Families who live next to Houston’s Ship Channel wake up each day not knowing what the air will bring.

For part 3 of our Emissions Events series, we interviewed residents from fenceline communities—neighborhoods located right beside refineries and chemical plants—share how pollution shapes their daily lives.

“Sometimes there’s a strange smell. Sometimes it’s flaring. Sometimes it’s both,” one resident and Air Alliance Houston’s Government Affairs and Community Outreach Director, Leticia Gutierrez says. “You never know what you’re going to wake up to—or how it will affect your kids or your neighbors.”

For years, many people learned to ignore the smoke, fires, and odors. “I didn’t know much about emissions back then,” another resident and Air Alliance Houston’s Outreach Coordinator, Diamond Pham, explains in the video. “I just knew there was fire and weird smells. I got used to it. I didn’t think about what it could do to our health.”

But learning more made the impacts impossible to ignore.

Both Leticia and Diamond talk about family members with asthma, repeated attacks that send children to the hospital, and loved ones lost to lung cancer. They also recall the fear during the 2019 ITC fire, when smoke spread across neighborhoods and parents scrambled for answers about whether it was safe to go outside or pick up their kids from school.

Leticia and Diamond say these moments reveal a broken system—one that allows routine flaring, weak fines, and too little warning for the people most affected.

Fenceline communities are calling for change: more air monitors in neighborhoods, clear public data, real community input, and stronger enforcement for repeat polluters. Research shared alongside their stories shows high asthma rates in the East End and higher cancer risks for children living near the Port.

These residents are taking their experiences—and the science—straight to lawmakers.

Watch the video below to hear directly from people living on the frontlines of industrial pollution, and learn why they are demanding cleaner air and real accountability.