HOUSTON — Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Texas lawmakers are urging the state to block the construction of a concrete batch plant on the city’s northwest side.
Officials believe the plant will worsen people’s health in a neighborhood that already has a higher rate of cardiac arrest and asthma than the rest of the city.
“This is not a suitable location for these types of facilities,” Turner said during a press conference Tuesday morning outside the site at 3411 De Soto Street.
Turner and other elected officials publicly called on Soto Ready Mix to withdraw their permit to add a concrete batch plant to their existing business site. It sits next to several homes, a park and a community center.
Those officials also urged the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to deny the permit. That agency makes the final call because the Texas Supreme Court struck down a 2007 law that would have required city approval for concrete plants.
Lawmakers say those plants produce fine particulates that cause breathing problems.
“The emissions of a batch plant are well documented to be the silent killer,” said Sen. John Whitmire (D-Houston).
Turner said Soto Ready Mix has racked up 34 citations since June 2019. His staff is looking into whether the city can limit the plant’s distance from homes, as it does with group homes and sexually-oriented businesses.
Neighbors have spent roughly two years urging TCEQ to deny the permit.
“We no longer enjoy our home,” said Donna Williams, whose home sits next door to Soto Ready Mix. “We can’t sit outside and have coffee or have drinks during the evenings or just enjoy family gatherings on weekends.”
Williams and her husband, David, built their house in 2002. She says since the concrete business’ arrival around 2015, their property value has since dropped $60,000, their home is covered in dust, and their vegetation’s been impacted.
“We wake up in the night, we hear the house vibrating,” said David Williams, who said work happens on-site around the clock.
The couple says they now suffer from allergies, and their grandson needs more asthma medicine and breathing treatments.
“I wish we could co-exist, but there’s no way we can co-exist because our health is at risk,” David Williams said.
Donna Williams said that while she supports small businesses and wants economic growth, “it should be for the betterment of the community, and this is definitely taking away from our livelihood.”
Ruby Scranton lives about a mile-and-a-half away and worries about impacts to the broader area.
“This is far more than just being next door because the trucks go up and down the streets on T.C Jester,” Scranton said.
A foreman at Soto Ready Mix told KHOU the owner was in Mexico and had been unreachable Tuesday.
TCEQ will hold a hearing on the permit Jan. 23 in Houston.