Dallas environmental activists block GAF entrance to draw attention to Earth Day 2024

Five environmental activists were given misdemeanor C citations for blocking the entrance to the GAF shingle factory in West Dallas as a part of a protest coinciding with Earth Day 2024.

To draw attention to what they see as environmental injustices, West Dallas residents and activists showed up with signs at the gates of the company on Monday morning.

Tommy Richardson, the vice president of GAF, and company security officials and Dallas police officers were at the gates before protesters showed up.

“This is just the beginning. We are going to continue to push forward to get GAF outside of our backyards,” said Janie Cisneros, who lives behind GAF and is the leader of Singleton United/Unidos, a neighborhood group in West Dallas. Cisneros has been working for about four years with community activism groups, including the GAF’s Gotta Go, or GAF Vete Ya, a campaign.

Local environmental activists said they have tried every legal way to get asphalt shingle manufacturer GAF out of its West Dallas site on Singleton Avenue. They want to stop what they say are harmful emissions of sulfur dioxide and particulate matter affecting the neighborhood.

“We appreciate the rights of our neighbors to voice their opinions but today our priority is the safety of our staff and people in West Dallas,” said the GAF spokesperson, in a written statement.

GAF’s recent announcement of its plans to build a new manufacturing facility in Kansas is consistent with the timeline communicated in 2022 to wind down operations in West Dallas five years from now, according to statement.

Cisneros, along with Emmanuel Davis from Justice for Joppa, Jim Schermbeck with Downwinders at Risk, Allen McGill with Southern Sector Rising, and resident Ruth Alhilali received the citation for $147 for “pedestrian in the roadway.”

“Every day, it smells like rotten eggs. We want our children to be able to play outside. The only way for GAF to be a good neighbor is to leave,” said Joshua Rodriguez, a West Dallas resident who showed up to support the protest.

In December, Cisneros filed a $250,000 lawsuit against the city and the Board of Adjustment, the quasi-judicial body that reviews individual requests where applicants claim they cannot or do not want to comply with the provisions of the Dallas Development Code. The board may also make recommendations to the City Council for the termination of non-conforming land uses that are not in compliance with the zoning code.

The lawsuit states that “inexplicably refusing to accept Cisneros’s application and request to consider establishing a compliance date for a nonconforming use for GAF,” according to the lawsuit filed in the Dallas 191st District Court. A hearing was scheduled last month and later postponed. A new hearing date needs to be scheduled.

Last year, Cisneros tried to file for amortization, a process that is used for the closure of businesses that have been proved harmful to the community.

The Board of Adjustment said it couldn’t accept Cisneros’s applications due to a new state law that adds protections for business owners in the event of amortization. The city would have to pay the company, as stated by the bill SB 929 that passed last year, The Dallas Morning News reported.

Davis from Justice for Joppa said that before he left his home this morning, he had spoken with his children about why he was joining the West Dallas residents in this fight.

“This is the American Dream: to be able to stand up for yourself and to be able to voice your opinion collectively….But being able to represent humanity and stand up for something that is wrong and has plagued us since slavery,” said Davis.

The activists called this protest a victory because the company halted operations for a couple of hours.

The protest was part of a three-day event that several local environmental groups planned to raise environmental justice awareness across the city.