UNIONTOWN, Ala. _ It's 6 p.m. on a Tuesday in August and residents who have climbed the City Hall steps learn that, once again, there will be no city council meeting. So once again, they will be unable to discuss with local officials the pollution that has been plaguing their small town for the better part of a decade.
Uniontown has an inordinate number of polluters for a town of 2,300, and residents say city leaders often dodge their attempts to air their grievances. There's the landfill next to the historic black cemetery that residents opposed from the beginning but went apoplectic over when it started accepting coal ash after a spill of the waste in Tennessee. There's the pungent odor from a cheese plant that has released its waste into a local creek, according to an environmental group's hidden cameras. And then there's the waste water from the catfish processing plant, which contributes to an overwhelmed sewage system that spills fecal matter into local waterways.
Many residents feel all this pollution has been dumped in their backyard _ and allowed to continue _ because for the most part, they are black, poor and uneducated.
"Look at every black community or poor community," said Esther Calhoun, a resident who has been involved in numerous lawsuits against the town's polluters. "The EPA is supposed to be the Environmental Protection Agency, but they're protecting the rich. What do they do for us? Nothing."
It's a similar story across Alabama and much of the country. Many minority communities say their towns have been targeted by polluting industries because residents have few resources to put up a fight, and state and federal agencies have largely sided with industry when locals have challenged polluters.
Black residents in Union Hill, Va.; North Birmingham, Ala.; Braddock, Pa.; Burke County and Jessup, Ga.; Waukegan, Ill., and many others have made similar accusations over the past several years.
In Uniontown, residents say the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) has not helped. The department rescinded its civil rights complaint policy in June in the face of a lawsuit from some state residents. That means the state now has no process for reviewing complaints that environmental problems are disproportionately impacting people of color. The department said it cannot comment on the process because litigation is ongoing, but the EPA in July said it will investigate ADEM's civil rights policies.
The EPA also has faced criticism on civil rights issues. An agency study published in April found that black people are more burdened by air pollution than any other group, even when taking poverty into account. And the agency has taken years or even decades to respond to complaints. Earlier this year, the agency denied Uniontown's environmental racism complaint.
The EPA didn't return repeated requests for comment.
Robert Bullard, a professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University and a prominent voice in the environmental racism debate, said his research shows polluting industries frequently seek out black, poor and rural towns to open shop. "When you get a series, a pattern, of locating these things in one location, you have to come to the conclusion that this is not accidental."
The law does little to protect communities, Bullard said, because it requires them to prove industries intentionally targeted them because of their race.
"If you don't have a smoking gun, it's difficult," he said.
