Gerald Hanks
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently settled a complaint against the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The suit involved an African-American neighborhood in Beaumont that was near an Exxon refinery that had repeated instances of releasing toxic chemicals into the air. The suit, which was filed in 2000, alleged that Exxon engaged in discriminatory practices by not controlling its emissions near the Charlton-Pollard neighborhood.
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The settlement involved TCEQ placing a single air monitor a mile away from the refinery, as well as two public meetings to go over the data collected with the monitor. Many of those involved in the 17-year suit call the settlement a case of “too little, too late.”
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“We got very little of what we asked for,” said Rev. Roy Malveaux, the pastor at the Shining Star Missionary Baptist Church and one of the plaintiffs in the original lawsuit. “I asked for a one-mile buffer zone with a half-mile greenbelt. I asked for help in relocation and a community center and for medical monitoring. I asked for air monitors and that the community be more involved in the everyday operation and to set up a warning system.”
Marianne Engelman Lado, director of the environmental law clinic at Yale University and one of the attorneys on the EPA lawsuit, said the agency may “have rushed to close” the case. She also said that the settlement agreement had “a lot of loose ends” and that it does not address the health issues that Charlton-Pollard residents have suffered with due to the refinery’s activities.
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Andrea Morrow, a TCEQ spokeswoman, said that the state and federal environmental agencies “worked cooperatively to address the concerns raised in the complaint. To that end, the agreement includes a provision that within a year the TCEQ will hold at least two public meetings in Beaumont for the residents of the community,”
