Refinery Reform Campaign

Loss spurs grassroots activist Canales Efforts encourage the monitoring of local industry, air

By Alison Beshur Caller-Times
March 17, 2005

Loosely gripping a clipboard, Suzie Canales stood in front of a television camera, casually talking about "toxic soups," "pollutants" and "hazardous chemicals."

The absence of anxiety revealed confidence in her words.

"What we're trying to prove is what we already know," Canales said, wearing a faded camouflage sweatshirt and her hair tucked under a Bucket Brigade baseball cap. "Pollutants are making their way into the community."

The 45-year-old Corpus Christi native has been interviewed before. And as chairwoman of Citizens for Environmental Justice, a grassroots organization she founded with her sister, Cindy Pena, she likely will be interviewed again.

After losing a sister in her early 40s to cancer in 1999, Canales began following what she easily refers to as a calling. She said she has set out to stop what she believes didn't have to happen to her family, three sisters needing hysterectomies and two family members dying from cancer.

"People of color and low income have had to bear a disproportionate load of environmental burden and health problems," said Canales, who grew up on Karen Drive in a race-restricted residence time in the city's history. "This continues today - and this is the focus."

Canales, a 1978 Moody High School graduate, spent most of her adult life away from Corpus Christi, living with her Navy husband and rearing their two children. She believes this is why she's the only one of four sisters who hasn't had a hysterectomy.

When her sister, Diana Bazan, became sick, she returned to help with her care. Pena, a younger sister, said Canales, strong-minded and opinionated, always has been a leader.

"She's a take charge person," Pena said. "If she sees something that needs to be done, she'll do it."

And it is Canales' determination that has kept her going, Pena added.

Denny Larson, coordinator of the national refinery row campaign, a project of nonprofit Global Community Monitor, said Canales' ardor is typical of an activist who came by way of a personal tragedy.

"For many community activists it's a common entry point into the movement," Larson said, who compared Canales to Lois Gibbs, a recognized activist from New York. "Her Love Canal happens to be refinery row and the toxic landfills in the Corpus Christi area."

Canales said she has made some progress in her overall mission, but has had frustrations.

Last year, she filed a complaint with the state's environmental agency after she says the agency e-mailed letter from her to the company about which she was inquiring. . Among the successes, she counts a Texas Department of State Health Services study of birth defects in areas near the refineries and toxic injection wells.

Peter Langlois, senior epidemiologist for the department, said Canales was extremely helpful mapping the location of the sites and narrowing the questions to ask for the study. The results, released in 2003, showed "potentially interesting relationships" between heart defects in children living in areas near airfields and genital and urinary defects and fetal alcohol syndrome in children of mothers living near incinerators and injection wells.

In recent months, Canales has stepped up her efforts.

She has made contact with another environmental group that has equipment to take air samples, instead of only relying on reported data and testified before the Legislature.

At her request, Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid filed a complaint with U.S. District Court asking for answers to specific questions and tried to intervene before a judge finalized a settlement between the Environmental Protection Agency and Citgo Petroleum Corp. Citgo is one of three companies with oil refineries in Corpus Christi.

While her request didn't reach the judge in time, Enrique Valdivia, the attorney for the organization, said he plans to continue working with Canales on other efforts.

In the future, Canales said she would continue to watch permitting for Citgo's expansion and work toward improving the monitoring of industry and health testing of nearby residents. Her goal is not to get rid of the industry, only to improve the quality of life for area residents.

"There are no magical fields that make it stay inside the fence line," said Canales, inside her Southside apartment. "The stuff is leaving the plant and making people sick."

Citgo, Flint Hills and Valero did not respond to requests for comments about Canales.

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