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Environmental activists with Singleton United protest at an asphalt shingle plant in West Dallas in 2021. 

Environmental activists with Singleton United protest at an asphalt shingle plant in West Dallas in 2021. 

Courtesy of Janie Cisneros

CityLab
Environment

In Dallas, the Toxic Legacy of Zoning Lingers

Loose regulations and a gung-ho development culture brought polluting industries to low-income Dallas neighborhoods. Can a new wave of zoning reform drive them out? 

Patrick Sisson
Corrected

Over several years, “Shingle Mountain” — a six-story pile of roofing shingles — rose next to Marsha Jackson’s home in southeastern Dallas. 

A towering monument to a recycling scheme gone wrong, the enormous heap of asphalt and fiberglass filled the air with dust and leached toxins into the soil, and onto Jackson and her family’s skin. The multi-year campaign Jackson waged to remove the waste made her a cause celebre of the environmental justice movement — and eventually succeeded in prodding the city to halt the illegal dumping operation and truck the shingles away in February 2021.