People Against Neighborhood Industrial Contamination (PANIC) takes on corporate polluters to advance environmental justice in black neighborhoods of the 35th Avenue Superfund Site (Birmingham, AL). PANIC was organized in 2012 after the EPA named the site and disclosed its risks: high levels of arsenic, lead, and PAHs in the air and soil. Local residents—like PANIC founder Charlie Powell—tell too-common stories of family, friends, or neighbors lost to cancer, a trend county officials deny. For 10 years, PANIC has unearthed toxins old and new, including a history of racist zoning that poisons and impoverishes black homeowners, and a 2010s bribery scheme between government officials and corporate energy to halt site cleanup. PANIC engages its neighbors to share stories and gather facts, and it advocates for just solutions that remedy housing discrimination. PANIC insists on government buy-out of toxic properties, and it offers support and advocacy for any resident who wants to move.
View of ABC Coke’s coal storage area – EPA Photo, 2018
EPA’s September 2014 document proposing addition of the 35th Avenue site to its National Priorities List (NPL) states that “hundreds of residential lots are contaminated with benzo(a)pyrene, arsenic, or lead exceeding health risk exposure standards.” The State of Alabama also recognizes the health risks to the neighborhood and sent EPA a letter supporting its NPL listing. Birmingham’s mayor wrote to EPA, saying, “The case for NPL placement is compelling” and emphasized the criminal conspiracy to stop the site from being placed on that list. Despite this recognition by the relevant government offices, the site is still only “proposed.” So for now, EPA is hampered in its “remedial response actions” under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability (aka Superfund) Act. Compensation is what PANIC insists on: fair market value—to allow neighbors who want to move out to do so and to pay back neighbors who want to stay and make their property livable again.
Banner for the PANIC 10th Anniversary Celebration, May 2022, PANIC Facebook