Righting and “Writing” Wrongs: A Postmortem on a Decade of Environmental Justice Activism in Corpus Christi,Texas

Introduction

Both of us arrived in Corpus Christi, Texas in 2005 and 2008, respectively, as newly minted college professors. One of us came from an intellectual background rooted in criminological theory and Environmental Justice (EJ) research, the other from an environmental policy background. What we found was a city of roughly 300,000 residents with one of the country's largest shipping channels and industrial complexes right at the backdoor of lower income communities. We have participated in wide-ranging actions to attempt greater environmental protection and economic justice for these communities.

We hope the value of this article lies in our ability to succinctly impart this history for other academics and activists to assist in engaging in such actions in their own communities. Although the EJ movement in Corpus Christi can arguably be traced to the founding of People Against Contaminated Environmental (PACE) in the mid-1990s, our work started in fall 2005 and 2008, respectively, and continues to this day, as does the EJ movement itself.

The article that follows argues that academics can make substantive contributions to help protect EJ communities by getting involved locally. We organize these contributions into the broader categories of (1) organizing locally to bring awareness, (2) marshalling scientific evidence, (3) engaging in legal action, and (4) raising funds for a buyout. The key to making such a contribution involves using research and organizational skills to help work with and build coalitions of like-minded individuals who are also passionate about this kind of work, to forge mutually beneficial outcomes.

Academics and local citizens in our community worked together to bring these problems to the surface, make them publicly salient, and to ameliorate the environmental harms in the community as best as possible. In our case, this meant strategic organizing, bringing awareness to the issues, providing scientific evidence of harm to keep these issues in the public spotlight and making regulators pay attention, and working with other groups to bring legal action or raising funds for a buyout to foster direct change in the community.

We hope to show in this case study how these avenues were successful in the quest to reduce environmental harm to those living in fenceline areas in our community, in the hope that these lessons can be imparted to others seeking change in their local communities. What follows is an accounting of these efforts. We draw on our own experiences and offer our own reflections of the pitfalls and benefits of each approach. For this article, we organized those experiences by reviewing our collected field notes, articles, and e-mails we saved over the years, as well as our own published research. ¹

Organizing Locally and Bringing Awareness

Environmental crimes typically go unnoticed by the general public unless they are highly salient and sensationalized in the media. ² We have always used a state-corporate crime framework to conceptualize how bad things can keep happening in these EJ cases that are in effect environmental crime cases. The environmental harm is caused through the state-corporate crime nexus or, “illegal and socially injurious actions that result from the policies and practices of one or more agencies of political governance in collaboration with one or more institutions of economic production and distribution.” ³ Under such a framework, government is likely aware of injurious actions that corporate polluters cause in the community, but is unable, unwilling, or through these actions, complicit in the harm they cause.

Applied through a state-corporate crime lens, we can see how the relationship between corporate polluters and the government allows environmental harms to persist in plain sight of the public and reproduce themselves for both economic and political reasons. ⁴ We find that many individuals in the community do not fully understand the state-corporate crime nexus that produces and reproduces these crimes, such as the lax oversight and enforcement of environmental laws near industrial complexes, the unwillingness of regulators to play hardball with corporate environmental criminals, and the weak sanctions for malfeasance that allows harm to these fenceline communities to continue in plain sight. Rather than gaining sympathy, victims were often blamed in the community for their “choice” to live near the industry. In this, we feel that activism may, if nothing else, impact awareness in the community and “change the frame” about how the community sees the offenders and victims in these types of cases. ⁵ The sociopolitical environment surrounding EJ issues requires citizens to get involved to organize and bring awareness to the issue and foster change from the grassroots.

Corpus Christi is fairly typical in the United States in having low-income predominantly minority communities living near heavy industry. There are three EJ communities located extremely close to heavy industry, including the Dona Park, Oak Park, and the Hillcrest neighborhoods. All these communities in some form predated the expansion of heavy industry nearby and are predominately low-income communities of color. Industry is clustered around the shipping channel that houses an array of manufacturers and is dominated by six major petroleum refineries.

