Environmental Justice in Charles City

The Charles City Landfill is an environmental injustice. Built in 1990, the landfill has posed a variety of negative impacts on the surrounding community and environment. Using a range of primary and secondary sources, this story map seeks to answer several questions about the landfill. Why was Charles City chosen for a mega landfill? What are the consequences of a landfill on this community? What can be done to address this issue?

In Virginia during the 1980’s, local governments began closing outdated, publicly owned landfills that could no longer meet environmental standards. Following this, private landfills became the new norm since they could afford new waste management technologies. To facilitate growth of the waste industry in Virginia, waste management corporations began hiring state legislators to persuade specific communities to construct  private landfills. 

An early instance of this occurred in Charles City County. Chambers Development Co., a waste management company, saw the county as an ideal site for a landfill due to the cheap price of land and proximity to major East Coast cities. The company thus hired  two state legislators  to convince residents that the landfill would provide economic benefits to Charles City. Namely, the landfill was posed as a source of tax revenue to help build a new elementary, middle, and high school.

The schools at the time were about 50 years old and had no air conditioning. According to former student La’Veesha Rollins, on some hot days, students would have to go home by noon because the conditions were so unbearable. It was time for a major upgrade.

By 1988, an agreement was struck between Chambers and Charles City that would permit Chambers to construct a landfill and allow the county to build new schools.

The landfill provided hope for the future of education in the county. Former Superintendent Willie Townes expressed this sentiment in a 1991 Richmond Times article–“Charles City County will never be the same once those schools are erected. The students will feel equal to any other school system across the state of Virginia.”

Today, the landfill has failed to provide the revenue to maintain high standards in Charles City schools. According to a 2014 Richmond-Times article, there was a $336,500 cut to the school budget between 2013 and 2014 after landfill revenue fell by $852,000.

Many Charles City residents are concerned that the landfill is not meeting financial expectations. In addition, citizens have raised concerns about the negative effects the landfill has on public health and the environment. Discussions over the negative impacts of the landfill have been revived after an expansion to its waste disposal area was announced.

Today, the Charles City Landfill is owned and operated by  Waste Management of Virginia , Inc. In August 2020, Waste Management  applied  to the Army Corps of Engineers to expand the landfill. The application proposes to construct 16 new landfill cells, new stormwater management facilities, and a portion of landfill road on the existing landfill property. 

Furthermore, the Civil War burial sites of U.S Colored Troops (USCT) may lie in the footprint of the landfill. In Charles City during June 1864, U.S Colored Troops fought on the front lines at the Battle of Samaria Church. A cultural study was conducted in 1988 to assess the landfill site’s historical significance, but nothing about the battle was mentioned. Despite this, there is still ample evidence that the battle of Samaria Church took place at the present landfill site.

According to Preservation Virginia, Civil War sites where U.S Colored Troops fought are under-preserved and rarely accessible to the public. For this reason, the site of the Battle of Samaria Church was listed as one of the  most endangered historic sites  in Virginia in 2021. Despite this, it is unclear if anything will be done to preserve the site. This means that the landfill could be expanded over the burial sites of the Colored Troops who died at this site.

The Army Corps of Engineers published a federal public notice of the proposed expansion project on October 8, 2020. Following this, the Army Corps opened up a 30-day period for public comment. The purpose of any public notice is to allow the public to have a say in the decision outcome of a given project. However, in this case, the public notice reached very few community members until two weeks after its publication.

Residents did not have a fair opportunity to get comments to the Army Corps by the deadline with the slowdown of the mail due to the 2020 elections and poor internet access, according to a public comment by a C5 technical advisor,  Dr. Mary Finley-Brook .

Questions still remain about the actual purpose of the landfill expansion. The Charles City Landfill is only at 36% capacity, and filling has occured at a slow rate. The federal notice claims that the expansion will “meet the local need for additional waste disposal volume” although it is unclear what “local need” means. Charles City’s resident trash contribution to the landfill is less than 1% of the total.

Charles City County residents have raised many concerns about the landfill. In 2022, Concerned Citizens of Charles City County (C5)  conducted a survey  to assess community opinions towards the landfill.

C5 sent out 2500 postcards to residents with survey questions. Over 280 residents responded. Top concerns include toxic substances leaching into water, climate impacts, and traffic impacts. These concerns are supported by existing research on the impacts of landfills on community and environmental well-being.

The Charles City Landfill has a documented history of violations since the 1990s. Issues with the landfill liner have resulted in leakage of contaminants into waterways surrounding the landfill. There is evidence that the landfill leaked toxic materials as early as 1998, when groundwater tests near the landfill revealed  elevated levels of antimony . In addition, the Virginia DEQ has fined Waste Management for dumping medical waste at this facility. In 2000, the  Governor spotlighted this problem  and its ties specifically to the Charles City Landfill.

