Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

“Are the people of Perry County, Ala., less valuable than the people in Kingston, Tenn.?” asks Hurricane Creekkeeper John Wathen. The activist sent a complaint letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lisa Jackson this week in an effort to stop shipments of coal ash recovered from the east Tennessee spill site to a poor, black community in Alabama. Residents near the Uniontown, Ala., landfill say the coal ash is stinking up their town. And they, too, worry that the same toxic sludge that poured down on the community of Kingston causing serious damage and threatening human health, may create problems for them as well.

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It was bad enough when the coal ash impoundment pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Kingston, Tenn., plant holding more than a billion gallons of toxic sludge ruptured, sending a wave of coal ash onto a neighboring community and into nearly waterways. Cleaning it up hasn’t been a walk on the beach. One challenge was locating a landfill that would accept the recovered coal ash. The newest issue is finding a company willing to treat the wastewater from that landfill.

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The residents of Perry County, Ala., were just gearing up to file a lawsuit against Arrowhead Landfill. The landfill had entered into an agreement with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to accept coal ash recovered from the east Tennessee spill site, generating millions of dollars and a handful of jobs for the very poor, predominantly black community. But residents argued that the benefits came at too high a price. Coal ash is toxic, containing arsenic and carcinogens that have been linked to serious health problems. To make matters worse, the constant trainload deliveries of coal ash to the landfill were literally stinking up the town.

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Ms. Ruby’s smile is infectious, but it is tinged with concern. At 80, she has lived in Perry County, Ala., all her life. But what has happened there these past few months has made her fear for her health.

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At 80, Ruby Holmes doesn’t have much fight left in her. So she sits in her home and deals with the deck she’s been given. In her community, which used to be in a place she called a “quiet, beautiful place … nothing but fresh air,” she can no longer open the windows. “That stuff, whatever it is over there, wakes me up, it smells so bad,” she told the Birmingham News. Holmes lives not far from the Arrowhead Landfill in Perry County, Ala., the same landfill that is taking in millions of tons of coal ash recovered from east Tennessee, where more than a billion gallons of the toxic material spilled from a neighboring coal ash impoundment pond.

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The Arrowhead Landfill in Uniontown, Ala., may be the “Cadillac” of all landfills in the industry, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and dumping millions of tons of toxic coal ash recovered from a spill site in Tennessee into the landfill may generate several jobs and millions of dollars in storage fees for the impoverished community, but residents of the mostly black community are hardly thrilled. A standing-room-only crowd gathered Wednesday night to hear plans for the dump in their community. Perry County District Attorney Michael Jackson voiced the concerns of the crowd, saying he was tired of poor areas being dumping grounds for the rest of the nation.

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Coal ash recovered from an east Tennessee community where the toxic material spilled after an impoundment pond breached at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) coal-firing plant in Kingston, Tenn., is already being shipped to landfills in other states, creating jobs and bringing money to impoverished counties, but residents of an Alabama community receiving the shipments aren’t pleased.

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