Toxic chemicals percolate out of their smokestacks daily. Poor white families are more likely to live in federally subsidized low-income housing that is farther away from such facilities. From time to time, accidental releases from the plants exceed federal smokestack emissions standards. There's no question about it. It's environmental genocide.
Some government officials offer a different explanation.
George Fuller, who heads Texas City's housing authority, said he has inherited a situation that was created decades ago. Mr. Fuller and other officials acknowledge that a lot of Texas' public housing was built during the days of segregation and today remains in predominantly minority neighborhoods near industrial plants. Funding to relocate public housing residents is hard to come by, they note. And some officials are not convinced that lives are at risk. They cite the relatively sparse research on the health effects of sharing a neighborhood with a petrochemical facility.