Houston Texas USA - When Melissa Beeler told Fifth Ward residents that eight more trains could pass through their neighborhood every day because of a railroad company merger, Beeler saw them shake their heads in disappointment.
 
Already, places across Houston struggle with noise and air pollution and traffic problems because of trains.
 
Adding more trains to the system would add to the issues, drawing concern especially in communities of color and lower-income communities that have historically faced more than their fair share of environmental harms.
 
East End Trains
 
Fed up with stalled trains, East End drivers are tracking the delays themselves.
 
Now, the city is too.
 
People today experience traffic delays and chemical contamination from railroads, said Beeler, transportation justice coordinator for Air Alliance Houston.
 
"This is just adding more onto the fire that they're already dealing with," she said.
 
The anticipated increase in train traffic is tied to the potential acquisition of Kansas City Southern Railway by Canadian Pacific Railway.
 
Despite the rail lines' distant origins, the proposal for the newly merged company means routes would run from Canada through Texas to Mexico.
 
Joining the companies would allow transportation to be more efficient, wrote Andy Cummings, spokesperson for Canadian Pacific, in an email.
 
The "modest local environmental impacts," he said, came hand-in-hand with that benefit.
 
He said the company was committed to meeting with communities and addressing merger-related concerns.
 
Local advocates and politicians are calling for the Surface Transportation Board to study further how the merger would impact neighborhoods here.
 
If the merger goes forward, they want the federal government to require mitigation such as air quality monitoring and improved infrastructure to make traffic run smoothly.
 
Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis said in a statement that the transportation board members plan to visit him and city officials.
 
"This merger carries significant risks and cannot be rubber-stamped," Ellis said.
 
Emissions Noise and Traffic Jams
 
A report from the transportation board's Office of Environmental Analysis looked at the potential environmental harm the merger would cause and found little concern beyond "unavoidable adverse" train noise.
 
The report argued that the merger could offset problems such as hazardous material releases and air quality because freight previously carried by truck would be carried by rail, which is considered safer and less polluting.
 
At a recent hearing, rail company officials argued that adding eight trains was not a "fundamental change" to rail activity here, either.
 
Advocates and residents see the possibility of more trains as a threat to neighborhoods already fighting environmental hazards.
 
The rail tracks the company could use pass through Fifth Ward, along I-10 near the Heights and down through southwest Houston.
 
Along the route, people worry about trains blocking emergency response crews and potential spills of materials such as bitumen, which is used in asphalt and is found in Canadian oil sands, and sent to the Gulf Coast.
 
Nitrogen oxide emissions would also increase, potentially combining with other air pollutants to create ozone, which causes a host of health problems.
 
The Houston region has been out of compliance with federal ozone rules for years.
 
And communities already suffer from various environmental injustices, said Grace Tee Lewis, senior health scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund.
 
These overburdened areas face blocked roads, for example, and loud horns from trains.
 
Lewis argued it's unjust for the federal transportation board to allow the rail merger to add to their burden and not engage with the community.
 
In Fifth Ward, contamination from the Union Pacific rail yard has remained under homes for years.
 
More recently, city health workers found toxic chemicals in the soil.
 
Residents don't want any more trains coursing through.
 
They're dealing with air quality concerns from other sources, also, including concrete batch plants.
 
It seems companies only escalate problems in poor communities, rather than deescalating them, said Super Neighborhood President Joetta Stevenson.
 
"I don't know why we always have to be in a fight to just survive," Stevenson said.
 
Other communities are worried too.
 
In Eastwood, Danielle Laperriere and others in the Eastwood Civic Association are calling for better citywide planning for improved train infrastructure.
 
This problem impacts everyday life on the east side of Houston, as elsewhere.
 
Laperriere no longer walks her dogs to the park because she doesn't want to get stuck across the tracks from her home.
 
Laperriere said trains from the new Canadian Pacific Kansas City line could be diverted through her neighborhood, or blockages could happen because the whole network is congested.
 
Either way, it was hard for her to believe there would be no negative impacts, she said.
 
She and others had been told that before.
 
Emily Foxhall.