North Carolina’s Environmental Justice Roots Run Deep

Mar 2

Jillian Howell, Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper, collects the first round of microplastics sampling at Jack's Creek, NC.

The roots of the modern environmental justice movement run deep in North Carolina. Our tragic history of environmental wrongs has been met by strong communities fighting for justice.

Rooted in Warren County

In the summer of 1978, the Ward Transformer Company intentionally dumped transformer oil laden with polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) - a toxic chlorine compound - along 240 miles of highway across 14 counties to avoid paying for proper disposal. The soil needed to be removed and put somewhere so 90 sites in 14 different counties were evaluated as potential locations for the contaminated soil’s disposal. In December of that year, the state announced a 700-acre landfill to dispose of more than 32,000 cubic yards of the PCB-contaminated soil in Afton, a predominantly Black community in Warren County.

Warren County was not the most scientifically suitable site for the landfill in the first place, with a high water table where most people relied on wells for drinking water. The PCB-laden soil was buried within 7’ of groundwater. The head of the EPA's hazardous waste implementation branch at the time, William Sanjour, questioned the siting decision and said it was more political than based in engineering, technology or science.

The decision was met with resistance and protest from the local community. By 1982, citizen action group The Warren County Citizens Concerned About PCBs had galvanized support from local, state and national allies. Although the opposition did not stop landfill construction or the 6,000 truckloads of PCB-contaminated soil from being buried there, it successfully drew national attention to the disproportionate environmental burden borne by communities of color and low-wealth communities. Twenty years after the Warren County protests, the State of North Carolina and EPA spent $17.1 million to “detoxify” the landfill, but the land is still unsuitable for most future use.

Warren County is where the term “environmental justice” was popularized. However, movements of resistance against unjust conditions where people live, work and play occurred long before the 1980s. Black, Brown, Indigenous and low-wealth communities have long worked to right wrongs. These include the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike, the 1960’s Farmworkers’ rights movement, the resistance of enslaved Black persons and Indigenous opposition to European colonization.

The impact of inequitable decisions by state and local officials affects water quality for those living in the area. This rash disregard for the populations living near these waste sites is inexcusable and wrong.

Continued Injustices Today

Still today, unchecked environmental injustices are present in our most vulnerable communities.

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), specifically the industrialized system of hog operations, have dominated eastern North Carolina's landscape for decades.

The impact of CAFOs on residents and water quality is disastrous. Hog waste from these operations is stored in “lagoons” (unlined, open pits) that are susceptible to breaches or flooding during hurricanes and heavy rain events. The liquid waste from the lagoons is sprayed onto adjacent fields as fertilizer. The problem: there is too much waste and not enough land. Sprayed waste often pools in low-lying areas and can sometimes wash into adjacent water bodies. The waste has high levels of nutrients that can cause algal blooms and fish kills, as well as bacteria like E. coli, which is a public health hazard.

These operations and their failing waste management systems disproportionately impact communities of color and low-wealth communities because of these facilities’ locations. Within a 3-mile radius of an industrial hog operation:

Native Americans are 2.14 times more likely to live there than whites 
African Americans are 1.54 times more likely to live there than whites 
Latin Americans are 1.39 times more likely to live there than whites (1)

There are 7.2 times as many of these operations in the highest poverty group compared to the lowest. (2)

In 2018 and 2019, five nuisance lawsuits filed on behalf of 36 residents living near hog operations were argued in North Carolina courts. All five cases ruled in favor of the community members.

During a hearing, Judge Wilkinson stated, “If this were my property, I’d be outraged at some of these conditions that were allowed to persist. Less fortunate citizens have property rights, too. They have a right to good health and enjoyment of their property. If this were some McMansion surrounding hog farming operations, or houses of the affluent and more politically powerful were here, wouldn’t these conditions have been cleared up sooner rather than later? That is my problem.” Both this acknowledgment of the realities that specific communities have endured and the actual ruling in favor of the plaintiffs were significant wins.

A new venture by Smithfield and Dominion Energy threatens to entrench the lagoon and sprayfield system further, creating new problems and exacerbating old ones for surrounding communities and water quality under the guise of green, renewable energy.

The Grady Road Project proposes methane capture at 19 hog operations in Duplin and Sampson counties; the biogas would be piped to a central processing facility, “cleaned” and injected into an existing natural gas pipeline. The project requires constructing more than 19 miles of pipeline, presenting the problems of potential methane leakage, pipeline rupture and the use of eminent domain to take land. The construction of a central processing facility to “clean” the biogas also creates a new air pollution source.

Beyond possible leakage, this project doesn’t prevent water contamination. Liquid waste will still need to be sprayed and it will have higher concentrations of nitrogen due to the capping of lagoons. Covering existing lagoons will not prevent hurricane-level flooding from impacting them, and still, some uncovered lagoons will remain at sites with anaerobic digesters as secondary treatment.

All of these impacts will again be shouldered by those living in the vicinity of hog operations, and now, pipelines and processing facilities.

Impacted community members and area organizations, including the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network (NCEJN) and the Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help (REACH), have organized and turned out at public meetings on this project’s permits to make sure the voices of those who have the most to lose are present. The meetings have been frustrating at best. Technical difficulties plague DEQ’s virtual platform and permit issuance feels like a foregone conclusion. No matter how many issues are raised or questions, critical project details remain unknown.

Despite this, community members and advocates continue to show up and speak out.

Standing Tall With Advocates

Waterkeepers Carolina works to amplify the voices of Black advocates and community members whose work has been critical in the movement towards more equitable environmental outcomes. While our work focuses on the communities and organizations working on industrialized hog operations in eastern North Carolina, we know many communities and groups are fighting against a multitude of environmental injustices across the state, our country and our world.

Black communities are not just people these environmental injustices are happening to -- they actively fight against them. There is a legacy of environmental injustice issues in North Carolina. While progress has been made to make equitable decisions, the reality is we must always be vigilant to prevent the siting of unwanted facilities in communities of color.

The arc towards justice has been slow and non-linear. The most burdened should not have to pursue environmental justice alone. As Riverkeepers, we cannot fulfill our mission for fishable, swimmable, drinkable waters without making environmental justice central to our work. We commit ourselves to true efforts of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion to ensure every North Carolinian has access to the clean water they deserve.

Written by
Jefferson Currie II, Lumber Riverkeeper - Winyah Rivers Alliance
Jillian Howell, MEM, Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper - Sound Rivers, Inc.
Kristan Pitts, Diversity Communications Specialist - Yadkin Riverkeeper

To learn more about recent environmental justice issues and the community organizations working on them:

Environmental Justice - State

Coal Ash