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NEWS & LETTERS, November 2004Fight nuclear dump
Williston, S.C.--In 1999 I got a certified letter saying
that a local manufacturing company, Dixie-Narco, wanted to move a sewage system
that was on our property. Most of the people living right around Dixie-Narco are
Black. The sewage system had been built for a trailer park in the late 1940s.
The contamination caused by the sewage system has been traced back to when
chemical wastewater associated with the manufacture of refrigerators and air
conditioning equipment by Admiral Home Appliances was sent to the sewage system
from around the 1950s to the late 1980s. They had put millions of gallons of
contaminated wastewater through that sewage system which discharged into the
nearby wetland area. It sank into the groundwater, and may have affected nearby
streams and ponds. COMPANY ATTEMPTS COVER-UP The shocking thing is the company wanted to sue me and
my family because of the contamination. They wanted control and ownership of our
property which was a little over 40 acres. I would not sell the property or
accept a payoff because the main thing I wanted was to make sure they cleaned
the property up and tested folk’s water to see if it was contaminated. If I
were out of the picture, they would not do any testing in the neighborhood and
rush to remove the septic system, and maybe do a quick cleanup. I started fighting and going to the South Carolina
Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC). Most everybody in that
area drinks groundwater from private wells. After EPA and the State tested the
drinking water in the area, we found out six homes had drinking water that was
contaminated with chemicals like TCE, mercury, and lead. Aside from the homes
nearby, there are also two schools in the vicinity; there is concern of how
these contaminants in the drinking water may be affecting children. I wrote to Lindsey Graham, Strom Thurmond, Joe Wilson,
and John Ashcroft; they never got back to me. My State Representative wasn’t
any help, and I've known him for years. Some of his family still lives near the
contaminated area. I was sure he was going to get involved and help. He called
one evening and told me if I didn't stop talking about this he was going to
"kick my ass." The local NAACP wouldn't do anything either. I contacted the Sierra Club Environmental Justice
Program (Memphis) and got Rita Harris to help organize the community. We created
fliers to help people understand what was going on. I went around the town,
delivering fliers to get people to stand up and speak out. The Sierra Club
helped us form a group called Citizens Against Toxic Contaminants (CATC). PROTESTERS DEMAND ANSWERS The EPA went for 18 months without holding a public
meeting. They caused a lot of suspicion, because while they didn’t want to
give us information, they had people out in moon suits taking samples. Last
December, they wanted to have an "availability session," where you
talk in a small group or alone to the people. They didn't want to talk to us as a group, tell
everybody the same story, or let everybody hear somebody else's questions and
the answers they would give. We felt like this was a way to control the meeting
and keep people from telling their stories about how they felt the contamination
might have caused their cancers. We went to the EPA meeting with over 50
protesters carrying signs and demanding answers in a "real" meeting. These companies divide people. They give money to the
church organizations, to the NAACP, to politicians. The nuclear industry can
fund all kinds of people. Corporate powers run South Carolina. It's the nuclear
dumping ground of the world. At the school, many children are taking Ritalin and have
some learning disabilities or health problems. If you look at what TCE causes,
you can find people with those same symptoms from house to house. Williston is
like a Third World country. These people need water, education, health care. People
need to be more aware of what's going on around them. They've got to put some
restrictions on these polluting companies so they can't just pay people off.
Corporations are controlling everything. It's capitalism. --Environmental justice activist |
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