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West Dallas residents fight concrete batch plants

Raul Reyes Jr. says he’s amazed how the odors in West Dallas haven’t changed much since he was a kid.

Some days, a smell akin to tar from an asphalt plant can fill your nostrils. Other times, it can be sulfur from the concrete plants leaving behind the scent of rotten eggs. Depending on which way the wind is blowing, it could be both, he said.

Dust from the concrete batch plants can also fill the air, leaving a haze — particularly on parts of Singleton Boulevard. Reyes says he and other residents have had enough.

“I’ve lived here all my life, raised three kids here, and if they want to raise kids here I want them to breathe clean air,” said Reyes, 47. “It’s never gonna happen with all these plants here.”

As redevelopment continues across the city, concrete batch plants provide materials used for the foundations of new roads and buildings.

But the facilities can cause noise and air-quality concerns for residents. And they can be grouped in neighborhoods predominately made up of low-to-middle-income residents of color.

In recent months, Reyes has helped lead a coalition of area residents and neighborhood associations called West Dallas 1 that have played a role in shutting down two batch plants only about 3 miles west of downtown.

Residents and supporters are also trying to stop an asphalt plant from operating in the area and are working to prevent a new temporary concrete batch plant from setting up there.

Reyes and Kathryn Bazan, an East Dallas community organizer who has aided West Dallas 1′s efforts, attribute their success to community pressure on city and state elected officials through emails, phone calls and complaints to 311, the city’s non-emergency line.

Now, the city is looking into developing plans to address batch plant operations in Dallas. Many of them involve fostering more public awareness of where the plants are located and how the permitting process works.

Reyes said the pandemic has helped spark many in the community to act.

Bazan, who used to work for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said the fight can feel never-ending.

“The reward for successfully denying an industrial operator is that you get to do it all again next week because they don’t stop coming,” she said. “But it’s about addressing these historic issues that have affected communities of color for generations.”

Lasting impacts

Industrial manufacturing and its environmental impacts have a long history in the West Dallas area.

A concrete plant was built in the early 1900s and supplied the materials to the city of Dallas before the site was incorporated. Villages such as Cemento Grande and Cemento Chico were built around the site for workers, most of whom were Mexican immigrants.

Campo Santo de Cemento Grande, the first Hispanic cemetery in the county, is one of the few remaining landmarks of the site. It was originally on land the plant company had donated as a community cemetery for its Hispanic employees.

From the 1930s to the 1980s, a major lead smelter plant owned by the RSR corporation operated in West Dallas. Testing in the ‘70s found high levels of lead in children living near the plants. Contamination was also found in the soil at schools, parks and homes.

RSR closed in 1984 and later agreed to pay more than $35 million to nearly 1,000 children who lived near the plant while it was operating and may have suffered from exposure to lead. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared it a federal Superfund cleanup site in 1992. It has since been cleaned up.

Nearly 27,000 residents live in 75212, the same West Dallas zip code as Reyes, according to census estimates. The population is 60% Hispanic and 28% Black. The median household income is $36,212, close to half the $70,281 for the median income rate in the metroplex. A quarter of residents live below the poverty line.

report released last year by Paul Quinn College found the air pollution in that zip code is among the worst in the city, largely attributed to the historic industrial zoning near area neighborhoods.

Reyes said he hopes a study will be conducted to specifically focus on residents of West Dallas and the effects air pollutants from area plants have had on them.

“We all know it’s happening,” he said. “But until we have more data, it’s easier for people to act like it isn’t happening.”

Changing landscape

Manufacturing sites in West Dallas are bumping up against new development.

Thirty-eight batch plants hold active permits in Dallas, according to the city. Records from the TCEQ show at least five concrete manufacturers permitted in the 75212 zip code.

Batch plants combine cement, sand, water and rocks to create concrete. The materials are loaded into large drum trucks, mixed with water and driven to construction sites.

Reliable Concrete and Latino’s Ready Mix Concrete, the two plants West Dallas 1 lobbied to stop, sit next to each other on West Commerce Street just off of Sylvan Avenue. Trees, brush and railroad tracks divide the plants from single-family homes around 200 feet to the north.

Neither company had a city permit that would have allowed them to operate in the area.

The city sued the company that owns Reliable in May, alleging Dallas city, development and fire code violations. They included not keeping buildings and equipment in proper operating condition, illegal land use and causing loud noises and vibrations at times or days not allowed by city rules.

