Reginald “Reggie” Pender (kneeling far right 1st row) and Gary R. Grant, (standing far right 2nd row) pose with the “Through and Day Walkers” at the entrance to the Duke Power Plant in Hamlet, NC on Saturday, March 18, 2017 as the last miles of the walk were made.
On Saturday morning, March 11, 2017, Concerned Citizens of Tillery’s (CCT) executive director and CCT member Reginald “Reggie” Pender traveled for three hours to Hamlet, NC to be part of the Alliance to Protect our People and the Places Where We Live (APPPL) who would make the final five miles walk against the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). Arriving and finding between 30 and 40 walkers, CCT representatives were gladly welcomed to join those making the walk.
The walk against the proposed pipeline began on Saturday March 4, 2017 at the Virginia and North Carolina state line. Grant states, “CCT was there and walked the first 8 miles with the group and thought it only fitting that we be there to walk the last five miles with the “Through Walkers.”
CCT, like many other groups and individuals, were “Day Walkers” who joined the group along the more than 200 miles traveling Hwy 301 from the VA/NC state line ending in Hamlet, NC, which is basically the route of the proposed ACP pipeline. CCT also joined the walkers as they entered Nash County in Rocky Mount, Tuesday, March 8 and into Wilson county on Wednesday, March 15.
Grant says that the pipeline is another infringement on the ‘people and places where we live’ because of the culture of our area and the route clearly shows environmental injustice. Many people are not aware even of the people line coming through and possible damages that can result from this proposed detrimental action. Based on information from the APPPL, “the pipe line will reduce property values” which will ultimately reduce property tax revenues needed by county and municipal governments to provide services to residents. Farm land will be damaged by the installation of the pipeline. As the people line is installed land around it, both during installation and afterwards up to 20 years before the fertility of the land recovers. The pipeline proposed by Duke Energy shows a clear lack of concern for the health and safety of the people of North Carolina as they have demonstrated through its careless disposal and resistance to properly dispense of coal ash from its many coal fired power plants
Grant further states that citizens in Northampton are currently trying to ward of a more than 800 acre coal ash landfill, and the pipeline. He says, once an area lets in one polluting industry, the only corporations that will look at them are more waste polluting industries. Thus, our wetlands, surface and groundwater and the people of Halifax and Northampton counties currently are being “dumped on” and thus another step in making eastern North Carolina and especially the “Black Belt” of the state a waste dumpland.
Grant says, “We met a diversity of local people along the way including farmers and community people whose farmland and homes would be immediately impacted. There was also a diverse group of supporters from across the state and the nation who supported the walk by coming to join the walk, especially college students on their spring break.
For those who are concerned with environmental justice and the health of the people in the area, please contact http://www.apppl.org/ or https://2017acpwalk.org/. You can also contact CCT at tillery@aol.com or call the CCT office at 252-826-3017. CCT has been working on environmental injustice issues since the early 1990s.
Rally in Rocky Mount against the ACP are CCT members (l to R) Gary R. Grant, 90-year-old James Parker, Fleming Peterson, Ernestine Peterson, Claude Ford, Melvin Whitaker, Hazel Ford, Doris Taylor Davis, Glenn Brown, Donna Whitaker, Mamie Boone, Cora Brown, Perline Baggott, Cary White, Jr., and William “Shorty” Richardson.
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