Investigation into Toxic Pollution in Houston Ship Channel Wins Lion Publishing Sustainability Award
The investigation into toxic pollution in communities along the Houston Ship Channel has been recognized with a Lion Publishing Sustainability Award for best collaboration. The story, produced by Altavoz Lab, Environmental Health News (EHN), palabra, and The Texas Tribune, sheds light on the community of Cloverleaf, one of many suffering from poor air quality along the 52-mile-long Houston Ship Channel.
The Houston Ship Channel is home to over 200 petrochemical facilities that process fossil fuels into plastics, fertilizers, and pesticides, leading to emissions that pose significant health risks to the surrounding communities. Texas Tribune reporter Alejandra Martinez and freelance journalist Wendy Selene Pérez, both Altavoz Lab environmental fellows, spent months reporting from Cloverleaf. They discovered that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s air monitoring system fails to measure some dangerous pollutants from nearby petrochemical plants and provides air quality information in formats that are difficult to understand, often only in English, leaving Latino-majority communities like Cloverleaf in the dark about the safety of their air.
In a bilingual investigation, EHN partnered with Altavoz Lab to support and mentor local journalists of color working in community publications. Environmental Health Sciences, the publisher of EHN, is a partner and funder of Altavoz Lab’s Environmental Fellowship, with additional support from the Pulitzer Center.
After the story was published, the reporters returned to Cloverleaf to ensure that the community could access and understand the information. They engaged with residents in various settings, sharing the story and distributing bilingual postcards explaining the health risks and ways to protect themselves. Community workshops were also held in August to further discuss the reporting.
The Lion Awards recognize outstanding local journalism focused on operational resilience, financial health, and journalistic impact. Univisión and the local news site La Esquina Texas republished the story in Spanish, while an audio version was produced for Radio Bilingüe, extending the project’s reach.
The collaboration between EHN and Altavoz Lab has been praised for its operational partnership that goes beyond providing a fellowship. By coordinating participating organizations that offered editorial, audience, and funding support, the impact of the fellows’ project was significantly boosted.
Read, listen, and watch the Altavoz Lab story in English and Spanish, and subscribe to EHN’s newsletters for more updates.