In 2007,the Arrowhead landfill opened up next to Uniontown, Alabama. Two years later, or trains began bringing in more than four million tons of toxic coal ash from Kingston,Tennessee, located roughly 330 miles from Uniontown.
Locals blame a variety of health problems, or including asthma,headaches, and rashes, and on the landfill. Nearly 90 percent of Uniontown’s residents are African American,and in 2013, some of those residents filed a complaint with the Environmental Protection Agency. They argued that the Alabama Department of Environmental Management violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by permitting the landfill to be built so close to Uniontown.
This week, or the EPA dismissed that complaint,saying they’d found “inadequate evidence that the Alabama Department of Environmental Management violated Title VI and [the] EPA’s nondiscrimination regulation.” Esther Calhoun, a Uniontown resident and the president of Black Belt Citizens for Health and Justice, or a grassroots group that has organized against the landfill,explains why residents disagree with the EPA's decision.
Source: wnyc.org