HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — The illegal dumping dilemma is continuing to impact black and Latino communities across the city of Houston, according to new data from our ABC13 Investigates team.
It comes as the Trump administration continues to end DEI and environmental justice policies, now causing the Department of Justice to no longer monitor illegal dumping in Houston, following a 2022 investigation.
INTERACTIVE: The hotspot map below shows where all the illegal dumping calls to 311 were so far this year. On mobile device? Click here for a full screen experience.
People like Janie Hill tell ABC13 that when it comes to dirty dumping in her Fifth Ward community, it’s constantly changing.
“It was just ridiculous, trash all up and down everywhere,” Janie Hill, Kashmere Gardens resident, said.
In communities like Hill’s in northeast Houston, she’s not alone.
A 13 Investigates analysis of 311 data shows 92% of illegal dumping calls are for problems in zip codes where the majority of residents are minorities, according to census data.
In July 2022, ABC13’s data team analyzed 13,566 illegal dumping complaints to 311 since 2020 and found 90% of them were in minority residents, defined as being areas where more than half the residents are not white, per Census data.
This led to a DOJ investigation in 2022, causing the government to monitor illegal dumping across the city of Houston.
Now that’s changing, according to reporting by the Associated Press.
“Well, now we don’t have that anymore, so we’ve got to figure out how we fight this as a community without the DOJ, without that big gun at our back,” said Huey German-Wilson, President of Trinity Gardens Super-neighborhoods.
German-Wilson is hoping the gobs of garbage stop popping up, and people in the community will come together to make a difference for minority communities.
“We are certainly ever hopeful someone will still see us doing this work at the grassroots level and say, ‘How do we help the people because this issue is resolvable, there’s something we can do about this,” German-Wilson said.
Data from 13 investigations show where we are this year when it comes to 311 complaints as a whole for illegal dumping.
From Jan. 1 through Dec. 10, there were 8,053 complaints to 311 about illegal dumping.
An analysis of the data shows 7,392 of the 8,053 complaints are in minority zip codes.
The analysis dives deeper and shows 29% of the illegal dumping cases are still open, and 95% of those currently open cases are in predominantly minority neighborhoods.
However, the analysis also found it takes about the same amount of time to close cases across the city, regardless of whether it’s a majority white or minority neighborhood.
Closed cases this year in majority white neighborhoods took an average of 46 days to close.
Closed cases this year in majority minority neighborhoods took an average of 45 days to close.
Back in 2022, our ABC13 data showed it took 9 to 12 days to resolve these cases.
Here’s a look at where illegal dumping was reported most this year throughout the city.
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