Toxic Tour of Texas

An exhibition of photographs by Sharon Stewart with excerpts from oral history interviews and progress reports by Sharon Stewart.

Quotations beneath the photographs are taken from oral history interviews with the subjects. Viewers will find further statements by citizens and recent information about their communities in the Reading Room.

Accompanied by an essay discussing humanities perspectives on the environment by Max Oelschlaeger.

Made available by
Texas Humanities Resource Center
in collaboration with Texas Photographic Society
Supported by the Texas Council for the Humanities
State partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities

The Toxic Tour of Texas journeys through a state that prides itself in being the biggest, the best. And it is. Texas has the largest concentration of oil refineries and chemical plants in the nation. Texas ranks first in the United States in the amount of known or suspected carcinogens released into the environment. Texas also leads the nation in the number of hazardous waste disposal sites, seventy percent of which leak and threaten groundwater. And Texas industry discharges the highest level of toxic air emissions in the country.

The guides on this tour are farmers, priests, mothers, ranchers, engineers, nurses, and teachers who are intent on protecting their land, their children, their homes, and their communities from exposure to hazardous waste. Their activism crosses social, economic, and racial boundaries. This coalition for the 90's aligns the century's labor, civil rights, women's, peace, and ecology movements.

Their united plea is for the basic life-sustaining elements of clean land, air, and water. They have influenced and reversed governmental decisions. They have halted harmful industrial practices. They have changed their personal lifestyles, habits, and attitudes as a model of shared responsibility for maintaining this balance of life on Earth.