(The following story by Lori Rodriguez was published in the January 8 issue of the Houston Chronicle.)
HOUSTON — An environmental group fighting a plan that would sharply increase train traffic in Houston’s East End says the consortium seeking the new rail line deliberately distorted 2000 Census data to claim it would go through largely white neighborhoods.
When the data used to map the route is corrected to reflect residents who identified themselves as Hispanics, which was not a main census category, the figures show that communities affected by the new trains are overwhelmingly Latino.
The proposal is awaiting federal approval.
“This is one of the worst situations I’ve ever run across, of deliberate suppression of the racial implications of a proposal,” said environmental attorney Jim Blackburn, chairman of the Galveston Bay Conservation and Preservation Association.
“They damn sure didn’t put the honest truth forward.”
Four Bayport chemical companies and Burlington Northern Santa Fe are seeking federal permission to construct a 13-mile line along a route north of Clear Lake City near Ellington Field that would connect with existing track on Texas 3.
Representatives for the consortium, called the San Jacinto Rail Line, said Wednesday they could not comment on Blackburn’s accusations without reviewing his analysis more closely.
But the federal Surface Transportation Board has tentatively approved the plan, pending approval of the draft environmental statement, which Blackburn says was based on the incorrect data.
By law and executive order, all federal agencies are required to assess whether a proposal’s adverse effects fall disproportionately on minority communities.
The San Jacinto proposal would shift chemical shipments that now move on Union Pacific tracks, along Texas 146 and Texas 225, onto the new line and onto burdened East End tracks that wend past Milby and Chavez high schools, plus a slew of elementaries.
The East End, although gentrifying, still consists largely of modest, Hispanic neighborhoods.
Burlington and the chemical companies say the new line is needed to break a shipping monopoly enjoyed by Union Pacific in the Bayport Industrial District. The plants claim the railroad is gouging them.
The chemical companies in the partnership are Lynondell, Equistar Chemicals LP, Basell USA and Atofina Petrochemicals.
A coalition of political and neighborhood leaders from the East End and Clear Lake City is strenuously opposing the new line. The Houston City Council last year passed a resolution condemning the plan, as have South Houston officials, whose city is bisected by the route.
According to the analysis by Blackburn’s team of environmental lawyers, a map used to back up the consortium’s proposal identified census tracts as being either more than 50 percent white or less than 50 percent white.
But the seven major 2000 Census categories were white, black, American Indian, Asian, Pacific Islander, other and multiracial. Once classified in one of these seven categories, people also could identify themselves as Hispanic.
When Blackburn’s team shaded the map to include everyone who called themselves Hispanics, large areas along the proposed route went from white to minority.
The consortium apparently provided the incorrect map to the Surface Transportation Board, but Blackburn says the board was responsible for ensuring it was correct.
“It’s inaccurate, and anybody who knows what they are doing has to know that it’s inaccurate,” he said. “I’m left with the impression that it has been intentionally prepared incorrectly.
“This isn’t a mistake. This is a deliberate effort to conceal something.”
According to Blackburn’s analysis, 71 percent of the residents within a quarter-mile of the proposed operating route are Hispanic and 32 percent are children.
In all, Blackburn says, 27,825 Hispanics — or 90 percent of the people who live within a quarter-mile of the route — were counted as white in the racial data the consortium provided. He says 11,120 residents within that distance of the line are children.
In addition to accusing the consortium of fraud, Blackburn says the Surface Transportation Board, which drafted the preliminary environmental impact statement, either was inept or flagrantly disregarded the facts.
Nancy Beiter, an attorney with the board in Washington, D.C., said the board could not comment on specific issues regarding the statement.
“But when we have problems with a draft environmental statement, we deal with it,” Beiter said. “That’s why there’s a draft. The final statement will be different from the draft.”
A public hearing on the statement is scheduled for 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday at the Pasadena Convention Center, 7902 Fairmont Parkway. A second hearing will be 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday at Cesar E. Chavez High School, 8501 Howard in Houston.
Blackburn, who is in the midst of presenting his findings to Houston City Council members and other elected officials, plans to present his findings at both hearings.