- The Environmental Justice Community Action Network’s December meeting highlighted environmental victories.
- Sampson County was awarded a $13.2 million state grant to provide public water to the Ivanhoe community.
- CleanAIRE NC and EJCAN are partnering to monitor and analyze air quality throughout North Carolina.
- Environmental justice issues persist; EJ activists are working on an initiative to get the governor to sign an executive order to enforce the environmental protections for disadvantaged communities.
By: North Carolina Health News | January 7, 2023
One gray cloud hanging over many Sampson County residents’ holidays was the prospect that in the coming year, soil contaminated with creosote and a toxic brew of other chemicals would be dumped there in the coming year.
But at the last meeting of 2022, Sherri White-Wiliams, president of the Environmental Justice Community Action Network (EJCAN), stood before dozens in a room inside Lisbon Street Church and shared with the audience what she called “a couple of really great wins.”
White-Williams shared that contaminated soil from a site in Novassa, about an hour south of where she stood in Clinton, would not be shipped to the GFL Sampson County Disposal Landfill. That shipment had been rumored to be one of the possible destinations as reported previously by NC Health News…
Other concerns at the top of Sampson County residents’ lists include air and water contamination issues. The GFL landfill is the largest sanitary dump in North Carolina. Neighbors complain about foul smells coming from the landfill and worry that toxins from the site are leaching into well water.
Read more from North Carolina Health News.
