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Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee surrounded by Houston neighborhoods community leaders announce major federal funding to fight environmental injustice in inner city neighborhoods, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, in Houston. The meeting and press conference took place at the Trinity Gardens Church of Christ in Trinity Gardens.

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee gathers with community leaders at the Trinity Gardens Church of Christ to discuss ways to fight environmental injustice in inner city neighborhoods, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, in Houston.

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, center, gathers with community leaders at the Trinity Gardens Church of Christ to discuss ways to fight environmental injustice in inner city neighborhoods, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, in Houston.

Stevence Gipson listens to Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee during a discussion on the ways to fight environmental injustice in inner city neighborhoods, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, in Houston.

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee gathers with community leaders at the Trinity Gardens Church of Christ to discuss ways to fight environmental injustice in inner city neighborhoods, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, in Houston.

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and other community leaders, including community advocate Huey German-Wilson, left, and Kashmere Gardens super neighborhood president Keith Downey, right, tour a retention pond in need of environmental relief, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, in Houston. The retention pond is located on Homestead Road.

Kashmere Gardens super neighborhood president Keith Downey points toward a retention pond in need of environmental relief, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, in Houston. The retention pond is located on Homestead Road. Downey visited the site with Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and other community leaders.

Community advocate Huey German-Wilson, left, and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, right, gathers with community leaders at the Trinity Gardens Church of Christ to discuss ways to fight environmental injustice in inner city neighborhoods, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, in Houston.

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee gathers with community leaders at the Trinity Gardens Church of Christ to discuss ways to fight environmental injustice in inner city neighborhoods, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, in Houston.

Community advocate Huey German-Wilson, left, and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, right, gathers with community leaders at the Trinity Gardens Church of Christ to discuss ways to fight environmental injustice in inner city neighborhoods, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, in Houston.

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and other community leaders tour a retention pond in need of environmental relief, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, in Houston. The retention pond is located on Homestead Road.

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee shows a video on a smartphone showing the environmental damage to a retention pond in Houston during a tour, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022. The retention pond is located on Homestead Road, in the northeast area of Houston.

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and other community leaders, including community advocate Huey German-Wilson, left, and Kashmere Gardens super neighborhood president Keith Downey, right, tour a retention pond in need of environmental relief, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, in Houston. The retention pond is located on Homestead Road.

A person walks on the dry area of a retention pond in need of environmental relief, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, in Houston. The retention pond is located on Homestead Road.

Retention pond in need of environmental relief, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, in Houston. The retention pond is located on Homestead Road in the northwest area of Houston.

Concrete plant neighboring a retention pond on Homestead Road in the northeast area of Houston, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, in Houston.

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee wants environmental justice funds in the Inflation Reduction Act to flow into northeast Houston as freely as the concrete batch facilities that have come to plague the predominantly Black area.

Legislation passed Friday includes $60 billion for environmental justice programs that can help communities such as Trinity and Houston Gardens fight polluters and reduce emissions, the congresswoman said during a Sunday event at Trinity Gardens Church of Christ attended by around 25 community advocates and concerned residents.

Issues such as the illegal dumping of industrial trash, cancer clusters stemming from creosote used by rail companies and air and water contamination from a growing number of industrial sites make the city’s northeast corner “a fitting example” of communities the legislation aims to help, Jackson Lee said.

READ MORE: 'People are dying': A mom grieves the loss of son to cancer by the polluted Fifth Ward rail yard

The bill also earmarks $3 billion for community centers that can “address disproportionate environmental and public health harms related to pollution.” Northeast Houston should have one such center, she said, describing the area as the new “concrete batch Mecca.”

The bill offers a hand to advocates in communities across Texas, where restraints on polluters are lax. Earlier this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it was investigating state environmental regulators accused of violating residents’ civil rights when Texas updated its standard permit for concrete batch plants.

The plants have become infamous in the community for billowing dust clouds and concrete-laced water seeping into neighboring properties. There are three schools within a half-mile of the plants, said Keith Downey, super neighborhood president representing Kashmere Gardens.

Jackson Lee told advocates the new federal funds can offer relief for a community fighting these fights largely by themselves.

“We want the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to answer the question, why they changed the rules on weakening the provisions or the requirements for concrete batch facilities,” she said. “We want the Texas Department of Health to start doing more testing, more soil testing, more air testing and begin to look at the intrusions on the community and have a way of shutting them down.”

After meeting with community leaders and residents, they led Rep. Jackson Lee around the corner to Texas Concrete Ready Mix, pointing to a retention pond across the street where they said concrete seeped through drainage pipes. (The company could not be immediately reached for comment on the issue.)

Residents of Trinity and Houston Gardens are disproportionately exposed to dangerous pollution from rail and truck yards, landfills, concrete batch plants and metal recycling facilities, advocates have argued.

State researchers identified cancer clusters in neighborhoods near the Englewood Rail Yard owned by Union Pacific, around 5 miles away. Rail crisscrosses the area.

Jackson Lee said advocates representing various neighborhoods in northeast Houston may need to come together and form a nonprofit in order to apply for the funds, which they could use to push back against bad actors.

“We need to put sort of an environmental fence around our neighborhoods,” she said.

Amanda Drane is an energy reporter for the Houston Chronicle.

Amanda covers the Texas energy industry and the people affected by it, with a particular focus on fuel production, refining, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and petrochemicals. Before joining the paper's business desk in May 2020 she worked as a City Hall reporter in Massachusetts, where she won regional awards for covering issues such as police accountability and the exploitation of undocumented restaurant workers.

“It’s serious,” Payne said Saturday afternoon. "People are dying. People have died. We just want ... the environmental injustice to stop in our community."