A picture is still worth a thousand words. These dozen photographs tell the story of the environmental conditions the South Camden Waterfront neighborhood residents must endure twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Their struggle is one of life and death.

South Camden Citizens in Action leader Phyllis Holmes standing in front of her home she bought in 1984. (To view her interview with Dr. Robert Bullard please click HERE)

 

Former New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman participated in the March 21, 2000 groundbreaking ceremony for the $50 million St. Lawrence Cement Co. plant in Camden.

 

The Montreal-based St. Lawrence Cement Co. plant as viewed across the railroad tracks from South 4th Street.

 

The cement plant would grind slag into a fine powder form and in the process add some 60 million tons of dust pollution into the South Camden Waterfront neighborhood each year.

 

A lone child plays in a neighborhood park with nearby St. Lawrence Cement Co. plant looming in background.

 

Children in the South Camden must contend with the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority (CCMUA) sewage treatment plant as seen in the background across a fence from the neighborhood park.

 

Trucks already plow through the South Camden neighborhoods as seen on South 4th Street. An estimated 77,000 truck deliveries would be made to and from the St. Lawrence Cement Co. plant annually.

 

The not-so-pretty pink trash-to-steam incinerator is euphemistically called the Camden County Resource Recovery Facility.

 

A co-generation power plant, Camden Cogen, is located in the waterfront neighborhood.

 

Polluting industries have left their mark on the mostly African American and Hispanic neighborhood. Warning signs and fences serve as clear reminders of the danger posed by the Martin Aaron Drum Superfund site.

 

The fenced Welsbach/General Mantle Superfund site is contaminated with radioactive thorium. Homes are found adjacent to the waste site.

 

These homes are located just behind the Welsbach/General Mantle Superfund site. Many of the housing units are boarded up, abandoned, dilapidated, and a few are still occupied. Both poverty and pollution make a deadly combination for the residents.