The efforts we have witnessed to right these historical wrongs and protect human health have been varied and represent a great number of options available to activists seeking to find justice for similarly situated communities. The context in which they take place follows a similar thread to other EJ communities, such as Steve Lerner's excellent treatment of these struggles in Louisiana or other studies in the literature. ⁶

A good path for budding activists and volunteers is to join a local EJ group. In the 1990s, local activists formed PACE. This action started the organized EJ movement in Corpus Christi that continues through today. ⁷ With a great deal of effort and support from The Sierra Club, PACE was able to file a civil rights lawsuit and prompt a partial buyout of the Oak Park neighborhood, a predominantly low-income minority community surrounded by two oil refineries. ⁸ The buyout was a great success for the group. Although an early victory in many respects, the organization dwindled, activists moved on and away, and PACE disappeared to memory, whereas some continued the fight elsewhere. ⁹ Key actors included the following: the Reverend Roy Malveaux, State Director of PACE, Dr. Neil Carman, Clean Air Director at the time for the Lonestar Chapter of The Sierra Club, and Attorney Grover Hankins of Texas Southern University. ¹⁰ Following in PACE's footsteps, Citizens for Environmental Justice (CFEJ) was founded in 2000 to continue this fight on behalf of the residents of Hillcrest and Dona Park. ¹¹

Serving as members and research consultants, we found CFEJ, like all local groups, is often limited by its organization and resources. On their own, such groups are limited to fostering efforts to bring awareness to their problem within the media, regulatory system, politicians, and the community. However, these tools can be powerful for bringing EJ issues to the community. It is easy for many individuals to overlook EJ problems, because unless a refinery stack explodes or someone dies, they often involve the slow and silent poisoning of people living near heavy industry. Getting issues in the media starts to bring public awareness and arguably helps to start changing the frame for some by demonstrating the dire health consequences these people face needlessly on a daily basis. CFEJ's efforts included bringing awareness of the siting of public schools on polluted land, creating public salience in the local media regarding negative health effects, and becoming a source for local and state reporters on local EJ issues.

Awareness brought salience in this case, which is the first step to change in our experience. Salience did not prompt those occupying positions of power to foster change themselves, but did require them to acknowledge these issues in the media. By pressing the case and making sure EJ issues were displayed in local and state media, CFEJ was able to take an issue and put it in front of the public. Considering the local news feed is often limited and mundane in many cities like Corpus Christi, we found select reporters assigned to particular beats were more than willing to speak with us to fill their pages. Particularly on a slow news day, EJ issues could receive good placement in the local paper, The Caller Times, as well as state publications with sympathetic reporters, such as the Texas Observer that would run longer stories. ¹²

We found the media was willing to generally cover two types of stories. The first were stories involving human drama that developed during public hearings or meetings and the second were narratives focusing on sickness or death. The second set of stories was most convincing and sought after once scientific evidence of the proximity to heavy industry-health effects nexus was uncovered.

For the former, citizen activists should realize they have rights to public input and hearings and these provide great forums for focusing media attention on their issues. One of the best skills local groups can develop when dealing with state environmental agencies in our experience is to know your rights in terms of participation in the regulatory process. State environmental agencies are generally required to follow some variant of a three-stage process for rule making—a policy creation stage requiring public input, posting a draft copy to the state Register or other public forum, and final review. They are often required to host public meetings or forums on particular rules or proposals, meet with stakeholders, and provide open meetings.

We never had a problem getting employees of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to hold public meetings, we just had a problem with them moving forward. We always imagined a process of the person drawing the short straw as the one forced to attend public forums at the Oveal Williams Senior Center in the Hillcrest Neighborhood to get yelled out for an hour and drive home to Austin late. Unfortunately, in the countless meetings we attended over the years, we got the distinct impression these forums were less about information and action (most participants had the former and wanted the latter), but functioned as a release valve for the community. ²

We never expected that these forums would foster change directly. These are entry-level mechanisms to access government. They do play a key role as focusing events, because you can help get various people interested in the issue in the community in a room, make government hear your case and respond, which can be powerful tools for getting the media to pay attention. Yet if you are making the case that ultimately fenceline communities are experiencing an undue level of harm from their proximity to heavy industry, to move to the next level of influence you must provide scientific evidence of that harm. How we accomplished this step is discussed below.

