Last Friday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that their Civil Rights division will likely be leading an “environmental justice investigation into the City of Houston’s operations, policies and practices related to illegal dumping.”

In an announcement, Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General for DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said “Illegal dumpsites not only attract rodents, mosquitos and other vermin that pose health risks, but they also can contaminate surface water and impact proper drainage, making areas more vulnerable to flooding.”

Clarke went on to clarify how nobody in america ought to be exposed to risk of illness and other serious harm due to ineffective solid waste management or inadequate enforcement programs. “We’ll conduct a good and thorough investigation of those environmental justice concerns and their impact on Black and Latino communities within the City of Houston,” she said.

This investigation is a results of the efforts of Lone Star Legal Aid, which filed a grievance on behalf of a neighborhood in a northeast Houston that complained about people dumping tires, sofas, mattresses, TVs and other items on the streets. Some illegal dumping has clogged drainage ditches, which has increased flooding problems during heavy rains.  

Besides the abovementioned items, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said that medical waste and dead bodies have also been illegally dumped into these communities.

Neighborhood residents, which is made up of predominantly Black and Latinx people, have long complained to the town about their concerns, but their pleas have been continually missed and disregarded. That is their latest endeavor to attempt to combat the continuing environmental hazards present of their community.

Huey German-Wilson has lived within the neighborhood for a few years, and said, “They’ve whole entire budgets and folks who cope with these issues — why did we now have to go all of the technique to the Department of Justice? …I’m immensely relieved we could potentially have some resolution here, but can I actually rest on that?”

That is the primary public environmental justice work by the newly minted office of environmental justice, which was created by Attorney General Merrick Garland in May. This “office is targeted on ‘fenceline communities’ in Houston, Latest Orleans, Chicago and other cities which were exposed to air and water pollution from chemical plants, refineries and other industrial sites.”

City of Houston’s Mayor Sylvester Turner spoke with local news outlet and said the DOJ’s investigation was “absurd, baseless and without merit,” stated the town has spent tens of millions fighting illegal dumping, calling it “a practice that we agree disproportionately plagues Black and Brown communities in Houston and lots of municipalities throughout the country.”

Despite the mayor’s assertions, the DOJ has indicated that environmental justice issues are endemic and widespread in the town of Houston, “noting 11 of its 13 city-owned landfills and incinerators are in majority-Black neighborhoods — the density of which” attracts much more illegal dumping.”