Born and raised in West Dallas, Linda Bates knows what it means to be sick. She, her family members and her neighbors have experienced a litany of health issues over her lifetime, ranging from cancers to cognitive disabilities to respiratory diseases. Splitting headaches are the norm. In some cases, her loved ones’ illnesses have been fatal.
So she was not shocked to see the results of a survey tracking air quality in the industry-heavy Singleton corridor, nor was she shocked to see the lengthy list of ailments that can result from long-term exposure to air pollutants.
“I drank the water. I inhaled the smoke,” Bates said in a community meeting held to discuss the survey’s results last week. “We are dying. We are dying.”
The survey was conducted by Texas A&M University researchers, community members and Downwinders at Risk, a local environmental advocacy group, to study the impact of a GAF shingle factory on public health. A similar study by the same groups was done in the Joppa neighborhood in southeast Dallas last year.
The results in West Dallas, which is bordered by highways, railroad tracks and the GAF factory, were even worse than what was found in Joppa.
Thirty-eight percent of the corridor’s 227 households responded to the survey. Thirty-four percent stated at least one member of the home had been diagnosed with asthma. In Joppa, 18% of residents experienced asthma. Across DFW, the average rate of asthma diagnosis is 7%.
Like Bates, 84% of the residents surveyed believe the air in West Dallas is “making them and/or their family sick.”
An environmental health disaster is occurring daily in West Dallas. But not member of the Dallas City Council, the Dallas Environmental Commission, or the Office of Env Quality and Sustainability bothered to come to the community meeting last night. Profiles in Courage. pic.twitter.com/GriNMbV5TB
— Downwinders at Risk (@cleanerair) June 21, 2024
Caleb Roberts, executive director of Downwinders at Risk, said the levels of pollution being released by GAF factories in west and southeast Dallas is harming communities of color.
Air pollution is measured by levels of particulate matter, which float around as either size 10 or size 2.5 particles. The smaller size, 2.5, was measured in this study. The minute particles are caused by combustion and are small enough to get through facial masks and into the bloodstream.
“It basically then has access to every organ," Roberts said, later adding that "an allowable level does not equal a safe level.”
In addition to the door-to-door survey, in which residents reported on their health, Texas A&M researchers installed an air monitor tracker next to the West Dallas GAF factory and tracked data through SharedAirDFW.com. The monitor was tracked for six months starting in February 2023, and researchers saw significant spikes in particulate matter in the summer months.
Over six months, the monitor registered 35 days that the PM 2.5 levels were above the Environmental Protection Agency standard. When comparing the data to the exposure recommendation made by the World Health Organization, the West Dallas monitor exceeded healthy levels 107 times.
“This neighborhood is breathing in toxic air,” Texas A&M Toxicology Professor Natalie Johnson said. “Every day that the levels of PM 2.5 are over the EPA daily air quality standard, there is an increased risk for adverse health effects … This is urgent.”
The levels of PM 2.5 recorded in the Singleton corridor put the neighborhood in the bottom 3% in the country for exposure, researchers said, and are leading to overwhelming levels of cancer diagnoses and respiratory illnesses in the community.
GAF has agreed to relocate its factory, but says it needs until 2029 to fully pull out of the West Dallas community. Janie Cisneros, a leader of the neighborhood group Singleton United, which has protested GAF’s ongoing production, says that is too long to wait for healthy air.
The company has filed with the city for a rezoning determination in exchange for its proposed 2029 closing date. Last week, Cisneros told community members the zoning hearing could be an opportunity for the neighborhood to speak out against the factory and present the data from their study to the city council.
GAF did not respond to the Observer's request for comment.
“We know we’re being harmed,” Cisneros said. “This isn’t just us complaining … This is our families.”
