Dive Brief:
- The Florida Department of Environmental Protection recently announced that South Palafox Properties, the bonding company for Rolling Hills, surrendered its bond with the area's C&D landfill, marking the culmination of an 18-month long shut-down process.
- Residents repeatedly stated they had respiratory irritation, headaches, and sleep apnea, and attributed the issues to landfill pollutants. No action was taken until June 2014 when the Florida DEP revoked Rolling Hills' license to operate the landfill, citing eight state violations, years after a barrage of complaints from the nearby, predominantly black Wedgewood community. "They put a Band-Aid on the problem by stopping them from dumping. They didn’t stitch it up and make it better," said resident Desjon Robertson to the Pensacola News Journal.
- Gloria Horning, a Wedgewood advocate, said the county moved fast to place hydrogen sulfide monitors into predominantly white Saufley neighborhoods when residents had similar complaints. The lack of a similar response for Wedgewood complaints cause claims of "environmental racism" among residents.
Dive Insight:
Wedgewood residents are not alone in believing that "environmental racism" is a form of discrimination. They and environmental advocates are concerned about the long-term effects of landfills in and near poor communities where property is cheap for developers who want to build landfills.
"Our groundwater hydrologically is connected to all of these creeks," said Barbara Albrecht, director of the Panhandle Watershed Alliance, to the Pensacola News Journal. "What happens on the land infiltrates into the water. It pops up in the nearest creek, and once it pops up in the nearest creek, it makes its way to (Perdido) Bay."
Among other low-income communities that have long complained their area was targeted as dumping grounds is Washington, D.C.'s predominantly African American Brentwood neighborhood, which attracted a private trash business for its cheap, industrial land.
"It’s an age old concern," said Keith Wilkins, director, Department of Natural Resources Management, to the News Journal, going on to ask, "Why did these industrial facilities go into these minority neighborhoods?"
