If you’ve been counting, this is
my 94th commentary—since January 2016—on toxic coal ash. Some of you have questioned why I have been
so fervent. My reply has been and will
be: “If you can’t stand up for the people
and place you love, for whom and what are you willing to take a stand?”
I
don’t care where I might be; the needle of my heart’s compass will always point
to the 11,563 square miles sandwiched between the Altamaha and Satilla
rivers. Wayne County is where my soul is
intertwined with my roots.
Standing
on the corner of Cherry and Macon streets, I can show you where Dr. Alvin
Leaphart lifted me from my mother’s womb.
As he clutched me by my ankles, I cried.
But what was rolling down my chubby cheeks were tears of joy—joy to be born
into a loving family and into a wonderful hometown.
If
anything has changed in the last 70 years, it would be that my love has grown. And that’s why, if I’m breathing, I will be
standing up for the people and this
place that I love so dearly.
So
what have we learned in the last 35 months about toxic coal ash?
The
first three lessons are:
1. Coal
ash is laced with numerous poisonous heavy metals which are harmful to our
health.
2. Toxic
coal ash should never be stored near water or in sensitive ecosystems.
3. Disasters—manmade
or natural—can and will put people
and the environment at unnecessary risks.
These lessons
are why Benjamin Franklin’s advice should be stenciled on the back of our
dominant hand: “An ounce of prevention is
worth a pound of cure.”
There is
nothing we can do about the 800,000 tons of toxic coal ash already stored at
the Broadhurst Environmental Landfill.
Well, there is one thing. We can continue
encouraging Republic Services to be diligent in its maintenance and
monitoring. Since the arrival of area
vice president Drew Isenhour, I feel considerably better about Republic’s
attitude. Drew has demonstrated that he
is willing to listen. I believe he wants
an amicable resolution, just as we do.
Looking back to
the early 1990s, hindsight is now like a huge, blinking caution light. The landfill should never have been located
in or near an area crisscrossed with wetlands and streams flowing to Georgia’s
coast. Broadhurst also sits atop the
Floridan Aquifer, the drinking-water source of millions.
Calamities
happen. Consider Duke’s Dan River
coal-ash tragedy. And then there’s the
monumental coal-ash disaster in Kingston, Tennessee. Just last week, a federal court ruling
underscored how safety was ignored for workers who were cleaning up that
poisonous mess. Profits were put ahead
of people’s health and lives.
Now consider
the tsunami of hurricanes over the past few years. Each was a warning to Coastal Georgia. Imagine if Hurricane Harvey—which flooded
Houston—had hit the Golden Isles. What
about Hurricane Florence? It washed nasty industrial hog waste and toxic coal
ash over the coastal Carolinas.
And think about Hurricane Michael, which left portions
of Florida’s Panhandle and Southwest Georgia devastated. If angry Michael had picked Brunswick as its
bull’s-eye, Wayne County—as we know and love it—would have been obliterated.
Benjamin
Franklin has been in his grave for 228 years, but the truth of his cautionary words
is very much alive today. That’s why I
stand with you—Wayne County—as we stand up for the people and place we love.
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com