Marshalling Scientific Evidence

The next course of action is involved gathering evidence of harm in these communities. CFEJ managed to work effectively through the regulatory process to get the state to examine birth defects in the community and then worked with Global Community Monitor to start a Bucket Brigade program, and monitor air samples. ¹³ By 2006, the group convinced the Texas A&M University School of Public Health to complete a biomonitoring study on these fenceline communities. ¹⁴ CFEJ did get results in terms of getting the state to undertake the birth defects study, which brought attention to the high rates of birth defects in Nueces County. The Bucket Brigade program was successful in getting citizen activists to draw attention to air pollution that was not fully captured by extant monitors and empowered them in the face of the great problem in front of them. ¹⁵

The biomonitoring study sparked a debate locally over the severity of the toxic substances found in the bodies of those living near heavy industry and the causes of those substances. Industry challenged the study findings in the media and public sphere. Although the presence of high levels of benzene in participant's blood and urine living in the Hillcrest community was disputed on methodological grounds, it sparked a public debate nonetheless and thus provided a positive effect on bringing attention to the issue. ¹⁶

All these efforts brought salience in the media, general community, and with sympathetic groups. We often (but not always) found local and state government officials to be less than sympathetic to fostering a solution or putting their neck out on behalf of these individuals. Occasionally, local media focused on complaints from residents about getting sick, positing that it was likely caused by living next to heavy industry. However, we found that generating this theme in the media was not always convincing, as polluters often cast doubt on the result of research studies, offered contrary evidence, argued this was not a causal link, or highlighted the “good citizen model” as these companies employed so many local people directly or as contractors.

We frequently observed the common and inaccurate trope that people should know better when moving to these areas, ignoring the historical, economic, and other structural factors that drive people into harm's way. ¹⁷ Yet whether it was bringing citizen science in the form of the Bucket Brigade air monitoring program, the biomonitoring study carried out in conjunction with Texas A&M, or other studies conducted by nonprofits, such as the Environmental Integrity Project, all these represent successful collaborations that put the issues in the public spotlight; otherwise they likely would have been ignored by industry and government. ¹⁸

Regulatory agencies often played into this problem. In fairness, they took action in terms of installing air and water monitoring devices, geoprobes, and other technological solutions to monitor pollution. We found many street-level regulators that were sympathetic to the problem, but the regulatory apparatus provided few options for them to act directly, other than holding public meetings at the request of community members. In one case, we were very impressed with the former head of the EPA Region 6 Office, Dr. Al Armendariz, whom we had the chance to work with on a few occasions. Unfortunately, he was forced to resign after making comments about the need for strong enforcement. In a rare feat, he came to work for the Sierra Club in Texas upon his resignation. ¹⁹

We found in many cases that no one checked or calibrated the monitors, they did not measure for necessary pollutants, or they were not in optimum locations to do so. These findings are important, because it means citizens have to play a role in marshalling scientific evidence on behalf of fenceline communities and cannot rely on regulators alone. In the end, our conclusion is that you never reach the point of a definitive study in our situation locally or in most others that can prove to policymakers and the public there is a significant problem with an identifiable source and thus someone is responsible and should be held accountable. This only happens if something literally blows up and kills several people immediately. If you poison people gradually, you are much more likely to get away with it and to do so legally.

These statements should not diminish the work of groups local groups like PACE, CFEJ, or their collaboration with national groups, such as the Environmental Integrity Project, Sierra Club, and Public Citizen. None of these efforts to develop scientific evidence of harm mentioned herein caused direct change by the state. They were arguably a necessary step to build on the awareness fostered locally by CFEJ to take the argument to the next level in the public sphere in terms of acknowledging the severity of the environmental harm taking place. It was a combination of all the efforts to bring the issue to the forefront and keep it in the media for the public, corporations, and regulators so that it became common knowledge that EJ is an issue worth paying attention to in Corpus Christi.

