poisoned water: Negligence or Racism?????

Sheila Holt-Orsted smiles as she remebers a simple pleasure of growing up in the Tennessee countryside; Ice water flowed from the faucets of her family farm.”Every day I would fill up a jug,” she says.Decades later, she learned her habit was far from healthy.Located 500 ft from a neighboring landfill, the Holts’ water well was contaminated with trichloroethylene(TCE), an industrial solvent that can cause liver and kidney damage and is suspected of causing cancer.Though no medical link to TCE has yet been proven,Holt Orsted,45,says family members who lived on the land have come down with  a spate of deadly illnesses: her father died of prostate cancer,her uncle died of Hodgkins’ disease,three cousins had cancer,her aunt next door has it too.And Holt a nonsmoker,had breast cancer.Today the Holt family is locked in a legal battle with the city,county and state over damages related to their poisoned well-incuding an allegetion of environmental racism that has stirred tensions in their Tennessee town.According to a federal civil rights claim filed by the family in may 2004,their white neighbors were warned of toxins in private wells and springs,and swiftly put on city water as far back as 1993.But the holts,who allege they are the only African- Americans whose well tested dangerously high for TCE,say they were officially assured their water was safe in 1988 and 1991.After more tests,the city finally shifed them to the municipal supply in 2000.”They let us drink that poison for 12 years.We were in the dark.As far as I am concerned,that was a death sentence.” State authorities defend their actions,describing seemingly alarming levels of TCE found in the first test of the Holts’ well as a sampling error,and noting that two follow-up tests fell within EPA guidelines.As for the allegation of fracism,says Joe Sanders,general counsel for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation,”We largely work off paper.Most people within the department would have no way to know what race anybody is”.Sheila Holt-Orsted says state officials visited the farm to conduct the testing,and that the county-run landfill maintains an office within walking distance of her front door.”Of course they knew we were black,” she says.Although Holt_Orsted has found no specific evidence of racial intent,supporters conten the circumstantial evidence is compelling.”We know state and local decision makers cared enough about some families to notify them they were drinking contaminated water,”says Matthew Colangelo of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund,who represents the Holts.”Thee black family was not proected.Its’ as simple as that.” Holt-Orsted is so passionate about her claims that she has transformed her minivan into a mobile command center full of legal documents and devoted her life to winning justice for her family-even if it causes tension among her neighbors,While some have spoken out on her behalf-”I just want them to win their case,”says Myra Beard,a white resident who has known the Holts for years-many have not.”The contamination issues have affected mony families…not just the (Holt) family.”Holt-Orsted,provided little solace. After chemotherapy and surgery, she is consumed with the crusade, spliting her time between Dickson,Tenn., and the Dale City,Va.,home she shares with her daughter Jasmine,13, and husband of 13 years Corey Orsted,38, an electrician.Holt-Orsted points out that her family’s 150- acre plot was once dotted with apple trees and roamed by chickens nd cows.”this land has been in our family for generations.It was something my grandparents wanted passed down,”she says. Now,Because of the dispute over the tainted water,the land is worthless and their future precarious.”they can’t bring my father back, they can’t bring my health back,” she says.”But we deserve some kind of justice.”

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