Analyze

The Sampson County landfill can be smelled before seen. This olfactory indicator points toward the sensory scale of these pungent emissions but also toward the geographic scope: this landfill receives waste from as far away as Orange County (the state's most expensive property/tax base), among dozens of other distant counties, making this "hazardous site" a lesson in realizing impact beyond the immediate locale. So when we answer the question, "What is this hazard?" we must think not only about the landfill as a thing in itself but as a set of economic and political relations of capital and the transit of other peoples' trash, into this lower-income, rural, predominantly African-American neighborhood. In this way, 'thinking with a landfill' (like this one in Sampson County) enables us to analyze wider sets of relationships, NIMBY-ist policymaking, consumerism, waste management, and the racialized spatial politics that enable Sampson County to be the recipient of trash from all over the state. At the same time we think spatially and in transit, we can think historically to (a) inquire about the DEQ policies that enable this kind of waste management system; and (b) the emergent "solutions" in the green energy sector that propose to capture the landfill's methane in order to render the stench productive for the future -- that is, to enable more consumption, by turning garbage into gas. As such, the idea of "hazard" can expand beyond the site itself - impactful and affective as that site might be - to examine the uneven relations of exchange and capitalist-driven values of productivity that further entrench infrastructures such as these. [This offers a conceptual corrollary to thinking, as well, about the entrenchment of CAFOs for "green" biogas development, as we address elsewhere in the platform].

Danielle Koonce in an Opinion piece in the Fayetteville Observer, states...

"And it’s not just household garbage coming in — chemical waste and coal ash has also been disposed of in the Sampson County landfill."

"We listened to community members share how they can no longer garden or enjoy the outdoors due to the thick odor and fumes from the landfill."

"We learned that the landfill receives trash from around the state, from as far away as New York City, and even trash that comes in on ship-barges through Wilmington."

While Bryan Wuester, manager for the Sampson County Landfill states in the Sampson Independent...

"The Sampson landfill accepts waste from North Carolina only, about 5,450 tons from 16 different counties a day."

"The landfill accepts three kinds of waste: construction and demolition materials, solid waste and special waste, which are byproducts of industry. No coal ash comes into the Sampson facility..."

These are two different stories of the landfill coming from two different stakeholders, one in which needs the landfill to be in operation for a job and the other a concerned citizen worried about the disproportional impacts her community faces. While Danielle Koonce listens to the realities of the community members located around the landfill who express concern and worry, the landfill manager denies these realities and insists they are not true. This is not only invaliding to the community members who are fighting to get their voices heard but further embeds environmental injustice into the community.  

Characterization of loss from Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development (2018) within the Evaluation report on 10-year implementation of the national policy for ‘agriculture-farmer-rural’ development [ not available for public view] 

• “ Aquaculture households have lost 503.2 million VND (21,665 USD) per household, then fishing households 231.3 million VND (9958 USD) per household, and coastal service households 102.0 million VND (4392 USD) per household. Note that both fishing and fish farming households lost similar por- tions of their total income, around 98 percent, even as fish farmers earn twice that of fishers on average. In a country where the average yearly income of rural households is 130 million VND or 5600 USD (MARD, 2018), losing an average of 11,000 USD per household is significant.” (Truong et al., 2021, p 8). 

Characterization of the compensation schemes adopted by Vietnam’s government:

• “According to a report by the Ministry of Finance in 2018, the government was able to provide direct cash compensation to those identified as being impacted across the four provinces. This is because of the settlement with Taiwan Formosa Plastics for 500 million USD. In addition to cash, the Vietnamese government gave over 19,000 tonnes of rice to impacted households in the months following the fish kill. The government also monitored the safety of the ocean environment. As the government switched from emergency relief to recovery support, more programmes were introduced including loan access, scholarships for students, health insurance, and livelihood training pro- grammes. The government also worked with the Fisheries Department and other relevant agencies to build environmental monitoring systems, provide consistent water testing, engage in food safety monitoring, and work towards ecological rehabilitation of aquatic stocks” (Truong et al., 2021, p 10). 

“Environmental disasters have a tendency to further increase work precarity, particularly in places that are highly dependent on eco- logical resources (Marschke et al., 2020). Livelihoods, as such, may need to transform rather than persist in the face of crises (Alexander, 2013).” (Truong, 2021, pg 3)

“ Vietnam has struggled with ineffective environmental regulatory programmes or insufficient enforcement capabilities to ensure adequate protection of the environment as Vietnam develops (Fortier, 2010). Environmental impact assessments (EIA), in general, are viewed as bureaucracy rather than as an important aspect of the development approval process (Wells-Dang et al., 2016).” (Truong, 2021, pg 4)

The narrative of the text highlights the following key points extrapolated from survey responses and interview participants:

• Impacts of the Formosa disaster on households vary by livelihood strategies, and were particularly amplified for poorer households, women, and households without diversified livelihood strategies. 

• Coping mechanisms of households primarily involved reducing household expenditures, accessing loans, adopting a new livelihood strategy, and expanding existing livelihood strategies. However, adoption rates of these coping mechanisms vary across households with livelihoods across the service, fishing, and fish farming enterprises. 

• Compensation, though cited to have ignited protests from parties not qualified for restitution, did offer substantial help to those who were able to receive compensation. Additionally, compensation delivery was delayed (between one to two years after the incident was reported), further escalating impacts across families without savings. 

• Economic recovery of household income 30 months after the Formosa incident indicates that the majority of households have recovered their livelihood activities. However, this does not take into account families who are no longer in the region (out migrated following the disaster prior to the inception of this study).

Authors of the publication have affiliations to the Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry and the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada. The funding for this study comes from the Vietnam National Foundation for Science and Technology Development.

According to the article, officials were trying to evacuate the areas that they predict to have the most damage, move people to higher ground, tell people to stay indoors, and close all public transportation systems. 

In this case, the hazard is distributed differently in the sense of geography because areas near the Eastern shore have had much greater damage rather than ones far away from the Eastern shore.

The distribution of risk and damage for hurricane Irene was spread throughout the east coast of the US starting at Florida and working its way up to New York. Based on this, many people of all races and social classes were affected by the hurricane

For hurricane Irene, city and state governments had shelters built and prepared for the event, but the best solution was for complete evacuation, as the storm was predicted to be too strong. The precautions did not work fully because there were some casualties and injuries