaint focuses on the TNRCC's alleged failure to prevent the illegal pollution at Crown Central Petroleum's Pasadena, Texas, refinery; it charges the agency with a pattern of skewed permitting practices and lax enforcement in pursuing violations at industrial plants across the state.
Activists contend that neighborhoods near refineries and chemical plants are predominately Black, Latino and low income.
"Everyone knows that company and government officials would never tolerate the same pollution in their own neighborhoods," said Texans United director Rick Abraham. "These neighborhoods have been abandoned as sacrifice zones because residents don't have money or political influence."
According to the complaint, the TNRCC compromised its enforcement process at the expense of public health and the environment, and did so in order to protect Crown's financial interests. "The TNRCC's handling of Crown is another example that Governor George Bush Jr.'s environmental justice program at TNRCC is a complete sham," said Neil Carman, a former state air pollution official and the clean air director of the Texas chapter of the Sierra Club.
Crown's violations of federal Clean Air Act standards total more than 15,000 operating hours in the last six years. In just 1996 and 1997 alone, Crown emitted nearly 1,000 tons of excess sulfur dioxide into the community, according to Texans United. Environmentalist report that the EPA has found that sulfur dioxide is acutely toxic and can cause impairment of breathing, respiratory illness and aggravation of existing cardiovascular disease.
Texas leads the nation in civil rights complaints filed against a state environmental agency. At least nine civil rights complaints have been filed against the TNRCC with the EPA's civil rights office since 1994. Grassroots community groups from across Texas allege numerous discriminatory practices by the TNRCC.
"Contrary to what Bush appointee and TNRCC Commissioner Barry McBee represented to Congress in his testimony of August 1998, the TNRCC has no meaningful environmental justice program to protect low-income citizens and people of color from toxic pollution across the state," said Mr. Carman.
Scores of civil rights, labor and religious groups, including the NAACP, the National Baptist Convention and the AFL-CIO have criticized the Baltimore-based Crown General Petroleum for its treatment of minorities, women and workers.
The Final Call, 12-29-98