Dickson City and County (Tennessee) Settle Leaky Landfill Lawsuits with White Families (But Not with Black Family)
Are White Lives Worth More Than Black Lives?
By Robert D. Bullard

Wednesday, November 15, 2006 -- Just a little over week ago, on November 6, in a special called meeting, Dickson County (Tennessee) Commissioners voted unanimously to settle lawsuits with several white families that had alleged ground water contamination from the leaky Dickson County Landfill located in the historically black Eno Road community. The city and county have now settled with all of the white families, but have refused to deal fairly with the Harry Holt family-an African American family whose wells were contaminated by the landfill.

Government officials first learned of the trichloroethylene (TCE) contamination in the Holt family wells as far back as 1988 but assured the black family their wells were safe. TCE is a suspected carcinogen. The wells were not safe. Three generations of Holts are now sick after being poisoned by their own government.

Dickson city and county officials have a long history of treating black and white families differently. Contamination was found in a white family's spring in 1993 and the county dug the family a new well. Local government officials later placed the white family on the city water system after tests showed contamination in the white family's new well. No such actions were taken to protect the Holt family. In 2003, the Holt family sued the city, county, and the company that dumped the TCE in the county landfill. The Holts' case is still pending. No fair and "good faith" settlement offers have been made to the Harry Holt family members.

Government officials continue to use double standards when it comes to the leaky Dickson County Landfill. This recent settlement action continues this sad legacy of discrimination dating back to the 1960s when the dump was first placed in the midst of Dickson's mostly black Eno Road community and just 54 feet from the Holt family homestead. It is ironic that the Holt family survived the horrors of slavery and the "separate and unequal" system under Jim Crow, but may not survive the modern toxic assault of environmental racism in their backyard.

It is no accident or statistical fluke that all of the permitted landfills in Dickson County are concentrated in the mostly black Eno Road community. Blacks make up less than five percent of the county's population and occupy less than one percent of the county's land mass. When New York Times columnist Bob Herbert queried Dickson County attorney Eric Thornton in a recent article, Poisoned on Eno Road, about why it was peculiar that the Eno Road community had been chosen to absorb so much of the county's garbage and hazardous waste, his reply was "it has to be at some location." The Holts ask, "why must the ‘somewhere' always be in their community?"

The sad events in Dickson's Eno Road community and the recent settlement make clear that black families still must wait longer for justice from Dickson city and county officials. Harry Holt and his family have owned over 150 acres of land in Dickson County's segregated African American Eno Road community for more than six generations. Their health and their wealth have been damaged. They see their health compromised and their homestead devalued-land acquired during the height of Jim Crow segregation-by industrial pollution while the government does absolutely nothing.

The Holt family wells were poisoned by a landfill owned by the city and county government of which the Holts tax dollars support. As law-abiding taxpayers, the Holts deserve fair and equal treatment from their elected officials. Dickson city and county officials are using the Holts own tax dollars to fight them instead of correcting the injustice.

Racial bias involving the Dickson County Landfill is not new. The landfill accepted tons of toxic industrial wastes in the late 1960s. It even accepted hazardous wastes cleaned up from contaminated sites in several white communities in the county. The Eno Road landfill site is currently home to a garbage transfer station and a Class IV construction and demolition landfill that residents are fighting to close.

Racial bias also existed in government testing of private wells. The 2004 EPA Dickson County Landfill Reassessment Report lists no government tests performed on the Harry Holt family well between August 24, 1991 and October 8, 2000-a full nine years. No scientific explanation has been given for this gap in government testing, even though the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) and the federal EPA were performing tests on private wells that were within a one-mile radius of the Dickson County Landfill. The Harry Holt well is the closest private well to the landfill with documented TCE contamination. Memoranda written between TDEC staff and the federal EPA recommended continued testing of the Holts' wells after tests results indicated TCE contamination in 1991. This was not done.

No one knows how much TCE was in the Holt family wells during 1991-2000 when government tests were discontinued. However, test results from the Harry Holt well in October 9, 2000 registered a whopping 120 ppb TCE and a second test on October 25, 2000 registered 145 ppb-24 times and 29 times, respectively, higher than the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) of 5ppb set by the federal EPA. It was only after the extremely high TCE levels in 2000 that a Dickson County Landfill official visited the Holt family home informing them that their wells were unsafe. No written reports were sent to the Holts explaining the 2000 test results. The Holt family was placed on Dickson City water on October 20, 2000-twelve years after the first government tests found TCE in their wells.

The Holt family was allowed to drink poisoned water from their wells long after government tests detected industrial contamination. This is criminal. Clearly, some Americans like the Holts "don't have the complexion for protection." All levels of government failed to provide equal environmental and health protection of this black family as required under the U.S. Constitution. Black Dickson County residents, like their white counterparts, should not have to wait for dead bodies to line their streets to get government officials to respond swiftly and fairly to environmental health threats and to the man-made disaster caused by the Dickson County Landfill. Black families, like white families, should be justly compensated for their losses. And more important, the guilty parties, whether private industry or government, should be brought to justice and made to pay for their crimes.
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Robert D. Bullard directs the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University. His most recent book is entitled The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution (Sierra Club Books, 2005).