More recently, in 2014, the DEQ caught Waste Management with a number of unmitigated seeps of toxic leachate into Bradley Run and the Chickahominy River. In 2019, it was found that contaminants from the landfill were again  leaking into waterways  and that inspection reports of the facility were not being conducted at the required frequency. 5 acres of wetland and 4,679 linear feet of stream channel were impacted by erosion from the landfill.

The pattern of violations seen at the Charles City Landfill fits with Waste Management’s larger track record. According to the Good Jobs First violations tracker, the company has 157 formally documented environmental violations over the last two decades. It seems that instead of making expensive, long-term changes to ensure that the company protects communities and the environment, the company chooses to pay their way out of problems after they get caught.

For more information on these violations, check out  this story map.  

Concerns are now being raised that the landfill expansion could lead to further erosion and release of contaminants.When contaminants leak into waterways, the greatest harm is likely to occur to the households in proximity to the site, but there can be movement of  persistent toxins  impacting residents over larger areas.

This is particularly concerning as  226 people live within 1 mile of the landfill . 62% of these residents are  people of color  and 20% are seniors 65 years and older. Comparatively, only 28% of people in the U.S are people of color, and 16.5% are 65 and older.  

It is no coincidence that this landfill was placed in a community that at the time was  63.2% black and 7.8% Virginian Native.  Municipal landfills and other industrial sites have long been placed in historically underrepresented communities. A  1995 report  by the Joint Audit and Review Commission found that 4 out of 10 waste management facilities in Virginia are located in communities that are disproportionately minority.

Dr. Robert Bullard explains this trend in his 1994 book, Dumping in Dixie. He begins by noting that at the height of the white environmental movement, black people were still working on civil rights issues. “Key environmental issues of the period (wildlife preservation, energy and resource conservation, and regulation of industrial polluters) were not high priority items on the civil rights agenda,” explains Bullard. Instead, leaders focused on social justice issues such as poverty, unemployment, political empowerment, and equal education. Consequently, political leaders of poor localities often invited polluting industries into their communities in an attempt to create jobs and improve economic conditions.When concerns were raised, “Environmental risks were offered as unavoidable trade-offs to economically depressed communities.” However, these industries often cause a variety of socio-economic harms rather than benefit. The exposure to contaminants and emissions can be via direct contact, inhalation, or ingestion of contaminated food and water. Drinking water contamination has been identified as the source of exposure to harmful substances. A number of studies have shown that there is a higher risk of developing cancer among the people near landfill sites. The elevated risks were observed for cancers of the stomach, liver, and intrahepatic bile ducts and trachea, bronchus, lung, cervix, and prostate. In addition, a  2010 study  found that high-volume landfills reduce the value of adjacent residential properties by 13.7%.

The harm doesn’t stop there. Ingenco, a waste-to-energy facility, sits across the street from the landfill. This facility converts landfill gas into electricity, which in the process burns hundreds of thousands of gallons of diesel oil and spews  69.4 tons  of particulate matter annually. A proposed leachate concentrator is projected to add another 17.2 tons of particulate matter each year.

The Charles City Landfill is clearly an environmental injustice. There is little evidence that the landfill needs to expand its disposal area, and construction activities are likely to cause more harm than good for the community. Furthermore, we can see that Charles City is part of a much larger trend of environmental injustice in the Southern United States. C5 wants to hold Waste Management accountable so that the Charles City community is no longer harmed by the landfill. Whether or not you live in Charles City, there are ways to support this positive change. Share this storymap, take a  look at our local advocacy guide , and follow C5  twitter  and  facebook.  Small action steps can go a long way.

For more information on C5’s work, please visit their  website . C5 was founded in June of 2019 to keep citizens informed regarding the issues that impact them and empower citizens to make their voices heard.

Sarah Murtaugh is a student at the University of Richmond double majoring in Geography and Global Studies. She is passionate about using GIS technology in mitigating environmental and social inequities.

This mixed method research took place over a 10-week internship with participant observation. The research analyzes the Charles City County Landfill using a range of primary and secondary sources, including spatial data, government documents, scholarly articles, and news reports. Maps were created using ArcGIS online. Given trends of racism in landfill siting in the US south, scholarly sources give context to the case study.

Special thanks to Wanda, Dr. Beth Kreydatus, Dr. Mary Finley-Brook, Beth Zizzamia, and C5 for helping to make this project possible.

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•  Learn more about the Battle of Samaria Church