User:SamanthaQuadros/Lincolnville, Nova Scotia

Landfill history
In 1974, a first-generation landfill was opened less than one kilometre away from Lincolnville. The dump was created without community consultation and had no lining to protect residents from waste penetrating the soil and contaminating groundwater.

The site also lacked a daily cover, making residents subject to air pollution due to the effects of incineration and the emission of toxic gases over the three decades of the landfill's operation.

In 2006, as Guysborough County struggled to maintain its tax base, the County Council expressed interest in opening up a new landfill site to generate needed tax revenues. As a result, the municipality opened a second-generation landfill and closed the original waste-disposal site. Unlike the first dump, the new landfill was lined and collected leachate runoff. However, according to regional environmental organizations, environmental risks were still present as hazardous items such as electrical transformers and waste from offshore oil spills were deposited in the dump. This caused severe concerns within the community that toxins and carcinogens were leaking into the soil, thereby contaminating their drinking water.

A Community Liaison Committee was established to address the residents' concerns, providing a forum where the Municipal Council could hear issues concerning the operation of the waste management facility. Despite this initiative, the Lincolnville community claimed that they were not adequately consulted, as several barriers prevented meaningful community participation. Such barriers included the use of inappropriate jargon, as well as avoidance and intimidation tactics by local government officials and consultants. There was also a complete lack of funding to hire interveners and a limited understanding of the process within the community.

Community concerns and initiatives
Although the health impacts of the landfills are unknown, residents are concerned that water contamination, poor air quality and increased presence of pests are connected to the high rates of certain illnesses in the community. According to Lincolnville citizens, a significant number of people living in close proximity to the landfill have died from cancer or suffer from other serious health problems such as increased blood pressure, changes in nerve reflexes, and disorders in the brain, liver and kidneys.

Besides health issues, residents also face decreased property values and little economic opportunity. Despite the millions of dollars the landfills generated each year, they have provided virtually no employment to the residents of the surrounding community. Due to these circumstances, Lincolnville faces high out-migration rates by young adults, resulting in a shrinking and increasingly elder community.

The resident's concerns resulted in the birth of the Save Lincolnville Campaign, a grassroots organization advocating for the removal of the landfill. Among other demands, the community-led initiative called for:
 * Reparations for the citizens in light of the health and environmental costs of the waste facility.
 * More transparent consultation processes.
 * The universal protection of all people regardless of race and class against actions that threaten the fundamental human right to clean air, land, water and food.

Research on the topic
In 2012, in response to the issues taking place in Lincolnville, Dr. Ingrid Waldron launched the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities and Community Health Project (ENRICH Project) to support locals with research concerning the issue of environmental racism and its health effects on the local population.

The ENRICH Project's Lincolnville Water Monitoring Committee (WMC) created a profile of geology, hydrology, and geohydrology to understand how water and potential contaminants flow throughout the area. Results showed that the location was highly faulted, which can result in faster water movement and, consequently, an accelerated spread of toxic substances. The investigation also revealed that the surface had minimal soil coverage, which gave groundwater little protection from potential pollutants on the surface.

The project also conducted water quality samplings, which examined the presence of bacteria as well as major ions and elements in the community’s wells. Because many rural Nova Scotians rely on wells for their water supply instead of municipal water, the quality of their water had not been regulated nor frequently tested in the past. Two of the five sites sampled tested positive for bacteria such as coliforms, of which one also tested positive for E. coli.

Dr. Ingrid Waldron concluded that further research was needed, such as testing for the presence of lead, cadmium and arsenic, and organic compounds associated with landfill activities. It was also mentioned the necessity to collect statistics on rates of cancer and other illnesses in the area.

Environmental Racism
Residents of Lincolnville claim that there has been little government response and that the Guysborough municipality has been indifferent to their  expressed concerns.

Since the opening of the first landfill, there have been cases of diesel and oil spreading across the facility, creating fires and releasing untold levels of toxins and greenhouse gases due to the presence of dead animals, electric transformers and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) within the dump. Despite these occurrences, the province of Nova Scotia, which approved and regulated the landfill, has never conducted examinations for possible toxic leaks from the facilities or possible contamination of the community's wells.

In another instance, the Ecology Action Center raised potential health issues in a letter to the environment minister of Nova Scotia, Mark Parent; however, no response was given.

Despite the lack of extensive research on the issue, scholars such as Dr. Ingrid Waldron, link the circumstances in the Lincolnville landfill and the slow government response to the broader and overarching issue of environmental racism. For instance, a 2002 study conducted at Dalhousie University found that more than 30% of black Nova Scotians live within five kilometres of a landfill. Similarly, the preliminary results of a study conducted by Dr. Waldron showed that predominantly indigenous and black communities lived closer to hazardous sites.