"Contaminated soil from a Superfund site in Navassa [N.C.] will be shipped to one of three landfills outside Brunswick County, likely moving toxic pollution from one non-white or low-income community to another.
The proposed cleanup plan, approved by the EPA in late May, highlights the environmental injustices that occur when counties, regulators and polluters offload their problems to communities of color.
From 1936 to 1974, Kerr-McGee and its predecessors operated a wood treatment plant on 244 acres of a former rice plantation in the historically Black community of Navassa. The company applied creosote to utility poles, railroad ties and other wood products to repel pests and prevent rot.
Decades of misuse poisoned the site with carcinogens, including dioxins and PAH, also known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. To shield itself from environmental liability, Kerr-McGee spun off a company, Tronox, which declared bankruptcy in 2009. The site entered the Superfund program the next year."
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