Citizens Group Says Libel Suit from Landfill Company Meant To Silence

April 27, 2016

Owners of the Arrowhead Landfill near Uniontown, Alabama, filed a libel suit in early April against a citizens' group opposing the controversial landfill, which has accepted millions of pounds of coal ash from a 2008 spill in Tennessee.

The company, Green Group Holdings, Inc., charges that the citizens' group knowingly and maliciously published falsehoods about its landfill. The group, Black Belt Citizens Fighting for Health and Justice, complains that the landfill violates their civil rights. The community surrounding the landfill is predominantly poor and African-American.

"I believe this is nothing more than an attempt to quiet those who have lifted their voices in protest," said Marianne Engelman Lado, an attorney for Earthjustice, the non-profit law firm representing the citizens' group.