Through analysis of Environmental Impact Statements, we can uncover a history of personal voices in environmental questions, including whose were listened to, and whose weren’t. This exhibit features three distinct stories which converge to illuminate specific themes within environmental justice. Ultimately, it asks us to reconsider who holds power in environmental decision-making, and how communities have challenged those decisions when their lands, health, and ways of life were placed at risk.
In 1978, a Raleigh-based transformer company illegally dumped 31,000 gallons of PCB-contaminated oil along 240 miles of North Carolina roadsides, including Warren County, to avoid proper disposal costs. This action would lead to landmark community protests that mark the conception of the environmental justice movement.
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a group of 209 man-made chlorinated hydrocarbon chemicals, formerly used widely in electrical equipment. Manufactured from 1929 until banned in the US in 1979, they are toxic, persistent, and bioaccumulative environmental pollutants. This means they degrade extremely slowly, and multiply quickly.
In December 1972, the Food and Drug Administration produced the Final Environmental Impact Statement Rule Making on Polychlorinated Biphenyls. This EIS calls for:
FDA Final EIS Rule Making on PCBs 1972
The North Carolina State Government, tasked with finding a site for the contaminated soil, chose Warren County, NC, in major part because it was a rural, predominately black community with little political power to fight back. This community, however, took to massive protesting efforts that would gain national recognition. Their efforts marked the first connection between environmental justice and racial inequality.
Robert "Buck" Ward of the Raleigh-based Ward Transformer Company, along with his sons and associates from New York (Robert J. Burns and his sons), illegally dumped 31,000 gallons of PCB-contaminated oil along 240 miles of North Carolina roadsides, including Warren County, to avoid proper disposal costs.
Roadside warning, ca. August 21, 1978Charles S. Killebrew Photographic Collection.
“Location Map / PCB Spills,” April 1982NC Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, Raleigh, NC.
The North Carolina government, tasked with cleanup, bought farmland in the rural Afton community in Warren County - a mostly Black, financially struggling area - to build a landfill for the contaminated soil. The map marks contaminated locations.
Warren County residents become aware of the issue and begin forming groups to resist the dumping. Lawsuits and public hearings are held, but courts do not stop the landfill plan.
Warren County site is conditionally approved by the EPA.
As the first truckloads of PCB-contaminated soil arrive, local residents and civil rights supporters begin nonviolent protests to block them. Many protesters used their bodies to block roads.
Unidentified protesters lie down in the road to block incoming dump trucks in 1982. Photo credit and copyright: Jenny Labalme. Labalme was a Duke student who photographed the protests.
A North Carolina state police officer carries a protester to a waiting police van in Afton N.C., on Sept. 18, 1982. Steve Helber/Associated Press
6 weeks of protests ensue, garnering national media attention. More than 500 people are arrested for participating in acts of civil disobedience. Leaders include local residents, NAACP members, clergy, and civil rights activists.
PCB Dump Trucks, The Joseph Echols and Evelyn Gibson Lowery Collection.
Rev. Ben Chavis raises his fist as fellow protesters are taken to jail. Greg Gibson/Associated Press.
Despite the protests and legal battles, the landfill is completed and PCB waste is buried in Warren County.
State of North Carolina Administrative action final environmental impact statement, state of North Carolina : removal and disposal of soils contaminated with PCBs along highway shoulders in North Carolina 1980
In the early 1980s the U.S. Forest Service proposed building a road and expanding logging in Six Rivers National Forest in northern California, an area sacred to the Yurok, Karuk, and Tolowa peoples.
US Forest ServiceDraft Environmental Impact Statement: Chimney Rock Section of the Gasquet–Orleans Road, Six Rivers National Forest 1977
The first draft Environmental Impact Statement surveyed the area and posed alternative action options.
It also opened a 90-day period for public comment.
Ecological impacts: Potential impacts included Soil erosion from road construction Increased sediment in streams Disturbance to wildlife habitat Greater human access leading to hunting and recreation pressure
Cultural and religious impacts: The document acknowledged serious impacts on Native religious practices and a cultural study was commissioned.
Alternatives Considered The draft EIS analyzed several alternatives:
Public Response The draft EIS triggered significant opposition from:
Before deciding whether to complete the Gasquet–Orleans Road through Six Rivers National Forest, the U.S. Forest Service commissioned a cultural study to evaluate how the project might affect Native American religious practices in the region. Conducted by anthropologist Theodoratus Cultural Research for the Environmental Impact Statement, the report documented that the high-country landscape was central to the spiritual life of the Yurok, Karuk, and Tolowa peoples.
