Southwest Houston Environmental Justice Tours

November 15 - December 6, 2025

Southwest Houston Environmental Justice Tours is a project organized by artist Naomi Kuo, and the Mosaic Learning Center. The project aims to bring greater awareness to the intersections of race, class and environmental issues in Southwest Houston through interactive group learning experiences. The project invites diverse members of the local community to learn and engage together.

Participants journey to sites of environmental and historical importance in Southwest Houston, where they have the opportunity to hear from local organizations and environmental advocates, and to process the information collectively through artmaking and interfaith spiritual practices. Illustrated educational pamphlets provide further background information about the sites, outline the tour contents, and introduce opportunities for action. 

The 2025 tours have concluded, but stay tuned for new events in this series!

Click to view tour guide pamphlets online. Continue scrolling for the pamphlet bibliography and resource lists.

November 15 - Community Park Day

1:00-4:00pm at Oyster Creek Park Pavilion

Get excited about our upcoming tours with a sustainability-themed fun day at a beloved community park! Pick up illustrated tour pamphlets, meet our tour partners (including a snake and baby alligator), treat yourself to boba, participate in a clothes swap, make an upcycled craft, and sign up for an hour of Zumba!

Our project partners include Brazos Bend State Park, Fort Bend County Environmental Organization, Close Parish Coal, Society of Justice & Equality for the People of Sugar Land, and Friends of Sugar Land 95. This project was made possible with support from the Ministry in the City HUB Collaborative Seed Grant, administered by the City Seminary of New York.

Bibliography & Resources

The following are links to the opportunities for action and learning listed in the 2025 tour guide pamphlets. Also included are the sources referenced in the pamphlet texts quoted below. Complete bibliographies coming soon!

Brazos Bend State Park: Get to Know Your Neighbors

Opportunities for Action (with links)

• Check out your local nature-oriented groups for events and volunteer opportunities: Missouri City Green, Texas Master Naturalists, and Brazos Bend State Park Volunteer Organization. City-wide event lists: Interfaith Environmental Network of Houston and Citizens' Environmental Coalition. 

• Follow Bayou City Water Keepers for ways to advocate for environmental justice and care for Houston’s waterways.

• Volunteer for prairie maintenance at Lawther–Deer Park Prairie or the Coastal Prairie Conservancy Indiangrass Preserve.

• If you have space to keep a garden, grow some plants that are native to the area. Check out the Native Plant Society of Texas to learn more.

• Protect your local watershed: reduce use of chemical fertilizers, and use biodegradable cleaners when outdoors.
  Become a community scientist! Download the iNaturalist app on your smart device and learn to log research-grade wildlife observations. The Seek app (good for quick identifications) can also link with an iNaturalist account.

Bibliography

• “The biology of the Gulf-Houston region is incredibly diverse…”: “Ecosystem & Wildlife Introduction.” Citizens’ Environmental Coalition, hereinhouston.org/ecosystemsandwildlife

• Ecoregions map: “The Ecology of Greater Houston and Surrounding Areas.” Houston Wilderness, houstonwilderness.org/about-ecoregions

• About Houston area’s coastal prairies: Coastal Prairie Conservancy Downloadable Fact Sheets, coastalprairieconservancy.org/downloadable-fact-sheets

• “Less than 1% …of praries remain”: Bruess, Elena, “Native prairie grass returns to Houston area after decades of urban development.” Houston Landing, HoustonLanding.org, 25 April, 2024. View the article.

• “Meet the Brazos River…”: “Major Rivers,” Texas Almanac, texasalmanac.com, updated 2025. View the article.

W.A. Parish Generating Station: Coal & the Unseen

Opportunities for Action (with links)

• Learn about the factories, refineries and other heavy industries that might be in your area and how they affect your health and environment. Even just exploring your area through Google maps satellite view is a good place to start! 

• Join the Close Parish Coal Coalition: sign their petition and check out their volunteer opportunities.

• Learn about the process of filing an environmental complaint and submitting public comments about polluting facilities to TCEQ through their permit reviews. Organizations like Air Alliance Houston often provide guidance on participating in public hearings–follow for upcoming events. 

• Learn about current environmental protections that are being advocated for or repealed.

Bibliography

• “Over the last decade, coal power generation has declined by about 40%": Prull, Daniel, PhD. “Out of Control: The Deadly Impact of Coal Pollution.” Sierra Club, sierraclub.org/coal, February 2023. View the article

• “Byproducts of coal-powered energy production include…”; “Parish has an 80-acre coal ash landfill that is essentially unregulated…”; “…Parish power facility is responsible for upwards of 178 premature deaths a year…”:
  Zimmerman, Sophia, et. al. “Close Parish Coal: How the Dirtiest Coal Plant in Texas Harms Public Health and the Environment; and the Alternatives for Fort Bend.” Air Alliance Houston airalliancehouston.org, July 2023. View the report

• “The coal units … consume 36,000 tons of coal each day”: Shelley, Adrian. “WA Parish Coal Plant Near Houston Continues to Pollute.” Public Citizen, citizen.org, May 8, 2020. View the article

• “Parish is the single worst air polluter in the Houston gulf region…”: “W.A. Parish Fact Sheet.” Air Alliance Houston, airalliancehouston.org, July 2023. View the fact sheet

Bullhead Camp Cemetery & Imperial Sugar Factory: Buried but not Forgotten

Opportunities for Action (with links)

• Fort Bend ISD is currently fundraising for a memorial to further educate the public about convict work camps. Go to sugarland95.org to learn more about the memorial plans and its progress.

• The Society of Justice & Equality for the People of Sugar Land (S.O.J.E.S.) is an independent non-profit organization dedicated to historic preservation and education about the contributions of African Americans to Fort Bend County, including the memorialization of the Sugar Land 95.  Learn more at sojesjustice.org

• Get involved with the Texas Center for Justice & Equity in its work to address deep racial inequities in the criminal punishment system. 

• Texas closed its last sugar cane farm in 2024, and Florida and Louisiana are the last remaining states to grow sugar cane in the US—Learn about the environmental justice fights there: stopsugarburning.org

• Learn about the current global environmental impacts of sugar cane farming:  nhm.ac.uk/discover/sugar-a-killer-crop.html; and check out the Netflix series, Rotten for more about modern food supply chain issues.
  

Blue Ridge Landfill & Lone Star Recycling-Disposal: Environmental Justice 101

Opportunities for Action (with links)

• Follow the Fort Bend County Environmental Organization to join your voice with other community members about current or pending polluters in the area. 

• Get inspired by reading about how recent plans for natural gas and concrete crushing facilities in Fort Bend were redirected due to community organizing. 

• Check out more environmental justice work by Dr. Robert Bullard, including his book, Dumping in Dixie, and the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University.

• Read about movements to reduce global plastic production and pollution at beyondplastics.org 

• Try out some ways to live low-waste: compost your kitchen scraps at home, carry reusable bags and shop the bulk section of your grocery store, recycle electronics at Best Buy… and more!