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Holt v. Scovill

May 4, 2007

The Color of Environmental Deception

Dickson County appears to be an idyllic, rural community of rolling farmland in north-central Tennessee. But just below the surface is a poisonous example of environmental racism, with tragic consequences for three generations of Harry Holt's family.

With LDF's support, 11 members of the Holt family -- an African-American family with deep roots in the area -- are suing government officials and several private companies for polluting the family's groundwater with cancer-causing chemicals. The Holt family claims that government officials intentionally discriminated against the family by failing to inform them of the dangers more than a decade after notifying other families in the area.

The difference between the Holt family, which received assurances of safety for the nearly fifteen years in which officials knew the water was poisoned, and the other affected families, who received immediate and urgent warnings? The members of the Holt family are black, and the members of the other affected families are white.

Government officials knew as early as 1988 that the Holt family's well water was contaminated with cancer-causing toxins that had leaked from an adjacent landfill into the water supply, at levels approaching thirty times the standard set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But rather than take steps to warn and protect the Holt family, government officials did just the opposite - they informed the Holt family that the water was safe for consumption. It was not until 2000 that the Holt family was finally warned to stop drinking their contaminated well water. By then it was too late - every member of the family has in recent years developed serious health problems, including cancer. Harry Holt himself died of cancer in January 2007.

Dangerous chemicals also contaminated the well water of numerous other families in the area of the landfill. In the case of these families, however, the government response was quite different - as soon as any danger was uncovered, the same officials gave those families immediate warnings, made deliveries of bottled water, and arranged for connections to the municipal water supply at the county's expense.

Holt Family History on Eno Road

The Holt family's roots on Eno Road in Dickson County go back generations to the nineteenth century. Census records show Holt's recently freed ancestors acquiring farmland in the years after the Civil War. Eno Road became the center of a small but thriving black community in a county that is nearly 96% white.

It was in the middle of this thriving black community that white town leaders, in 1968, decided to convert the community's only park into a county dump - located directly adjacent to the Harry Holt farm. Government records indicate that soon after the dump opened, automotive manufacturer Scovill-Schrader (now named Saltire Industrial) and a number of other companies began burying drums of industrial waste - including the carcinogen trichloroethylene (TCE) - in the landfill. TCE and other chemicals soon began leaching from the landfill into the surrounding water supply, contaminating private wells nearby, including Harry Holt's well. For years, the Holt family drank the contaminated water, cooked with the contaminated water, and bathed in the contaminated water. They were completely unaware that their well water was laced with toxic chemicals.

The Holt family's fight to obtain redress for the shocking and unfair treatment they received is about more than being compensated for their own harms. They are also concerned about the persistent national pattern of environmental racism, and about the safety of minority communities around the country that disproportionately suffer the burden of environmental pollution. What happened to the Holt family, disturbingly, is not an isolated incident.

African Americans are More Vulnerable to Exposure to Hazardous Wastes

Minority neighborhoods are frequently host sites for dangerous facilities such as landfills, electrical power stations, incinerators, and waste treatment plants. According to a recently released study, "Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty, 1987-2007," people of color are more concentrated near hazardous waste facilities than twenty years ago. Among the study's findings, 40 of 44 states with hazardous waste facilities have disproportionately high percentages of minorities living in host communities. Today, African-Americans and other minorities represent 56% of those living in neighborhoods within two miles of commercial hazardous waste facilities. Not surprisingly, the study concluded that "race continues to be a significant independent predictor of commercial hazardous waste facility locations when socio-economic and other non-racial factors are taken into account."

LDF's Environmental Justice Advocacy

In working with the Holt family to remedy the harms they have suffered, LDF is continuing its tradition of environmental justice advocacy. In the past, through litigation, policy development, and public organizing, LDF has taken a leading role in supporting community self-determination and promoting environmental justice for minority and low-income populations. LDF has challenged the siting of environmental hazards such as chemical plants and mega-incinerators in minority neighborhoods, and has helped to block other unwanted land uses such as proposed factories and highway construction from being foisted on minority communities.