Pollution from North Birmingham coke plants.
When exposure to industrial pollution threatened the lives of mostly Black residents in North Birmingham and Tarrant, no Alabama official (of any color) seemed to care. When a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, exposed mostly White residents to toxic chemicals, concern came from various directions -- and decisive action was taken. The U.S. Supreme Court, in its recent opinion to effectively end affirmative action in college admissions, suggested we are on the verge of becoming a color-blind nation. Donald Waktins, a longtime attorney and civil-rights activist in Alabama, says the incidents in North Birmingham and East Palestine indicate we're not even close.
Under the headline "Black Lives Were Lost in North Birmingham; White Lives Were Protected in East Palestine, Ohio," Watkins writes:
Walter Coke, U.S. Pipe, Alagasco, KMAC, ABC Coke, and the Drummond Company, all of whom are major industrial polluters, saturated residential neighborhoods in North Birmingham and the City of Tarrant with deadly cancer-causing toxins for more than a century. These polluted neighborhoods have a population of more than 4,000 residents, 92.5% of whom are black.
The polluters were business alliance partners of the Atlanta-based Southern Company and Alabama Power Company. They used the Southern Company and Alabama Power network of compromised black leaders/influencers in Birmingham to help the polluters escape an estimated $750 million in Environmental Protection Agency-related Superfund cleanup costs in the polluted neighborhoods.
In exchange for less than $1 million in 501(c)(4) “dark money” donations, campaign contributions, bribes, consultant-fee payments to the girlfriends of politicians, advertising money to friendly news-media outlets, and other meaningless trinkets, the Black leaders/influencers put a chokehold on the EPA's efforts to make the polluters pay for the Superfund site cleanup costs and do so on an expedited basis.
You pay $1 million to make a $750-million financial obligation go away. That sounds like a pretty good deal. Who cares if a few lives were lost, especially if they mostly were Black lives. The answer in Alabama? Pretty much nobody cared, including Black professionals who had the intellect and resources to help. They just did not have the will, it turned out. Writes Watkins:
ABC Coke continues to pollute these neighborhoods on a daily basis. Black residents are dying as a result of its pollution.
As of September 2022, the EPA had spent a measly $45 million on the Superfund site cleanup efforts in North Birmingham and Tarrant, including $3 million to renovate a city school that is sitting on poisoned land. This amount is small, pathetic, embarrassing, and humiliating.
The flip side of that scenario could be found in the small Ohio town of East Palestine, Watkins reports:
In Birmingham and Tarrant, Black lives clearly did not matter to the area’s Black leaders/influencers and their handlers. These Black leaders/infleuncers sold out more than 4,000 of their constituents for less than $1 million.
Because of this sellout, the residents of North Birmingham and Tarrant combined have gotten less than 10% of the amount spent for the environmental cleanup of East Palestine, Ohio.
What about details of the train derailment in Ohio? Watkins provides them:
On February 3, 2023, a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, and spilled hazardous chemicals in the ground. East Palestine has a population of 4,457 people, 93.5% of whom are white.
On February 21, 2023, the EPA ordered Norfolk Southern to clean up the contaminated areas in East Palestine and do so on an expedited basis. If Norfolk Southern refused, the EPA would clean up the chemical spill and charge Norfolk Southern triple the cost.
In April, Norfolk Southern reported that the cleanup process in East Palestine from the February train derailment cost the company $387 million in first quarter losses. The cleanup costs are expected to top $500 million, which is more than ten times the amount that has been spent to clean up the contaminated neighborhoods in North Birmingham and Tarrant.
How is this for a touch of irony? The population of East Palestine (4,457) is almost identical to the combined populations of North Birmingham and Tarrant.
So why is potentially deadly exposure to toxic chemicals treated so differently in the two locations? Does anyone seriously think our nation is approaching color blindness? Donald Watkins doesn't buy it, and he closes with these words:
In East Palestine, White lives mattered to everybody. Furthermore, the city's public officials, community leaders, and influencers did not sell out the residents of East Palestine.
In North Birmingham and Tarrant, Black lives did not matter to anybody. The sellout was total and complete.