If evidence alone does not spur policy change, it is necessary to maintain interest and salience on the part of the public and policymakers. Regulatory agencies have little interest in buyouts, but focus on harm reduction and monitoring to meet regulatory mandates. Most state agencies and the EPA for that matter do not engage in stringent oversight and deterrence of environmental harm from polluters. ²⁰ Instead they often bend to the costs of potential litigation and issue fines or consent decrees. At best, our experience and knowledge of the EJ literature suggests strongly that any serious gains in reducing pollution in EJ communities generally comes as a consequence of broader environmental changes in law over time and not solely on their behalf. Government, particularly local and state, did not actively work to help EJ communities, but as in good fashion, responded to pressure. ²¹

Bringing media and community salience, engaging policymakers, and generating basic scientific evidence on health effects has become the general tool belt of local organizations to bring pressure on government. It also represents the value and promise of small N activism while laying bare its limitations. Local groups have specific constraints unless they form coalitions or organize with other sympathetic organizations. ²² As PACE had been successful teaming up with The Sierra Club and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and this success met with a partial buyout, CFEJ worked successfully with other organizations to exploit common avenues of influence (including Public Citizen and nonprofit legal aid clinics).

As with most interest groups or social movements, to persevere and grow, the group must go beyond a single person and seek institutionalization. In the social movements literature, this phrase often means groups are run by professional leaders and seek formal and consistent pathways to influence much like an interest group rather than a purely grassroots organization. ²³ In our case, we mean something similar in that the organizations persist beyond their original founders to have a board, nonprofit status, rules and procedures, and common and consistent pathways toward influence. CFEJ, like PACE that came before it, failed to become institutionalized and although the organization persists, it has not been able to overcome these limitations and has not for some years played a major role of bringing consistent salience to EJ issues locally or spearheading group efforts. If one person barks loudly they might be a prophet or a crank, but if many speak up you are taken more seriously, which is why success often came by engaging and organizing with other groups. Outside of bringing awareness to EJ issues in the media, prompting public meetings with regulatory agencies, or marshalling scientific evidence, taking legal action was the next step in causing direct change.

Engaging in Legal Action

All the previous examples are ways in which salience was brought to EJ issues locally, through local organization or collaboration with other concerned groups. The efforts to bring awareness to the historical issues of EJ in the community and scientific evidence of harm helped to spur an ongoing conversation in the media and bring pressure on public officials. Direct legal action was another path that built on this pressure and helped to cause specific changes in law and outcomes that helped fenceline communities. We found the legal route was the most effective at quickly getting a corporate polluter's attention, as well as government. We found this in the context of permitting battles, federal prosecutions, and intervening in a legal case on behalf of victims.

An important legal case stemmed from state regulators finding migratory birds dead at a Citgo Petroleum Corporation (i.e., CITGO) storage facility. Although the TCEQ had known about it for years, the company was illegally storing benzene in an open tank meant for oil–water separation. CFEJ worked with the prosecutors from the Department of Justice as they began their investigation of CITGO. By acting as participant observers in the case, we saw firsthand how local, state, and federal law enforcement can work together on an important case that directly impacted EJ communities locally. CITGO was charged in 2007 for illegal storage of benzene in the wastewater tanks and the taking of the migratory birds that died from the exposure. Sentencing took until 2014 and recently the conviction was overturned because the federal government did not want to go through with an appeal. ²⁴

The U.S. v. CITGO case was important, because prosecutors collected over a thousand victim impact statements. Although the judgment was overturned, for the first time in a case involving a Clean Air Act (CAA) violation, victims were able to appear in court and read testimony of the negative effects these actions had on their health and that of their families and the impacts of living in a fenceline community. ²⁵ Such a legal precedent had never been set in the United States. To make this outcome a reality, we were able to work with former federal district court judge and victims' rights advocate Paul Cassell to help file motions on behalf of the victims to be heard in court.

We were able to witness career prosecutors put a decade of their lives into this case; flying back and forth to Corpus Christi from Washington D.C., working with the community, collaborating with other agencies, and directly caring for the impact on EJ victims. We saw that like coalition building in civil society, building coalitions with different levels of law enforcement can have significantly positive effects on moving legal cases forward that benefit EJ communities. We observed how the human element, the extra care and advocacy put forward by bringing different government groups together, lawyers and others who were advocating on behalf of victims for different reasons, resulted in the most positive and longest lasting legal precedent to come from the case.

