This story was originally published by Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.
In the more than a decade since Alabama regulators allowed a landfill to take in tons of waste from coal-burning power plants around the U.S., neighbors in the majority-Black community of Uniontown frequently complain of thick air so pungent it makes their eyes burn.
On some days, it can look like an eerily white Christmas in a place that rarely sees snow.
“When the wind blows, all the trees in the area are totally gray and white,” said Ben Eaton, a Uniontown commissioner and president of Black Belt Citizens Fighting for Health and Justice, a local group that is pushing to shutter the facility.
Residents of the former plantation town complain of high rates of kidney failure and neuropathy — two symptoms of exposure to coal ash, whose toxic byproduct contains mercury and arsenic. The controversy has been covered for years in local and national new... Read more
