GAF says that opening a new factory in Kansas brings the company one step closer to shuttering its controversial shingle plant in West Dallas — which, for decades, local residents have blamed for health problems.
The company also is poised to benefit from substantial tax abatements and other incentives to locate its operations in Kansas.
But some residents and environmental activists say GAF's timeline isn't nearly fast enough.
GAF’s Dallas shingle plant sits along Singleton Boulevard among schools, a lake and residential homes. For years, West Dallas community members have been sounding the alarm over the plant.
The community's push to see the plant closed includes failed negotiations between GAF executives and West Dallas residents, claims of city hall stonewalling — and targeted state legislation that has upended one of the last avenues community members say they have to see the plant closed.
"GAF's announcement of a new manufacturing facility in Kansas is consistent with the timeline communicated in 2022 to wind down operations in West Dallas,” a GAF spokesperson said in a statement to KERA. “We remain committed to our plan to voluntarily cease operation at the plant five years from now.”
Some West Dallas residents have said before they hope the GAF plant leaves their community sooner than that — and they say the fact that the company isn't vacating before 2029 shows what it thinks of the community.
"We are trying to protect our health, our families, and that's why we want them to leave sooner," Singleton United/Unidos leader Janie Cisneros told KERA.
The roofing materials company will open a new plant in the mostly rural area of Newton. The company says the facility will begin operation in 2027 but it won't be at full capacity till mid-2029. That's the same timeframe executives told West Dallas residents GAF would leave their community.
The deal for the new facility was approved by the Newton City Commission last year and included some incentives to bring the heavy industry to the rural area.
Before the contract was approved, some Newton residents voiced their concerns about the incoming GAF plant. Although there aren’t as many residences around the proposed Newton site as in West Dallas, those concerns echoed what residents and environmental activists have been saying about the company’s Singleton Boulevard operation.
Cisneros says heavy industry shouldn't be near residential communities.
“Nobody wants to find themselves in the situation that West Dallas is in,” Cisneros told KERA. “You want to avoid these problems, avoid trauma to the community honestly, especially with heavy polluters and the health harms they can cause.”
KERA reached out to GAF to ask about the details of the agreement with the city of Newton and the overall timeline of the company leaving West Dallas, but only received a response to one question.
‘A lot of leeway’
City of Newton officials approved the deal with GAF in February 2023, along with a zoning change that elevates the industrial uses around the area where the facility will be built.
They also approved up to $350 million in Industrial Revenue Bonds which “provide GAF with a 10-year, 100% property tax abatement on the new development,” according to a 2023 city of Newton press release.
But GAF can’t start reaping those benefits until it invests at least $75 million into the project.
That vote came after Newton’s plan commission couldn’t decide whether to change the area’s zoning or not — ultimately, leaving the decision up to the mayor and city commission.
During the city’s public hearing about the facility last year, it was clear some residents welcomed the GAF deal, citing that over 100 new jobs would be created in the city and that the new facility would drive economic development.
But not all residents were on board with the plan.
“Heavy industrial [zoning] gives a lot of leeway to the company,” Newton resident Gerri Klaassen said during the meeting. “What will happen on that property in the future because of the rezoning?”
Klaassen said her and her husband — a third-generation farmer — use some of the land that was earmarked for the GAF site to farm.
“Our boys are now farming with us. We care what happens, I hope you can address our concerns," Klaassen told the city commission. “We live next door.”
Other concerns included the different pollutants the plant could produce — and possible foul odors too. Newton officials said during the meeting that they had visited another GAF facility and the odors produced by that plant were “negligible.”
“I’ve heard from you all many times that you don’t smell anything when you went to visit the plant in Indiana,” Klaassen said during the meeting. “And I don’t believe that addresses the concerns we have, not all chemicals have a smell.”
Newton resident Gordon Stucky owns farmland near where the new GAF plant will be located. He spoke out against the plant during the 2023 meeting.
“We all want jobs, we need jobs,” Stucky said during the public hearing. “But its pretty darn sad that we’re going to take 230 acres of pristine farmland out here east of town and you have good successful farmers out there.”
Stucky said his family got to know different Texas families while vacationing. When he heard about the GAF deal, he decided to call some of them up to ask about the company that was proposing to open shop in Newton.
“The first guy I called…he said ‘no, no, no, no’,” Stucky said. “They know a whole different story about this thing than you and I do.”
Similar concerns
Newton residents concerns over the yet-to-be-built GAF shingle plant echo what West Dallas residents have been saying for years. Residents near the Dallas plant say they can sometimes smell the odor from its emissions — and say their health has been harmed because of the decades-old shingle plant.
Late last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a plan to analyze the impacts of heavy industry in West Dallas.
EPA officials said during a November community meeting in West Dallas that the area was picked because of the work being done by environmental advocacy groups like West Dallas 1 and Singleton United/Unidos.
“Communities are the eyes and ears on the ground,” EPA Region 6 Administrator Earthea Nance said during the meeting. “We have worked alongside the community, tapping into their knowledge to identify places to do the environmental sampling.”
Nance says those areas include schools, churches and Fish Trap Lake — which is directly across from the GAF facility.
But even as regulators home in on West Dallas — which has largely been neglected by local, state and federal officials — residents still face a long road ahead.
Cisneros has tried multiple times to file for a scheduled closure of the GAF facility. Dallas city officials have said they can’t process her request because of new state regulations that change the way city's can carry out scheduled closures — or amortization.
SB 929 — which was signed into law last year by Texas Governor Greg Abbott — included an analysis citing a narrative similar to the situation with GAF’s facility in Dallas.
“…In one case a city threatened to drive a roofing materials factory that employs 150 workers from their property without giving them a dime even though they legally called the factory their home of 80 years,” the analysis said.
Now Cisneros is suing Dallas for blocking her application.
But Cisneros also says her group doesn’t want GAF to move out of West Dallas — only to move into another community that may have to deal with the same issues.
“We don’t want them to move and cause the same damage to others,” Cisneros told KERA. “I can definitely empathize with the people who want to…have a clean healthy environment and are weary about opening the door to industrial polluters.”
In a statement to KERA, a spokesperson for GAF said the company still plans to leave West Dallas “five years from now.”
KERA also asked whether a delay in starting operations in Newton would mean a change for the overall timeline to leave Dallas. A GAF spokesperson sent this statement in response:
“GAF is committed to leaving Dallas by July 2029. And in seeking the zoning change now that better aligns with the City and community’s vision for West Dallas, that timeline becomes legally-binding.”
Got a tip? Email Nathan Collins at ncollins@kera.org. You can follow Nathan on Twitter @nathannotforyou.
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