Walking throughout campus last week, one would notice the trademark bricks were covered with phrases such as “We Can’t Breathe” and “Stop Environmental Racism”, which are cries often uttered by those suffering from police brutality or Black Lives Matter, yet one phrase stood out the most—“Justice for Uniontown”. Finding out where these etchings originated led me to the campus Environment Club, and their involvement in a resurgence of a movement that has long since been off the radar of any news source.
The Arrowhead Landfill, located in Uniontown, Alabama, is seeking to expand its territory into the New Hope Cemetery by “[requesting] changes to the groundwater monitoring wells”, according to the underwhelming jargon of the public notice for Permit 53-03. Sitting down with Haley O’Bannon of the Environment Club, she confessed that the Environment Club were merely volunteers in an “uphill battle” for environmental justice “which, many people what [that] is in the first place.” This led to the question of why would the county which was the birthplace of Coretta Scott King, the town which made local history by being one of the first in such a rural area to industrialize, was such a hotbed for environmental issues.
Uniontown, being a majority black community, became a prime target for corporations as industrialization moved to more urban areas, as jobs became scarce, and the only people concerned with that community were the DEA and local law enforcement. As the catfish farms moved in, the spray fields were built (a result of irresponsibly spending a $4.4 million budget), and the stench of the local cheese factory polluted the air, corporations saw a chance to plan for a landfill in an area that would be rendered defenseless given the current struggles for the black voice to be heard. This landfill has become a toxic wasteland for coal ash, destroying the environment, the lives of those in the community, and the local economy (particularly on property values). Uniontown has become practically a wasteland, and according to Ms. O’Bannon “everybody hears about Flint, Michigan, and you think that it’s like an isolated incident, but like similar communities are all across the U.S….and I don’t think people on campus realize there’s an issue this close…it kind of fell off, but people are still suffering.”
Uniontown has easily become Alabama’s own Flint, and what was once covered by such news outlets as CNN, Huffington Post, and The Economist (to name a few), has faded into the background, and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management is still expanding its power and tightening its grip on this powerless community. And despite the toxicity of coal ash, to the air, the water, the terrible management, and unpermitted water runoff, the Arrowhead Landfill is still thriving, so much so that they are advertising for more coal ash, and with Permit 53-03, this will only increase the power ADEM has over the town of historically rich and now ruinous Uniontown.
