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    Community Advocates Ask For Congressional Hearings On Houston Area Fires

    A coalition of environmental and community groups are calling for change after the recent chemical fires in Deer Park and Crosby.
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    Johnny Mata, presiding officer of the Greater Houston Coalition for Justice, calls for congressional hearings about the chemical fires at ITC and KMCO during a news conference held at Talento Bilingue Texas acted quickly after atestimony.

    FLORIAN MARTIN

     | POSTED ONAPRIL 16, 2019, 5:44 PM

    The state of Texas acted quickly after a string of chemical fires recently terrorized the Houston area. Companies were sued and hearings were held, although without allowing public testimony.

    For the Greater Houston Coalition for Justice, it’s not enough.

    “We’re sick and tired of being sick and tired of this being the norm,” Leticia Ablaza, government relations director with Air Alliance Houstonand member of the coalition, said at a press conference Tuesday.

    She said she laments that hearings affecting local communities are held at the state capital, “as opposed to coming to [the] community, coming into Deer Park, coming into Galena Park, coming into our communities to hear what’s going on, they expect us to go to them, to Austin.”

    The coalition is also asking for congressional hearings about the fires at ITC and KMCO and for companies to be forced to disclose what chemicals they are working with.

    Greater Houston Coalition for Justice presiding officer Johnny Mata said the TCEQ is too lenient with companies that violate environmental laws.

    People who commit crimes repeatedly are locked away, he said, “yet when it comes to people that cost great deaths, harm on health, such as the pollutants that cause cancer, they always get a free pass.”

    Asked about the issues brought up by the coalition, a TCEQ spokesman emailed News 88.7 the following statement:

    “Representatives from TCEQ have been attending public meetings after the ITC and KMCO incidents to hear concerns from the public and to respond to those concerns. TCEQ representatives plan to continue attending such meetings.”

    The TCEQ is scheduled to meet on April 24 in Austin. They will accept public comments.

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    News header

    News Conference statement
    Johnny N. Mata
    April 15, 2019 

    Re: The Greater Houston Coalition for Justice, call for state and congressional hearings as a results of the explosion at the KMCO facility and the Intercontinental Terminals Co. plant in Deer Park.

    Houston,

    Life is precious. Good health is invaluable. Take someone life is reprehensible, be it by intend or involuntary manslaughter.


    The Gulf Coast community has been hostage for too long and the consequences are to great to continue the practice of historically user-friendly EPA and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality bureaucracy.

    You may ask why is the Greater Houston Coalition for Justice concerned about environmental issues such as the explosion at the KMCO facility and the Intercontinental Terminals Co. plant in Deer Park. Since it appears that most of the organization issues have been police brutally/abuse, bail bonds, the grand jury and the courts.

    Criminal in/Justice occurs everywhere, Health and Human services and especially in the petroleum and chemical industry. Where money has played a key role in securing justice.

    Questions below plus many other need to be answers to gulf coast residents and voters to calm the anxiety and stress that exist especially after KMCO facility and the Intercontinental Terminals Co. plant in Deer Park incidents.

      I am aware that the Texas Senate has held hearing already on environmental concerns and environmental groups will be assessing the progress and proposed legislation results.

     1. How the memorandum of understanding between EPA and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and EPA bureaucracy endanger the lives of residents in the Gulf Coast of Texas.
    2.  Should make public the dangerous hidden chemicals
    3. Eliminate/amend  state and federal laws that maintain the loop holes
    that thwart criminal prosecutions of Refinery Industry officials.

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The jury is out with the results of the explosions at the KMCO facility and the Intercontinental Terminals Co. plant in Deer Park.

Below are some articles from the Houston Chronicle that I take the liberty to post because of the valuable information it provide us.

The Greater Houston Coalition for Justice, Environmental Justice Committee, had a news conference in support of concerned community members on the ITC Petrochemical Fires. community members complained of aggravated asthma, wheezing, nosebleeds, feeling as if one is coming down with a virus, vomiting, light headedness, fainting, dry and/or bloody nose, scared to use city water, anxiety, and panic attacks.

The Greater Houston Coalition for Justice’s Environmental Justice Committee have been working on some pro-active recommendations and the Greater Houston Coalition for Justice will be announcing them through a news conference in the immediate future.

Meantime, please read the information below, educated yourself on how to lake positive and constructed actions such as calling on your local, state and congressional elected officials to place priority on your safety by enforcing  the  Environmental laws on the books. I used Kristina McMahan header on her article for the importance of your need to know.

Johnny N. Mata
Presiding Officer
Greater Houston Coalition for Justice

 

What You Don’t Know Won’t Hurt You

The silenced story of what we are doing to our environment. 

Kristina McMahan

At Huntsville, Alabama


 

Dangerous chemicals create hidden dangers

 CHEMICAL BREAKDOWN

Chemical Breakdown: How we reported this story

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GHCFJ header2

 

Immediate release                                                         Contact:
March 6, 2019                                                          Johnny N. Mata

News alert

Houston,

The Greater Houston Coalition for Justice will address the proposed legislation by Senator Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) who filed SB1385 to restructure the Houston Independent School District Board of Trustees.

The current HISD board system is based on nine single-member districts. SB 1385 would reduce the number of single-member districts to five and create four at-large trustee positions.

Johnny N. Mata, Greater Houston Coalition for Justice, presiding Officer questions how will this bill effect people of color representation. Is this a scheme to reduce people of color representation or  a result of allege board infighting.

Or rather then fix the problem, a power grab. “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” let the citizens of Houston decide the outcome of the problem.

This will be a hot issue that will be a priority item on GHCFJ’s upcoming board meeting this coming Saturday March 9, 2019.

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AG Paxton

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s effort to kill (DACA) Is CLUELESS and Mean-Spirited !!!!!!

‘Dreamers’ rally in Austin to defend executive order that shields deportation

Participants let Attorney General Paxton know they’re ‘undocumented and unafraid’

Updated 8:49 pm, Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Photo: United We Dream

AUSTIN —  Wielding banners denouncing deportations, dozens of young immigrants and immigration advocates rallied outside of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office demanding that he stop trying to kill a program intended to protect young people, who entered the country as minors, from deportation.

About a hundred people, including at least a dozen from Houston, descended on the capital Tuesday as part of a national effort to defend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which shields immigrants brought to the United States as children from deportation and allows them to work and study.

 Paxton has strongly opposed the Obama Administration’s executive order establishing the program, as have other attorney generals in at least nine other states. That prompted hundreds to defend the program Tuesday in demonstrations around Texas and the country, including New York and Washington, D.C.

 Vanessa Rodriguez, 23 of Austin, told the group gathered outside of Paxton’s office that the day she applied for DACA in 2012 changed her life forever.

“Thanks to DACA, I am undocumented and unafraid,” she said.

 

 

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