Rather than consisting of isolated sacred sites, the area functioned as an interconnected ceremonial landscape used for spiritual training, medicine gathering, and renewal rituals. The study concluded that constructing a road through this landscape would cause serious and potentially irreparable damage to the religious practices tied to the area, because the sanctity of the ceremonies depended on the isolation and integrity of the entire high-country environment.
US Forest Service Archaeological and Ethnographic Survey of Gasquet-Orleans Road Six Rivers National Forest: A Proposal,1978
After reviewing comments and studies, the Forest Service issued the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Chimney Rock section of the Gasquet–Orleans Road.
The Final EIS acknowledged the cultural findings, discussed the Theodoratus report and evaluated alternatives. However, the agency still chose to move forward with the road.
The Record of Decision approving the project was issued in 1982.
US Forest Service Final Environmental Impact Statement Gasquet-Orleans Road (Chimney Rock Section), 1982
With the Forest Service choosing to ignore the cultural report and finalize road construction, the affected tribes took the matter to court. The U.S. District Court and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals both ruled that the construction of the G-O Road would violate Native American freedom of religion, especially in light of the Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978.
However, when the Supreme Court reviewed the case in 1988, the justices overturned the two lower-court decisions by a five-to-three vote. Sandra Day O’Connor’s opinion states:
This opinion states that the government’s right to use Forest Service land as it wishes overrides the claim of the Native American religious practitioners, because the government is not literally outlawing their religion. The First Amendment protects belief, but not practice, the court said.
A petition for concerned citizens to sign because of the precedent setting 5-3 Supreme Court ruling in favor of the U.S.D.A. Forest Service destruction of sacred religious areas. Rights: Humboldt State Special Collections
Before industrial development, much of the region consisted of plantations worked by enslaved people. After the Civil War, formerly enslaved families established small rural Black communities along the river. In the early 1900s oil companies began building refineries along the Mississippi River because the river allowed easy shipping of crude oil and chemicals. Over time, these industrial plants replaced plantations.
After World War II, demand for petroleum-based products, especially plastics, synthetic rubber, fertilizers, and fuels, expanded dramatically. The Mississippi riverbank offered deep water shipping access, pipelines connecting Gulf Coast oil fields, and large tracts of inexpensive land. By the 1970s, the area had become a major petrochemical manufacturing hub.
Many petrochemical facilities were constructed next to historically Black communities. These communities often had less political power, lower property values, and fewer legal resources to challenge development.
The Plaquemines LNG Project reflects the continued expansion of large-scale energy infrastructure along Louisiana’s lower Mississippi River. Proposed as one of the largest liquefied natural gas export terminals in the United States, the project illustrates how the Gulf Coast has become central to global energy markets in the twenty-first century. Debates are ongoing about how new energy projects affect communities already shaped by decades of industrial development along the river.
Federal Energy Regularatory Commission Final Environmental Impact Statement Plaquemines LNG and Gator Express Pipeline Project2019
The EIS evaluates a proposal by Venture Global LNG to construct and operate the Plaquemines LNG export terminal and associated pipelines in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.
The project includes:
The terminal would export liquefied natural gas (LNG) to international markets.
The EIS also recognized several potential environmental impacts, including
The EIS contains a compilation of various public comments from individuals from the community. Some were in favor, citing economic oportunity, while others criticized placing the dangerous plant in a socially vulenerable community.
Many major petrochemical facilities in Cancer Alley were built without the comprehensive environmental review that NEPA requires. This has been a major criticism raised by environmental justice advocates, who argue that communities along the Mississippi River have had limited opportunities to influence decisions about industrial development.
In 2018, the Taiwanese company Formosa Plastics Group proposed building a massive petrochemical complex in St. James Parish, a rural community along the Mississippi River in Louisiana’s industrial corridor.
The project included:
If completed, it would be one of the largest plastics manufacturing complexes in the world.
The movement was led by the grassroots community group Rise St. James, founded by local resident Sharon Lavigne.
Across these stories, Environmental Impact Statements reveal more than environmental analysis - they record the human consequences of environmental decisions. In Warren County, residents protested the siting of a toxic waste landfill in their community. In Six Rivers National Forest, Indigenous peoples fought to protect sacred landscapes threatened by development. In St. James Parish, residents continue to challenge a proposed petrochemical complex that would expand industry in the region known as Cancer Alley.
Together, these cases show how communities have used protest, testimony, and the legal system to respond to environmental decisions that shape their lives. Environmental Impact Statements capture these conflicts in their pages, preserving the voices of people who demanded to be heard when the future of their land, health, and heritage was at stake.
