This map is a fascinating and important image as it does NOT show the many sites of (ongoing) nuclear radiation contamination in communities impacted by uranium extraction and processing. For example, the Navajo Nation has around 270 unreclaimed open pit tailings piles. This is not official "waste" but is quotidian waste that creates longstanding environmental harm.
This image hides many things, including:
1. the slow but steady dispossession of smallholder (often African-American) farms that have been overtaken/bought out by Smithfield Foods to enlarge the industrial footprint of CAFOs;
2. the hogs themselves, whose hooves never touch the ground as they stand on "hog slats" inside the hangers as they move through the Fordist stages of transformation from individual animals into packaged pork;
3. the human operators, themselves, who are rarely wealthy, and are contracted for decades (or life) to purchase all "inputs" (feed, semen, etc) from Smithfield; in 2010, I took my EJ class from UNC-Chapel Hill to visit one of these operators at his CAFO, outside Raleigh, NC, and he was battling Smithfield and Duke Energy to be allowed to erect and operate a small-scale, experimental wind turbine that ran on methane captured from his pigs; years later, individual efforts at small-scale biogas would be overtaken by entities like Align LNG which now, in Sampson County, proposes the "Grady Road Project" to scale-up factory-farmed methane gas capture from much larger operations;
4. the legacy of resistance to this form of agricultural production, led by community-based intellectuals like Gary Grant, who as early as the 1980s was speaking out, traveling to state and federal lawmakers, publishing, and organizing against the growing harms of CAFOs in his home territory of Halifax County, NC. [See the suggested readings by Gary Grant and Steve Wing, Naeema Muhammed and others, that tracks this organized resistance and the formation of several community-based EJ groups in response].
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].
This image reminds me of how mutual aid and communities keep each other fed, and safe, and how local practices are actually best practices. My own research， although not immediatley related to the specific public health concern of COVID, will focus on Indigenous food soverignty, particularly the right and autonomy to ferment and distribute alcohol (紅糯米酒) within the Amis community, and their current fight with the local health department on declaring whether or not their alcohol is "safe" for public consumption and distribution.
This article presents how Newark is taking precautionary measures to help people affected by incoming Hurricane Sandy. The city of Newark opened JFK Center as a shelter with the help of the Amercian Red Cross. The city also advised business and home owners how to prepare for the storm to avoid minimal damage to their properties. This display of precaution demonstrates how Newark is resilient to incoming storms during hurricane seasons.
This article brings Newark’s water contamination problem up, specifically the amount of lead found in recent studies. Newark’s water was found to have three times the amount of acceptable lead in its tap water, but no specific locations were give as to what places are being affected by this contamination. Newarks Water Department will be required to take actions such as testing public school water supplies, changing lead pipe lines, and maintaining more accurate maintainence schedules and records. By holding people accountable, Newark is changing its vulnerability towards water contamination
The presented artifact talks about the pollution management in the Passaic River. The water body has been contaminated from previous manufacaturing companies that would dump toxic material into the river. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, "two cleanups of the river have been completed." However, the plan on a third cleanup was created in March of 2016. The state is looking into getting residents back to the river through park creation, education and cultural events which I find great, but a concern of mine is what if the water isn't safe enough? These things have to be taken into consideration because human lives are at stake.
I uploaded this article because I believe it’s imporatant that groups are coming together to fight the pollution that the port contributes to. I have hopes that the port will one day be modernized and changed so that its footprint is reduced, because Newark could use some upgrading.
I uploaded this artifact because I believe that reparing Newark’s infrastructure is very important, especially since a lot of it’s economy relies on it. Without the repairs, it would lead to bigger problems such as increasing the cost of maintenance for its residents and the companies that use it daily. This decision made me realize that although Newark is struggling in bringing its economy back, its politicians know that maintaining it’s road is the foundation towards recovering from the recession.