It is quite amazing how much work and money was spent by both the federal government and activists participating in this legal fight on behalf of victims, just so victims could be heard in court. This paves the way for future avenues for EJ activists and traditionally conservative victims' rights advocates to form alliances to empower victims in court proceedings—a legal precedent that will serve EJ communities well. ²⁶

Expanding the capacity of an industrial facility that will generate new sources of pollution or siting a new facility requires permit. Such permits are closely watched by environmental groups and are often subject to legal action. Lawsuits challenging permits may be predicated on such arguments that predicted emissions are much greater than the entity suggests on their application, it will have unintended health or other effects in the community, or other factors. Permits have to go through an appropriate legal process before they are issued by the relevant regulator and then finally the regulated entity is able to conduct operations. When the Las Brisas Energy Center (LBEC) filed an application for an air permit for a 1200-MW petroleum coke plant, the company underestimated the coalition that would develop against it.

In Texas, as in most states, air permits are often challenged, but generally succeed in gaining regulatory approval. The LBEC permit was submitted to the TCEQ in May 2008 and received final approval in January 2011. ²⁷ Opposition groups waged public information campaigns and sent representatives to Corpus Christi on many occasions to oppose the siting of the plant. Opposition groups included the following: The Nueces County Medical Society, American Federation of Teachers, Texas State Medical Association, Texas Clean Air Cities Coalition, Public Citizen Texas Office, The Lonestar Chapter of The Sierra Club, The Environmental Defense Fund, and The Clean Economy Coalition. ²⁸

With construction planned in 2009, groups used the regulatory system to stall the process. ²⁹ This was carried out by exhausting all public procedures in the state, such as notice and comment and public hearings. They utilized the legal system by challenging the permit and engaging in a series of procedural delays to stall out construction. Finally, groups banded together to lobby the political system to find local politicians who were against the project and to rally support. The ultimate conclusion was that the company likely incurred major costs in delayed construction, faced persistent pressure, and gave up on the project. It has not yet been built and there do not seem to be plans at this time to resurrect it locally although rumors persist that it will be built closer to the border. ³⁰

The lessons from the LBEC battle were that when local groups united with national groups they have a much better chance at preventing new sources of pollution in the community. National environmental groups spend a good deal of their time and resources challenging permits and holding up the permitting process. Estimates of pollution are generated by the regulated entity and it is impossible to know exactly how much they will emit until the facility is operational or the expansion of existing facilities complete. ³¹ Even then the science that predicts and monitors emissions in the front and back end can only provide an educated range of what will be emitted; EJ communities are the ones that bear the costs of these miscalculations and oversights. National groups provided locals with valuable contacts and technical expertise that would be otherwise unavailable. Local activists benefitted here, because Public Citizen was working on a national campaign at the time and emphasizing Texas grassroots efforts to oppose the sitting of new coal plants planned for the state. As Las Brisas came under this banner, it fit within an existing campaign and became a signature focus for the organization that might not have occurred otherwise. As with anything in politics, years of effort keeping the flame burning for an issue locally and maintaining good contacts pays off when the national spotlight happens to illuminate your problem within the backdrop of a greater nationwide issue.

Raising Funds for a Buyout

Fighting permits yielded a final, yet novel path for us to work toward justice for fenceline communities in the form of a buyout. Local activists, with the help of attorneys from the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Texas-Austin and Texas Rural Legal Aid, issued a permit challenge to the siting of a new industrial facility. Out of this challenge, the activists and attorneys were able to negotiate a settlement that led in 2014 to the creation of a nonprofit organization, the Environmental Justice Housing Fund (EJHF). EJHF was able to engage in a partial buyout of the Dona Park neighborhood near the refineries. The fund determined market values, offered generous settlements to residents and moving expenses, demolished homes, and created temporary greenspaces. ³²

The long-term goal was to build on additional donations and settlements to further the buyout of local EJ communities. The Fund raised over $2 million dollars in funds for these buyouts. In terms of direct action, this was the greatest success. ³³ From this experience we learned one of the key paradoxes of EJ—there is no such thing as a clean buyout. Many people do not wish to leave their community, some are distrustful of your intentions, quite a few homes are owned by nonresident landlords, many people rent in the area because of low rent even knowing the potential health costs, and some people simply want too much for their homes, even beyond the ability to move to and buy a better home in another area of town.

