SAN ANTONIO – As dozens of people stepped out of a tour bus and lined the side of Quintana Road on Friday morning, Cheyenne Rendon looked to the sky.
“Welcome to the South Side,” she yelled.
At the same time, a train chugged on Amtrak tracks as multiple fighter jets landed at Kelly Field.
This loud experience is not one that all people in San Antonio are used to, but Rendon said it’s a clear example of the inequities of living on the South Side.
“We are targeted not by someone specific, but by all,” she said. “We’re here to speak our lived experience and share with you what we are living with in 2025.“
Rendon was one of the speakers on the Environmental Justice Bus Tour. Multiple nonprofits put on this experience to give people living south of Highway 90 a platform to share their health concerns.
For years, KSAT has covered issues like air quality, chemical contamination and equitable infrastructure in neighborhoods like South San, Quintana and Thompson.
Diana Lopez, the executive director of the Southwest Workers Union, said a bus tour brings people out of the classroom and office, and shows them firsthand what communities are dealing with.
“Tours in general became a tool to use to say ‘We exist. We’re feeling this. We’re all sick. This is what is across our street. This is what’s across our fence line and we think there’s a connection there’,” she said.
The first stop on the tour was on Quintana Road. KSAT reported decades of health concerns because of Kelly Air Force Base. The base closed in 2001. The site is now Port San Antonio.
The tour said communities living near the base have struggled, even since its closure.
“Most of these houses were built in the 1940s and they were built with no floor sealants,” Debra Ponce, a climate justice organizer for Public Citizen, said. “Over time, cracks have developed in the floorboards.”
Ponce said these residents are worried about the possibility of contaminated water, air and soil.
“Our neighborhood has been surrounded by industrial activity for years,” she said. “Our community has cancer, asthma and other chronic issues.”
One man, named Victor San Miguel, said his health has suffered severely growing up on the South Side.
“About 10 years ago, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The past year, I was diagnosed with skin cancer,” he said. “I’ve gone through a lot, but I’m not here to ask for help. The reason I am here is so that we can all work together.”
Tour leaders set up a memorial of flags on Quintana Road with the names of their neighbors who have passed from health conditions they believe were caused by industry and contamination in the area.
Community members led the charge to update metal recycling codes for the city of San Antonio, after a fire burned at a recycling yard in their neighborhood for hours in 2023.
Fifty-three of the 69 auto recyclers across San Antonio are located in District 4 and District 5.
District 4 Councilman Edward Mungia sat in on the tour Friday.
“There is so much happening here, so many different layers of inequity,” Mungia said. “I’m committed to being a partner and solving it.”
There were three main community solutions presented by the tour leaders:
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“Protect San Antonio’s Pueblo Plan”
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“Build more sustainable solutions”
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“Protect people and the environment”
The nonprofits made specific calls for future zoning protections, installing air quality monitoring devices in South San Antonio, ensuring community development, creating space for voices of grassroots efforts to be heard and getting environmental cleanup outside and inside Kelly Air Force Base.
“We’re hoping that the people that were on the bus learn,” Ponce said, and hopefully it’ll impact their future decisions.”
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