There are no invisible barriers, or protective borders that block contaminated water from moving from poorer, predominately Black communities into more affluent, white neighborhoods.
The impact of polluters on communities of color, which are disproportionately impacted by chemicals that are released into waterways and sprayed on the ground or emitted through smokestacks into air, should alarm the region, said LaMeshia Whitington, professor in Meredith Colleges’ division of sociology, deputy head for Advance CarolinaDirector of the campaigns North Carolina Black Alliance.
Whittington was one of the few panelists that spoke Sunday at a forum hosted on Sunday by the University of North Carolina Wilmington People of Scientific and Equitable Achievement, or the P.O.S.E.A. Student-led initiative to promote inclusion, diversity, equity and equity in science. The organization was founded by Ashantee Pickett, Makayla Onil, and sponsored UNCWs Center for Marine Science.
The public event, which was hosted both in person as well online, addressed issues of water quality and environmental justice in an area where drinking water has been affected by industrial releases of chemical compounds known to be per-and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals or PFAS.
Roger Shew, a UNCW geologist and lecturer in earth and ocean sciences, stated that you should have access to safe, affordable water. It’s a fundamental human right. The government is responsible for protecting our waters. As you know, this is not enough.
Shew and other panelists discussed the history behind how government, driven primarily by economics, has worked in favor of industry rather than the people.
Whittington explained that slavery is a history that began with slave Africans being forced to work plantations. Later, corporations established themselves in predominately Black communities and paid low wages. They were allowed to release pollutants into the water and air.
Jim Crow legislation was used to target Black communities that have thrived, she stated.
This is evident in Warren County, a rural, poor, and largely Black county in northeastern Piedmont. It was the site of protests by its residents against the 1982 dumping of thousands upon thousands of truckloads soil contaminated with toxic PCBs. The county gained national attention and became the birthplace for the environmental justice movement.
Just across the Cape Fear River, from downtown Wilmington, is another predominately Black community. For decades, creosote, a thick, tar-like substance, was stored in unlined, shallow ponds.
The 14-square-mile Navassa town is home to the former Kerr-McGee Wood Treatment Plant. It is now a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency superfund site.
Brownfield sites are also available in the town. It has between 2,100 and 2,200 residents, with about 70% being Black, according to Navassa Mayor Eulis Wilis.
Willis said that he witnessed creosote rising from Sturgeon Creek while a North Carolina Department of Transportation crew replaced the bridge linking the town and neighboring Leland in 2002.
He spoke about Navassas’ history and the town’s ties to Gullah Geechee. These are descendants of West Africans who were enslaved in rice and indigo plantations on the south Atlantic Coast.
The land where the former creosote plants were located was a rice planting.
Willis spoke about the EPAs remediation of Superfund.
Further up the Cape Fear River, from Navassa to the south, rural and poor communities, largely non-white, have been dealing in a different industry, concentrated animal feeding operations (or CAFOs) to feed their livestock.
CAFOs can be described as large-scale industrial agricultural plants that raise animals for meat and eggs.
Larry Cahoon (UNCW professor of marine biology and biology) and chair of the UNCW advocacy panel Cape Fear River WatchThe board of directors shared the history of how large animal-feeding operations reached disadvantaged communities.
It’s a story that dates back to the 1930s, when the tobacco industry was the state’s most important crop. The federal government established allotments to help increase the price of tobacco.
Boards at the county level were empowered to decide which farmers got an allotment.
Which tobacco farmers were allotted and which weren’t? Cahoon then asked the audience. Black tobacco farmers, though there were some, were denied the opportunity to make a lot.
He said that in the mid-2000s, tobacco was being phased out and farmers who had received government allotments were allowed to participate in the burgeoning North Carolina swine industry.
Cahoon stated that black farmers were once again excluded from the most lucrative farming.
He said that systemic racism is at work.
CAFOs are found in communities with higher populations of people of color and lower-income residents. Large animal feeding operations have been shown to pollute ground water and surface water, and reduce air quality.
Cahoon, along with a colleague, were hired more than twenty years ago to lend their expertise and help Waterkeeper Alliance file a civil suit against Smithfield Foods.
The lawsuit resulted in what is known as the Smithfield Agreement, which was a 2000 settlement between Smithfield and the state attorney general. Smithfield and its subsidiaries agreed that they would pay up to $2,000,000 each year for 25-years.
The money is put into an account and distributed via the state’s Environmental Enhancement Grant Program, or EEG, to projects that improve the environment.
Last fall, Cahoon received an EEG worth more than $90,000. It was awarded to UNCW research professor Michael Mallin to study the water quality in wet detention pools.
He stated that the water resources of the state are actually the property of the people. Not a private corporation. The government. The government is supposed act as stewards for those resources. They are the ones responsible for making sure our waters are safe to fish, swim, and drink. If they aren’t, it means that the government hasn’t done its job.
He stated that the government should be held responsible for ensuring that industries don’t have their waste intrude on private property or in the bodies and homes of private citizens.
Cahoon stated that the fights here involved the use of property and bodies of others for waste and disposal. We must all remember to keep our stuff on our property and not allow it to go.
Sunday’s forum was hosted by P.O.S.E.A.
