WEDGEWOOD WOES: PART 1
LOW RATES, HIGH RISK
Photo by Gina Castro
By Gina Castro The most common characteristics home buyers, especially families, look for in neighborhoods are walkability, slow street traffic and close proximity to work, school and play. Typically, living near a waste management facility tends to be at the bottom of the list. The smell and frequent trucks aren't the only deterrents. Landfills can decrease property value, too. In fact, the Urban Planning department at Cleveland State University found that living within two miles of a landfill can decrease property value as much as 15%. Wedgewood residents who have struggled with health issues as a result of the area's waste facilities have also experienced financial struggles as a result, too. In 2002, Tamika Wallace was house hunting. She was in search of a home near friends that offered peace and quiet. Wedgewood checked all of her boxes. A friend of Wallace showed her a home on Kyle Drive. "I knew lots of people who lived in the area. Franscine's mom, Cora, lived around the corner. Some of the people I had gone to school with lived in the area, too," Wallace said. "So I knew people established in that neighborhood already." Wallace tended a garden in her backyard. She and her family ate the melons and other produce they grew. However, it was during Wallace's three years in this home that she began to feel sick. Her intense stomach pain caused her to miss work frequently. "I didn't know what it was at the time. I just was always sick. I wasn't diagnosed at that time," Wallace said. "I just spent a lot of time off work not feeling well." 66
While Wallace struggled with her unknown illness, she—as well as many other Wedgewood residents—were completely unaware of the health risk festering just over a mile from her backyard. Battling her illness created a financial burden that became too great for Wallace. In 2005, her home on Kyle Drive fell into foreclosure and she moved in with her mother. That same year, the responsibility of governing landfills and borrow pits fell under county ordinances—requiring the county to ensure owners restored the land and maintained permits. Inweekly reported in 2014 that only one of the 100 borrow pits in Escambia County had a permit. In 2006, one year after Wallace moved from Wedgewood, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) notified the owners of Rolling Hills C&D landfill that a site assessment and corrective actions needed to be initiated due to DEP's detections of elevated constituents in onsite monitoring wells. More than a decade later, Wallace was diagnosed with Stage 2 Colon Cancer. "I have had symptoms for years—for years. I just never thought it could be colon cancer," Wallace continued. "I thought, you know, maybe it was an ulcer or something like that because I had a high-stress job." Although Wallace's doctor wasn't able to give her a specific date as to when the cancer began developing in her colon, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute's research on colon cancer estimates that the noncancerous cells in the colon, called adenomatous polyps, can slowly become cancerous over a span of 10-15 years.
Similar to Wallace, Lafanette Soles Woods began experiencing the symptoms of her later-diagnosed breast cancer and other illnesses in the early 2000s. Woods' family has owned acres of land in the Olive Heights area since 1952. Her father bought 20 acres of land while he served in the military so that his father, Woods' grandfather, and other relatives could live on the land for generations. Today, the land isn't of interest to Woods, her sister, cousins or the general buying market. "Everything out here is contaminated. A lot of people would probably like to do more farming in this area, but you really can't get your crops to grow very well out here anymore," Woods said. After Woods' father passed, her mother became the property owner. Woods' mother has been trying to sell the land since 2016 to no avail. Woods currently lives on a piece of her family's land. She said if given the opportunity to sell, she would. "I have a lot of memories from when I was a baby all the way until now. But yeah, I would let it go," Woods said.
"Because the landfills and the rock-crushing places are right next to the schools. This place has so much contamination in this area that it will affect your children." Lafanette Soles Woods Woods mentioned that one of the reasons her mother could be having trouble selling the land is that they are honest about
the area's history of environmental hazards. She doesn't believe it's not fair to hide that information from potential buyers. "I think the new people coming into our area, they need to know," Woods said. "Because the landfills and the rock-crushing places are right next to the schools. This place has so much contamination in this area that it will affect your children. It really does affect our health. And people need to know that." Ryan Nelson has been renting a threebedroom house in Wedgewood since August of last year. His landlord never once mentioned the area's history of hydrogen sulfide leaks, the borrow pits, landfills or the concrete-crushing sites less than a mile away from the area's schools. "I haven't actually noticed them. You were the first person to really say anything. I noticed them when we were driving, but I never really thought about it," Nelson continued. "Honestly, if there was a current spillage or leakage, I would wish to be notified. I know that the property manager wants to make the property look as beautiful as possible, so that way, they can sell it as quickly as possible, you know, but a notice would have been nice." The reason Nelson said he moved to Wedgewood was that the rent is within his price range. His monthly rent started out at $995 and recently increased to $1,015. Nelson has lived in several states, including Colorado and Kentucky. He's lived near coal plants and decommissioned nuclear plants, so living near other environmental hazards isn't a major concern for him. "Honestly, I used to live next to a coal plant next to a decommissioned nuclear facility. So the fact that I have about three landfills near me is kind of a step up from where I was," Nelson said. Studies have found that environmental hazards are frequently placed in lowerincome, non-white areas. Researchers from the University of Michigan and the University of Montana analyzed 30 years' worth of demographic data of the placement of U.S. hazardous waste facilities. Their study, published in 2016 in the Environmental Research Letters journal found that there are racial and socioeconomic disparities in the placement of hazardous waste facilities in the U.S. The study's conclusion explained that minority and low-income communities are easier areas to place waste facilities because they often don't have the resources and political connections to oppose the placement of the facilities. {in} This is part one of a multi-part series that Gina Castro is on working for Inweekly about Wedgewood. You can also read her initial reporting on the topic— "Never Free," which was published in our April 22, 2021, issue—at inweekly.net/never-free. inweekly.net