Being able to act on moral principles to remove people from harm thus comes with many human and legal complications. Not only do you encounter a diverse group of interests, but money often divides a community rather than unites it at times. It is challenging to buyout people and prevent them from returning to the area even if they are contractually bound, and the problem of what to do in the short- and long-term with acquired properties poses difficulties.

Discussion

Our work in the local community over the past decade has allowed us myriad opportunities to get involved in the fight to help fenceline communities. We found that organizing locally with sympathetic members of the community, bringing awareness through the media, marshalling scientific evidence of environmental harm, getting involved in and taking legal action, and organizing a buyout were all good avenues to bring positive change. Although not all of these actions necessarily built on one another in a linear manner toward the ultimate buyout of some residents in Dona Park, they did help to create a synergy in that they brought these issues to the public sphere and brought pressure to bear on government officials to bring needed changes.

We benefitted when organizing locally from the previous efforts of PACE and CFEJ that brought EJ issues into the public's attention. By getting involved, local citizens helped move this issue beyond their local geography to include state- and national-level environmental groups to help in the effort. PACE's effort to coordinate a partial buyout could not have been accomplished without good organization and cooperation with groups such as the Lonestar Chapter of the Sierra Club and other sympathetic organizations. Of equal importance is that although PACE formally disbanded, it helped cement a legacy of EJ activism and create a base for getting some of the same individuals involved later on in the efforts of CFEJ and other groups that came to help fight for the cause in the area. In many respects, PACE can be thought of as another segment of the longer history of civil rights activism in Corpus Christi starting much earlier with the American GI Forum and the LULAC, both founded in the area.

CFEJ's efforts to bring salience to EJ issues in Corpus Christi were arguably successful. The group helped invigorate the EJ conversation that had stalled with PACE some years earlier. This provided a basis for organization and cooperation with other groups to move the narrative forward in the public arena. Of most benefit was the effort to require government officials to meet their statutory obligations and hold public meetings and hearings and help both CFEJ and other groups to have a forum to discuss these issues and focus media attention.

Marshalling scientific evidence helped to carry this public conversation to the next level. Getting the state to look more in-depth at the birth defects registry and produce research findings was a good start. This did not require any technical skills or additional data on our part, but brought to bear basic epidemiological data that started to make the case for how polluted the fenceline communities are and the health effects of living nearby. The partnership with Global Community Monitor to create their own air monitor as part of the Bucket Brigade program made much sense. It required some technical knowledge, but it was not a severe burden to start the program and it gave attention to the problem. The partnership with A&M to produce the grant-funded biomonitoring study was another logical step. Although challenged publicly on methodological grounds (i.e., some of the equipment was tainted), it demonstrated high benzene levels in blood and urine in some residents to further make the case for further studying these health problems.

Legal action in the form of the Citgo case and the LBEC battle were every effective. However, their story, like the rest of these actions, is not one of isolated or linear progress, but one of concerned individuals organizing and working together on common causes. It is also a story of how important it is for local groups to start the conversation and provide a contact point and base for reaching out beyond their community. The story of EJ in Corpus Christi is one of building pressure in the system for change, maintaining that pressure, and working together to exploit opportunities over time as they come. In this, the EJ fight here can be likened to any political issue—it is like a football game, where you move forward, move back, get sacked, but sometimes you get an opening and go for it. These structural parallels and particulars of how this fight began and was successful may be applied to any community that has similar problems.

Opportunities may arise over time, but you have to be in a position to take them and that means having an organized presence that expects them or can react to them when they present themselves. The Citgo case happened for lots of reasons. One, state regulators had suspected the problem for years, fined the company on multiple occasions, but it happened to be the right prosecutor assigned to the right case, the right state regulator that got sick walking by the oil–water separator tanks that day, and the right presidential administration that allowed charges to be brought and for the case to be pursued.

