Document ID: EPA-HQ-OA-2021-0683-0030
Agency: epa
Document Type: Supporting & Related Material
Title: 
Posted Date: 2021-12-10T05:00Z

STATEMENT BEFORE THE 
              WHITE HOUSE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ADVISORY COUNCIL
                                Washington, DC
                                       
                               November 17, 2021
                       Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-AO-2021-0683
                      Sherri White-Williamson, Co-Founder
            Environmental Justice Community Action Network (EJCAN)
                                       
      Mr. Chairman and members of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about environmental injustices in rural America. Thank you, Mr. Chairman for your recent visit to Robeson, Duplin, and Sampson counties in North Carolina. I hope that others will take your lead and come to learn about the injustices that we experience here daily.
      My name is Sherri White-Williamson, co-founder of the Environmental Justice Community Action Network (EJCAN). I am here because places like where I live seem to have become a footnote in the larger discussion about inequities and environmental injustices. 
      I am a resident of Clinton, North Carolina, the county seat of Sampson County, North Carolina. Sampson County is the second-largest county, by land area, in the state with a population of 63,531, based on the most recent census data. Sampson County is a Tier 1 county  -  one of the 40 most distressed in the state. Sampson County is number 2 in hog production in the United States (over 2 million hogs equivalent to about 30 hogs for every person in the county) and hosts a Smithfield processing plant in Clinton  -  the county seat. Within 35 miles of our county borders are three of the top twenty hog producing counties in the United States  -  Duplin, Bladen and Wayne. 
      Sampson County is the top turkey producing county in the United States. It is one of the top three in poultry production in the state  -  an industry that does not have any environmental regulation from the state (nearly 7.5 million turkeys, and 38 million chickens). In addition, the county houses the largest landfill in the state located on the edge of a historical African American community. The landfill receives trash from cities in the state that are one-hundred miles from Clinton. This community also have other multiple sources of pollution. Finally, Enviva  -  a wood pellet manufacturing operation  -  is clear cutting trees in our communities to provide wood pellets to Europe while our communities suffer from the devastation of deforestation of our land with little benefit from the presence of this industry in our community.
      I am here advocating on behalf of the many impacted communities in my county and across southeastern and northeastern North Carolina that are predominantly low-income communities and communities of color living near CAFOs, landfills, contaminated sites and Enviva. The presence of these facilities results in well water contamination, more severe impacts from storms and airborne toxic exposures. These communities are not on a county water system and elected officials are not inclined to provide county infrastructure to these areas. Our county elected officials have chosen to only put county water infrastructure in areas that they claim are the fastest growing. They also tell us that they do not use any tax dollars to support water infrastructure in the county therefore have no obligation to alter the decisions that are made regarding water infrastructure. Our communities are being neglected by our state environmental agency, who has rarely seen a permit application placing a polluting facility in a low-income community or a community of color that they would not approve. In addition, we are being neglected by federal government agencies who could implement policies to protect the health and quality of life where we live, work, play, and pray.
      Our community members are asking why our state and federal elected and appointed officials are more interested in supporting a wholly owned Chinese company  -  Smithfield Foods  -  than its citizens. Smithfield has now partnered with Dominion Energy to produce biogas and receive subsidies from the U. S. Department of Agriculture to promote what they are calling "renewable" natural gas while refusing to install the best available control technology to protect surrounding communities. Let me assure you there is nothing renewal about this gas unless you grow more swine. In fact, the production of methane for this process is more harmful to the citizens living around the farms that are currently permitted and will likely be permitted in the future. No one seems to care that we are already dying from toxic exposures while adding a more dangerous process in the same polluted communities.
      Enviva is a wood pellet manufacturer destroying our timberlands and our protection from the devastating storms that we experience, only to export its product to the UK. Ironically, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was quoted during the COP26 negotiations as saying, "These great teeming ecosystems  -  these cathedrals of nature  -  are the lungs of our planet. Forests support communities, livelihoods and food supply and absorb the carbon we pump into the atmosphere. They are essential to our very survival." Are we expected to be the sacrifice zones for the UK to be able to claim that they are reducing carbon emission while we are less protected from climate change and the devastating storms and rains that come with them? Are foreign interests and support of those corporations more important than those of citizens of the United States? What is happening in southeastern and northeastern North Carolina are no less than human rights violations. Our community members are the ones who are experiencing environmental injustices including poor health outcomes and reduction in quality of life. 
      I appreciate the work that this body is doing and the recommendations that you provide to the White House as they attempt to address the historical environmental injustices that many of us face daily. However, we as rural America must speak for ourselves, not through the experiences or secondhand knowledge of others. This body does not have sufficient representatives who can speak to the lived experience of those of us living in rural America. 
      I make the following recommendations for your consideration. First, consider adding rural representatives to this body so that as you deliberate and make recommendations for changes to address environmental injustices, those of us in rural America have a seat at the table and are not just on the menu. 
Second, direct relevant agencies of the Interagency Council including, but not limited to, the USDA, Energy, HUD, Interior, FERC, EPA, Labor, HHS, and Commerce to visit our communities, learn about the issues here and work collaboratively to develop and implement some solutions that will help to alleviate the cumulative impacts that we are experiencing. 

Thank you for listening to my concerns.

Sherri White-Williamson
sherriwhite@yahoo.com