A court injunction in October ordered the plant to stop operating. The company could face more sanctions if evidence is found that it is not complying with the order during a scheduled inspection on Dec. 31, records show.

Latino’s Ready Mix’s city-issued permit to operate expired in May — 18 months after city officials renewed its credentials under the condition that it move by the time its operation agreement ended. The company applied for a new permit and kept operating without a valid one until Dallas’ Plan Commission and City Council formally denied the renewal request in November.

The council vote included a condition that bans Latino’s from re-applying for a city permit to work on that property for two years.

In an interview with The Dallas Morning News, Dionicio Martinez, owner of Latino’s Ready Mix Concrete, said that dust is unavoidable working at a concrete batch plant but said he didn’t believe the impacts are as severe as he has heard.

He said he started the company in that neighborhood about 20 years ago, paying $250,000 for the 1.3-acre property long before residential construction had increased in the area. Dozens of townhomes have been built within the last five years on a bluff that overlooks the plant.

The City Council in April approved a $1 billion mixed-use project on about 45 acres that runs south from Singleton Boulevard near Vilbig Road to the railroad tracks close to West Commerce Street. Developers have proposed building thousands of new homes, retail and entertainment space and a lagoon.

Martinez said his company is still looking for a new site, but estimates it could cost up to $3 million and isn’t sure if his business can afford it.

A concrete mixer sits parked at Latino's Ready Mix Concrete in Dallas, Thursday, Dec. 23, 2021.
A concrete mixer sits parked at Latino’s Ready Mix Concrete in Dallas, Thursday, Dec. 23, 2021.(Elias Valverde II / Staff Photographer)

City records show the company didn’t receive its first five-year permit to legally operate in the area until 2009. But since then, home construction in the area has grown so much that the plant is no longer “compatible,” according to a city staff report recommending a permit denial.

“The volume of concrete trucks on nearby roads considerably damages asphalt pavement and creates debris on the road and dust clouds while operating on unimproved surfaces,” the report said.

The company owns eight trucks that can hold up to 20 tons of concrete. The plant averages two to four truckloads an hour, making 30 to 40 trips a day.

Now 65, Martinez said he has worked at concrete plants since he was 15 years old. About half of his more than a dozen employees are relatives. He said he hasn’t seen any health issues as a result of working at the plant.

He acknowledged the city telling his company to leave after its specific use permit was renewed in 2019, but said COVID-19 caused shutdowns six months later and hampered efforts to relocate.

“At that point, I was trying to focus more on how my company is going to survive,” Martinez said.

“I get the concerns of the community, and I can’t really blame them,” Martinez said. “It’s just sad that it happened to us, that the process happened the way that it did, and that we’re getting no help from the city to help us move.”

Efforts continue

West Dallas 1 is among the groups that have lobbied against a request from Lattimore Materials Corp. to TCEQ to build a temporary concrete batch plant on Singleton Boulevard. The proposed site is around 1,000 feet south of an elementary school.

The proposed plant would emit air contaminants, including particulate matter such as aggregate, cement and road dust, according to a TCEQ notice about the permit.

The environmental agency hasn’t made a decision yet on the company’s request for an air quality permit.

Area residents have also been trying to argue their case for denying the renewal of an air quality permit from GAF, a roofing materials company with an asphalt shingle plant also on Singleton Boulevard. That site is about a mile and half away from Lattimore’s proposed plant. It’s also near homes, a library branch and a school. TCEQ hasn’t yet decided on that permit, either.

GAF is based in New Jersey and is one of the largest roofing manufacturing companies in North America. Another analysis by Paul Quinn College in 2019 using TCEQ data found the GAF site among the top polluters in Dallas County, including of sulfur dioxide. The gas can make breathing difficult and can impact children with asthma, according to the EPA.

City officials are weighing options such as maintaining a public map of existing and proposed concrete batch plants, using social media and newsletters to notify residents of pending plant applications received by the TCEQ, and posting information where complaints can be filed.

The city also is considering zoning changes to better define where plants could be allowed and pushing for legislative changes to address their impacts on neighborhoods.

Reyes said he is hopeful that progress can be made, but is concerned longtime residents will be priced out before they can see the benefits.

Everyone, he said, from new residents coming in to those who have been in the area for decades should be able to experience a better quality of life.

“The question is, does the city have the courage to correct these wrongs in communities like West Dallas?” Reyes asked. “They say when you know better, you do better. It’s time that happens.”

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