Ignorance is bliss.
What you don’t
know can’t hurt you.
Out of sight, out
of mind.
How many times
have you heard those sayings?
There’s
something to be said about wearing mule blinders. What if all you had to do was plow through
life—looking at only what’s in front of you—so you could ignore everything
else? Ignorance could be blissful. Not knowing can also be dangerous.
We’ve
learned that the hard way in our rural corner of Southeast Georgia, but we
aren’t alone. Mega landfill
companies—across America—are famous for zeroing in on communities such as
ours. In the early 1990s, we were
blissfully ignorant about the downside of inviting a regional landfill into
Broadhurst.
Your mama was
right: “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Make no mistake. The money sounded good, very good. But what we didn’t “know” about were the
unintended consequences, such as how millions of tons of toxic coal ash can
poison our environment. Call us what we
were on that subject: ignorant. And put me on top of that uneducated list.
There was a
time coal ash wasn’t a typical conversation topic, but no longer. Today, the proverbial mule blinders are off. People are paying attention. Elected officials are being asked for
stronger protective laws, while asking why Georgia is a coal-ash dumping ground
for the Carolinas and Florida. Follow
the money, and the answer to that question is anything but blissful.
Few days pass
that I don’t get a call, a letter or an email about coal ash. The following
email is an example:
“Feb. 3, 2018
My name is Shannon, and I am currently an
Emory University senior studying the effects of coal ash storage on local
Georgia communities. I’ve been following
the story of Jesup for about a year and a half, and before I go any further, I
just want to say how incredible the work of The Press-Sentinel was/is and how much Jesup has influenced
what I study (environmental economics and sustainable development) and my
perceptions of waste management.
I’m contacting you directly about the
article recently wrote about Homer, Ga.
Homer has come up quite a lot in my research about Jesup because of
their own coal ash storage issues.
However, there is substantially less written online about Homer, and I
am having trouble finding out about current community activism in Homer.
Do you know anyone in Homer who is currently
writing about the issue, or involved in activism about coal ash in the
town? I would love to talk to someone
about their town’s story and help in any way in terms of general access to
information about what they are facing.
Coal ash is so dangerous, and part of that danger is that most people
don’t know it exists, let alone that fossil fuel corporations are exploiting
and slowly poisoning so many communities with it.
Thank you for taking time to read this
email, and I hope to hear from you.”
Shannon’s email
shows why coal ash is no longer “out of sight, out of mind.” She agreed for her message to be printed. I
am not publishing her email address, but I will forward your comments to her.
Coal-ash
dumping and storage aren’t just a Wayne County or Georgia problem. Without wearing mule blinders, you can see
this is a national and global issue. This
is 2018. What we don’t know can and
will hurt us.
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com
