Students Making Discoveries, Most SE Texans Believe in Climate Change, Small Fixes Can Start Today

Margot Gage Witvliet

I’ve been here six years and I started the “Environmental Justice” course, because one of the things that really knocked me by surprise, from moving to Beaumont, is the smell, that crazy smell of rotten eggs. And so, armed with my social epidemiologist lens, I started doing research on this city. And I learned that if you live here, one of the things: it’s the murder capital of Texas per capita. You have an increased rate of dying by cancer, if you live here: chances are you’re going to get cancer, you’re going to know someone with cancer, and you’re going to die from cancer if you stay here. We are part of the cancer belt. Increased risk of Alzheimer’s, asthma, you name it: that’s this area.

Some of my students have done research on this area. They’ve won prizes and awards; they’ve had their papers published. One student, Kwanita Adair, was a McNair fellow who did research on how the TCEQ air monitors fared after Hurricane Harvey. She identified the TCEQ air monitors that are down a lot and not just for random monitoring. Another thing that we identified is the neighborhood Charlton-Pollard, which is right down the street from here, is just a stone’s throw away from big industry. Those children never get a break. They have huge air emission events happening there, in the past 4 years almost 75 times during the school day, and these children go to the playground and breathe air from major industry and they go home and breathe air from industry. Another student of mine learned that Southeast Texans believe in climate change, but they don’t think climate change is impacting them and they don’t think it’s impacting them enough to change their behaviors. So that means there’s a disconnect in the education, because with the increasing storms and the things that are happening here in this area, it is impacting you definitely. Dr. Stuart Wright and I collaborated on environmental justice research, where we learned that in Beaumont, we don’t have a particulate matter monitor; Port Arthur does. We have two air monitors in this entire city with all this industry and only one of them looks at multiple pollutants. The other one just looks at hydrogen sulfide only. So, we have a long way to go as far as solutions are concerned. I’m one of those people we spoke about earlier today who lives in Bevil Oaks. It’s wonderful in Bevil Oaks, great living. One of the safest cities in this area. Once a month I see a free health bus in the church parking lot, and I think to myself, we don’t need this free health bus. What I think is that the Charlton-Pollard neighborhood needs that free healthcare bus in the elementary school parking lot that is right across from major industry, not the people in Bevil Oaks. I think we need to consider green zones, and I believe we need to think about bussing those children out of Charlton-Pollard, so that they might get a bit of a break from major industry. And I believe we need to improve our air monitors in Beaumont, Texas.

Weekly visits from the Jefferson County Medical Mobile Unit are shown here as red dots. Beaumont itself is not on their schedule. Data from their Facebook page, mapped with ESRI online.

Dr. Margot Gage Witvliet is a social epidemiologist, Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department, and Interim Assistant Director of the Center for History and Culture of Southeast Texas and the Upper Gulf Coast at Lamar University.