buried tanks and residues of creosote. Some local residents knew about the former creosoting operation, but when they expressed concerns, they were reassured by the city that it would be safe to live there. So, they anchored their lives to this place and made it flourish.
Decades went by. One day in 1984, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees in “moon suits” showed up in the neighborhood, testing the soil. This is how residents found out that there was suspected contamination under and around their homes. In 1979, Congress had asked the 50 largest chemical companies in the United States to report hazardous waste sites (a reminder about the importance of passing good laws!). Koppers reported hazardous chemicals, including creosote. Coal tar creosote, used as a wood preservative, has been declared a probable human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR, 2002). Over the years, Carver Terrace residents had noticed an unusual number of illnesses in the neighborhood, from rashes to a variety of cancers, and a surprising number of miscarriages and even deaths. But without good information, it was easy to normalize and explain away such incidents. Now, as news of the testing for toxic chemicals spread through the neighborhood, the health problems and the odd materials dug up during landscaping took on a new meaning.
As residents became more aware of the threat of toxic chemicals, their relationships to their land and houses began to change. Distrust of local and federal agencies rose. While it is possible that in the 1960s less was known about the carcinogenic nature of certain chemicals, the rezoning of an industrial site like this one as “residential” was at best careless; at worst, it was negligent. It is also highly likely that a lower standard of scrutiny and safety was applied to land use for an African American and less affluent neighborhood. Residents felt deeply betrayed. The EPA declared Carver Terrace a Superfund site in 1984 (the federal Superfund was created to fund cleanups of contaminated sites) and placed it on the National Priority List. The next year, EPA and Koppers worked on a remedial plan, and Koppers did some soil removal and sod replacement in some people’s yards. But the process moved slowly, and little information was shared with residents. They anxiously wondered what would become of their neighborhood, and of their lives.
Chemical contamination is sneaky, pernicious, and unsettling. It is often invisible, and its boundaries are unclear, which makes it difficult to assess and to address (for example, it is challenging to prove in a medical or legal sense). It makes its way into physical structures, land, water, and air, and into human bodies, planting seeds of doubt and fear. Just as devastatingly, residents discover that their property has suddenly lost its value when word of the contamination gets out. They are unable to sell their homes, which are typically their largest financial investment. They find themselves literally trapped in a place that is making them sick. Children, whose bodies are more vulnerable to contaminants, are at even greater risk. The almost unimaginable stress of such a situation is well documented (Edelstein, 2018).
In response, in 1985 approximately 60 Carver Terrace residents filed a lawsuit against Koppers for damages. Lawyers for the corporation played up genetic factors among African Americans to explain away the residents’ illnesses and to exonerate the corporation. The trial was a major disappointment, and many residents became discouraged. But others became even more determined to fight for their right to live in a safe place. The EPA eventually proposed a cleanup technique called soil washing/filtering, claiming that contamination levels were not high enough for a buyout and relocation. But EJ scholars and grassroots groups charged that federal health studies were based on faulty designs. Carver Terrace residents began to try out some new strategies to get justice.
To understand this shift, let’s “zoom out” and look at the bigger picture. Texarkana already had an environmental group, Friends United for a Safe Environment (FUSE). Predominantly white, and active in some form since the 1970s, FUSE had experience with fighting environmental problems. One of its members, Don Preston, spoke with several acquaintances in Carver Terrace about their situation, and attended an EPA meeting:
I was absolutely appalled by the things I heard, the things that were happening to the people who lived out there. So when I told [FUSE] member Jim [Presley] about these things, I said, “We’re environmentalists, here is the biggest cause in this town. We’ve got people with obviously catastrophic health complications as a result of the homes they’re living in, and they’re being stonewalled by the people who are supposed to protect them.” We decided to go out and see what the people in Carver Terrace wanted.
Preston was a “conscience constituent,” someone who supports a social change movement for ethical reasons, without directly benefiting (McCarthy & Zald, 1977). He knew schoolteacher Frances Shears in Carver Terrace, and they arranged a meeting in her living room. It was a small group conversation at first. Some residents were eager to meet, while others questioned the motivation of “these white men.” Some had become discouraged and didn’t show up at all. Several ministers in Carver Terrace were already brainstorming about how to move forward and were looking for the best strategy. Eventually the conversation grew into an extraordinarily effective, respectful collaboration between FUSE and what became the Carver Terrace Community Action Group (CTCAG). Patsy Oliver, who became one of the most outspoken (and globally oriented) CTCAG activists, told me, “It was really an inspiration to me to be part of FUSE because they were bi-state, bi-racial—and this was a first for Texarkana, you know.”
Zooming out even further, the organizers in CTCAG and FUSE would benefit enormously from the support of regional and nationally networked EJ groups, some of which were beginning to use the term environmental racism. With their help, and through their own dedication and persistence, Carver Terrace residents eventually won a federal buyout and relocation, over the EPA’s objections. I’ll return to their story later, but first, I’ll comment on my personal and scholarly connection to Carver Terrace. You’ll also learn about an emerging network of EJ organizations that offered advice and assistance to places like Carver Terrace.
Personal Intersections and Sociological Research
You might wonder how I came to be involved with this story as a sociologist, since I didn’t live in Carver Terrace myself. In graduate school I studied movements for social justice, especially affordable housing, tenants’ rights, and inclusive urban design. When I moved to Arkansas to take a position as an assistant professor at Hendrix College, I soon found out about some very disturbing environmental problems in the state, and my research turned in that direction. One site that taught me important lessons was Jacksonville, Arkansas, where Agent Orange had been produced for the Vietnam War, and where the highly toxic chemical dioxin was extracted and stored in barrels near the Jacksonville Air Force Base (Čapek, 1992). There were 29,000 leaking barrels of one of the most toxic substances created by human beings located near residential neighborhoods and environmentally sensitive waterways, and enormous disagreements in the community about what to do. The “city fathers” (the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce) wanted to hush it up, fearing damage to the business climate. Residents experiencing health issues, especially women with children, wanted the dioxin removed. Others (including some of their spouses) didn’t want to publicize the problem, fearing a loss of property values or even their jobs.
This complicated situation woke me up to the difficult realities of toxic environments. I started interviewing grassroots environmental leaders in Arkansas (grassroots refers to organizations that originate locally, rather than having a national top-down structure). I also tried to learn more about dioxin. It wasn’t easy—the EPA first assessed the dangers of dioxin to human health in 1984 but withdrew its document under pressure from the chemical industry. Astoundingly, it would take more than 20 years to reissue a public reassessment declaring dioxin to be a human carcinogen with other significant health effects. This lack of access to crucial health information taught me about the often politicized nature of federal scientific research. I became involved in an environmental organization, the Environmental Congress of Arkansas (ECA), and encountered some key national anti-toxics organizations that supported Jacksonville citizens who wanted the dioxin safely
