NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Residents of Newport News say they are fed up, claiming the coal shipped and stored in the city is dangerous to their health and damaging the surrounding environment.
“The reality is coal is a toxic and polluting 19th century energy source that needs to be phased out,” one resident who spoke at the meeting said. "Should’ve been phased out by the time World War II ended."
One speaker was Lathaniel Kirts, a local pastor who also works with the University of Virginia's Repair Lab, which studies environmental injustice.
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He said he's heard many stories surrounding the coal in the air. In fact, he said a study from back in 2005 by the Peninsula Health District found that asthma rates in the Southeast part of the Newport News, nearest to the coal terminals, were more than twice the citywide average.
All these years later, residents are still asking for help.
“Asthma, emphysema, lung disease, heart disease, ultimately death,” Kirts said. "It’s a slow death, it’s an invisible death that most people aren’t aware what’s going on."
Yugonda Sample-Jones is the owner and founder of Empower All, a non profit that focuses on creating social and economic changes throughout the area. She wants something done about the coal as well, saying she constantly has coal dust accumulating on her house.
Her son has also been diagnosed with asthma.
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Sample-Jones said the purpose of showing up to city council is to let the companies transporting coal, like Dominion Terminal and Kinder Morgan, know that they will be fighting against it on the local level.
“We can hold them responsible to what they’re doing to our air, which is polluting it," she said. "It's not fair that our community gets the brunt of their operating systems."
Newport News' Mayor, Phillip Jones, says $2 billion has been allocated at the federal level for environmental justice. He hopes some of that funding will go towards this cause.
“We have meetings scheduled with the EPA to see how we can best access that $2 billion which has already been set aside for environmental justice,” he said at the meeting. "I would imagine that some part of that money is going to be towards monitoring, some of it will go towards clean up."
