City of Greensboro threatened with legal action over landfill

A letter to Greensboro City Manager Rashad Young from the Southern Coalition for Social Justice warns that, “in addition to constituting an unwise policy decision, the reopening of the White Street Landfill to [municipal solid waste] would subject Greensboro and prospective private landfill operators to potential legal action.”

Chris Brook, a staff attorney for the Durham-based Southern Coalition for Social Justice — which works on behalf of lower-income communities of color — states that he represents the Greensboro Citizens for Economic and Environmental Justice, “a coalition of Greensboro residents, small business owners and developers in their opposition to reopening the White Street Landfill in northeast Greensboro to MSW.”

Brook writes that the 79.3 percent of the residents living in a Census tract within a mile radius of the landfill are black while 5.5 percent are Hispanic.

“While Greensboro as a whole is 47.7 percent African American and Hispanic, the community directly impacted by the White Street Landfill is 84.8 percent African American and Hispanic,” the letter states. “Disproportionate impacts like these re-open old wounds, making it difficult for Greensboro to turn the page and move beyond its fraught history of racial conflict.”

Brook warns that a decision to reopen the landfill could jeopardize federal funding considering that it would provide a basis for filing a Title VI discrimination complaint with the US Justice Department. Likewise, Brook writes, NCGS § 130A-294(4)(c)(9) instructs the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources to “deny an application for a permit for a solid waste management facility if the department finds that… the cumulative impact of the proposed facility, when considered in relation to other similar impacts of facilities located or proposed in the community, would have a disproportionate adverse impact on a minority or low-income community protected by Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

Last week, Brook wrote to the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources requesting that a permit application submitted by the city in February to discard municipal solid waste in Phase III of the landfill be denied, based on civil rights considerations.

Brook’s letter to the city manager raises questions about the city’s estimated cost savings from reopening the landfill and about the health risks of doing so. He also questioned the wisdom of reopening the landfill from a business and economic development standpoint.

“Four of the largest five municipalities in North Carolina have MSW landfills in their general vicinity,” Brook writes. “However, none of them dispose of their MSW as close to their population and business centers. The MSW landfill serving Charlotte is 19 miles from downtown, the MSW landfill serving Raleigh is 13 miles from downtown, and the MSW landfill serving Winston-Salem is eight miles from downtown. By way of comparison, the White Street Landfill is four miles from downtown, next to thousands of city residents, and the only portion of the city capable of supporting future residential and business expansion.