Yet in all these, local groups like CFEJ helped by bringing attention to the issue, keeping it in the media, and soliciting help from other environmental groups. The LBEC fight arguably worked so well, because it got caught up in the larger national debate over coal-fired energy and national campaigns by Public Citizen and Sierra Club that rallied against it. The Citgo case was bolstered by CFEJ, the authors, Paul Cassell, and other legal advocates who organized to help appeal for the rights of victims that resulted in the landmark recognition of them as victims under the federal CAA. Although the criminal penalties were overturned later on appeal, the precedent stands.

The same logic may be applied to the EJHF buyout. Could this have occurred without the previous actions? Arguably the answer would be no, but the outcome was by no means preordained. Did the previous actions cause the buyout? The answer is no. Grassroots involvement helps to create an environment of salience around a particular issue. Local activists may work to build local, state, and national coalitions of mutually agreeable groups so their individual and combined efforts result in collaborations and mutual aid toward their individual and shared causes. Sowing the seeds with good organization helps individuals prepare for opportunities that come, because they are more likely to be cognizant of their eventual arrival and have the resources to do something about it once they come. Specific opportunities are unknown, but being available for them in this regard is a universal maxim of grassroots action that applies to EJ in Corpus Christi and nationwide. It may best be said then that direct successes such as Citgo, LBEC, and EJHF were opportunities that came about because of the presence PACE, CFEJ, and other civil rights groups created decades earlier. Maintaining this presence for the next fight is always the greatest challenge of grassroots organization.

The construction of a new Harbor Bridge over the Corpus Christi Ship Channel represents the third buyout opportunity in recent memory. ³⁴ Given that the bridge will cut directly through parts of Hillcrest, the state has created a plan to generate a partial buyout of those homes that will be directly affected by the rerouting of the new, massive construction project. Determining fair values, dealing with diverse interests, and managing the properties pose difficulties for the state, although these are fewer, given its resources and legal authority. The hardest thing to imagine when you have a buyout opportunity as we have with PACE, EJHF, and the Harbor Bridge is that with all the injustice they have faced, many long-term residents have made a particular neighborhood their home for 60 years or more and simply do not want to leave. ³⁵ Government must build a bridge and move residents, but we would argue the pressure built into the system that currently exists can get this fight more exposure and hopefully residents a better deal as a consequence. Strong grassroots organization that links to outside groups is necessary for this and the challenges that come for these fenceline communities.

Conclusion

We found in Corpus Christi over the past decade numerous instances of these key variables coming together to benefit EJ communities. We wish that these buyouts were more widespread or easier to achieve, but buyouts are inherently complex and governments ill-equipped to even offer them without appropriate pressure. That said, these local efforts may bubble up over time in the country as a whole as more and more legal cases are tested to recognize the rights of environmental crime victims in legal proceedings. These actions help to give voice to those that have been silenced or ignored historically and provide better grounding to find avenues to provide compensation for those who were wronged in civil proceedings. Such efforts are needed, as the U.S. economy grows so does heavy manufacturing, petroleum refining, natural gas processing, and the like. Such facilities will continue to expand and exert pressure on fenceline communities—the EJ problem is not abating with time, but getting worse.

The U.S. system of regulatory enforcement is structured in a manner that offers little hope of environmental agencies directly helping EJ communities in a substantive manner. The EPA was created to address the failures of the U.S. states to protect human health and the environment. The paradox Congress created by this action is that it left most of the enforcement to the states and many are ill-equipped to engage in stringent protection. At best EJ communities will receive better monitoring, perhaps laws requiring heavy industry to modernize pollution controls, and occasionally fines for chronic polluters. They cannot expect government to engage in serious enforcement to reduce the total burden of these pollutants or right historical wrongs, because the system is not set up to respond in such a manner in a systematic way. ³⁶ These limitations make local organization all the more important to give voice to the powerless and maintain a more equitable balance of power for interests in Corpus Christi and elsewhere throughout the nation.