North Carolina PCB Protest, 1982
Background
The PCB Warren County protest was a nonviolent, activist movement that challenged climate change and environmental elitism in the 1980s. Warren County, NC is a predominantly black community whose environment became a waste dump landfill for Backward Transportation company. The protest resulted in the beginning conversation of enviormental rights and its connotations to civil rights.
Status Quo and Enviormenatlism in the 1980s
During the 1980s the federal status quo of environmental policy was under the Reagan administration. Reagan's defund, devolve and deregulate shaping of environmental policy suggested a national attitude. Americans were not concerned by his corniciopian framework under the slightest. The environmental movement was undermined under the Regan administration. Policy loosened regulations for industries and how they utilized land, water, and other natural resources for the benefit of their companies. However Americans were not concerned with economic strides over climate change. Despite Reagan's extreme strides in prioritizing economic values over environmentalism all throughout his first term, he was extremely successful in the following campaign as he beat Walter Mondale by a landslide.
The PCB landfill violated the Toxic Waste Substance act issued by Jimmy Carter in 1978. It's also important to note that Robert Ward and Robert Burns (Buckward Transportation) are the same company owners responsible for the Love Canal disaster. However, Carter passed the Toxic Waste Substance act in a small policy window at the end of his term. Meaning right after Jimmy Carter passed the act, his term was over and Regan came into office. Since the EPA under the Reagan Administration weakend environmental concern, the beginning enforcements of the Toxic Substance Control act were deregulated. Regan even appointed Anne Gorsuch Buford (an extreme far right cornoucopian) as the head of the EPA. Under Reagan's weak Superfund act, Buford actually sponsored 2.5 million dollars to the construction of the Warren County landfill.
Environmentalists wanted a different type of national representation of environmental policy. Most Americans were satisfied with deregulating insurstys as a result of economic growth. However, these policies were at the expense of disenfranchised and marginalized groups of people. Warren County North Carolina, declared as one of the poorest counties in America in 1980, made up 65% of African Americans being one of them.
Protest
After about two years of Buckward Transportation dumping toxic gas in Warren County, the people gathered at a local church to discuss their concerns and frustrations. Coley Springs Baptist Church was three miles shy of the landfill. This is where the gatherings of the community came and decided to enact a protest with a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) approach. The first meeting was held in 1979. 600 plus members of the community came and addressed their concerns of being exposed to carbon from the toxic waste plant. The gatherings followed into 1982 and had prominent members of environmental concerned. The chief of federal branch of the waste management division, William Sanjour and Loius Gibbs come speak on behalf of the studies on waste management and economic liability that allowed Warren County to become an industrial park.
The PCB landfill protest happened in 1982 in Warren County, NC. The protest intended to stop the Buckward Transportation company from dumping toxic waste just miles away from residents of warren county. The state of North Carolina granted Buckward Transportation permission to establish a landfill in their state and permitted Warren County as the location. Demographic components of the residents in Warren county can be assumed as the explanation to the negligence acts allowed by Ward transportation to Warren County. Protestors marched peacfully, layed in the streets to block dump trucks from passing, and composed a 19 day hunger strike. The most violent acts were slicing the tires of the dumping trucks. North Carolina State troops arressted 500 people. The protest gave light to enviormental protection further than the land, ocean, or animals but to people.
The aftermath of the protest called attention to statistics following disfranchized/ poor counties being used as hazordus dump waste cites. It called for a reevaluation for Buckward transportation and its relationship with Warren County. Further ahead, in 1991 the first National Leadership summit for Colored People was developed. The PCB Warren County protest was successful as one of the first awakenings of enviormental justice in American histrory.
References
https://www.energy.gov/lm/services/environmental-justice/environmental-justice-history
Wells, Christopher W. Environmental Justice in Postwar America: A Documentary Reader. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018.
Glave, Dianne D.,, and Mark Stoll. "To Love the Wind and the Rain": African Americans and Environmental History. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006.
McGurty, Eileen Maura. Transforming Environmentalism: Warren County, PCBs, and the Origins of Environmental Justice. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2007.