Georgia: Environmental Injustice

Georgia WAND fights environmental injustices in Burke County, Georgia: Bernice Johnson-Howard testifies at human rights commission against the nuclear industry

By Eliza McNamara, WAND Intern, Arlington, MA

[Image Credit: Savannah River Site as seen from International Space Station, image in the public domain.]

On April 4, Bernice Johnson-Howard of Georgia WAND testified at the Organization of American States’ (OAS) Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). The hearing was organized in response to the Flint, Michigan crisis, wherein the predominantly black population was knowingly subjected to water with high contents of lead since April of 2014. The town of Shell Bluff in Burke County, Georgia, is also a predominantly black, working class community threatened by the toxins in their environment from multiple local sources. Bernice, as a resident of Shell Bluff and Georgia WAND’s Field Coordinator, provided testimony at the hearing about her and other residents’ concerns about the Savannah River Site and the nuclear power plant, Plant Vogtle.

Plant Vogtle, for which President Obama signed an $8.3 billion grant in 2010, has provided far fewer jobs than had been promised to the low-income community of Burke County, but has suspiciously accompanied an aggressive spike in the cancer epidemic that has already beleaguered the area for decades. The plant has recently expanded operations from two to four nuclear reactors, posing new threats and exacerbating existing ones.

Another of Shell Bluff’s local hazards is the Savannah River Site, a nuclear reservation constructed in the 1950s to produce the materials required for the construction of nuclear weapons: primarily tritium and plutonium-239. The entirety of the site includes five reactors, two chemical separation plants, a heavy water extraction plant and a number of other support facilities.

Shared between the site and the community is the notoriously pernicious Savannah River, identified as the third most toxic waterway in the country by a 2014 study. Data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) showed that in 2012 alone, more than 5 million pounds of toxins were dumped into the river. The findings prompted the EPA to examine the loopholes within the Clean Water Act that leave Georgia’s waterways vulnerable to pollution and consider restoring water protections statewide.

Southern Company constructed its first two reactors in Burke County in 1987, which is when the cancer rates began to skyrocket. In 2010, when the company received the grant to construct the Plant Vogtle twin reactors, it responded to backlash with reassurances of an invigorated local economy: a sudden abundance of jobs in one of the poorest counties in Georgia.

“Some people did get jobs,” former Shell Bluff resident and activist Annie Laura Stephens told The Grio in 2012, “but a lot of us got something else. We got cancer. I lost sisters, brothers and cousins to cancer, and every family I know has lost somebody to cancer.” Her story is typical of local residents.

For the past year, Bernice and the Georgia WAND staff have been steadfastly working to bring attention to the problems faced by the community and pressured the state and the nuclear industry to clean up its act. Last month in New York City, Bernice was invited to address an international audience on Human Rights World Water Day at a panel for the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. She is also part of the team working on a community monitoring and education project with the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, with the goal of informing the community about radiation and providing them a role in the selection of radiation monitoring sites.

This month, Bernice Johnson-Howard represented Georgia WAND at the OAS commission, as one of the 10 organizations invited to testify. Bernice relayed the serious concerns of the community about radiation exposure from the power plants and toxins running in their surface and groundwater, radiation which Southern Company refuses to monitor. This was an immensely important opportunity for Georgia WAND to address the human rights implications of the nuclear industry, which has committed highly discriminatory placement of nuclear power plants under the guise of economic rejuvenation.

On April 14^th, Georgia WAND hosted a webinar on their work with the National Coalition on the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation in the United States, during which Bernice spoke more about her activism in the Shell Bluff community.
Bernice will also be the keynote speaker for Georgia WAND’s annual Mother’s Day for Peace fundraiser on May 22nd in Atlanta, Georgia. To make a donation to the event or to purchase tickets, visit: http://gawand.org/save-the-date-for-mothers-day-for-peace-2016/

A webinar on this work