Cleanup Efforts in North Birmingham Continue As Residents Wait
Vivian Starks, the president of Birmingham’s Collegeville neighborhood, loves being outside in her backyard. One of her favorite things to do there is work in her garden. She enjoys growing plants and raising tomatoes. She can only eat those tomatoes occasionally though because of the contamination in her neighborhood.
Neighborhoods in the city’s North Birmingham community have spent years dealing with soil contamination. North Birmingham, Collegeville, Fairmont, and Harriman contain properties with chemicals generated by factories in the surrounding area. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been working on clean up efforts in these neighborhoods since 2013. The agency recently awarded the city of Birmingham a $400,000 grant to test the soil at commercial properties and identify contaminated sites.
The EPA says the city can then go after a grant to clean up and redevelop those sites if possible.
This is on top of decontamination efforts of residential properties already underway. EPA coordinator Richard Jardine oversees that ongoing project. He says the EPA “…maybe have about two more years to go,” reporting they have tested 1,400 residential properties and have about 600 more to go. Jardine says it’s been a challenge to do the work because of “trying to get permission to go on the [vacant] properties.”
Starks says the neighborhood is improving but wonders how long it will take to complete the work. “I don’t know. I don’t even think they know,” she says.
As the EPA continues to clean up North Birmingham, area citizens continue to wait. Starks says it is normal to smell strange scents and see particles coming out of the sky in Collegeville. “All I want is good air, good soil, and good water that’s all,” she says.
She says no one in her neighborhood plants anymore. “Everybody in this area always had pecan trees, peach trees and you can’t go through this neighborhood and find a peach tree now or a good fruit tree,” says Starks, “so that right there is telling you something.”
She loves gardening and hopes that her neighborhood can be the way that it used to be.
Pentagon says it’s cutting ties with ‘woke’ Harvard, ending military training
Amid an ongoing standoff between Harvard and the White House, the Defense Department said it plans to cut ties with the Ivy League — ending military training, fellowships and certificate programs.
‘Washington Post’ CEO resigns after going AWOL during massive job cuts
Washington Post chief executive and publisher Will Lewis has resigned just days after the newspaper announced massive layoffs.
In this Icelandic drama, a couple quietly drifts apart
Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason weaves scenes of quiet domestic life against the backdrop of an arresting landscape in his newest film.
After the Fall: How Olympic figure skaters soar after stumbling on the ice
Olympic figure skating is often seems to take athletes to the very edge of perfection, but even the greatest stumble and fall. How do they pull themselves together again on the biggest world stage? Toughness, poise and practice.
They’re cured of leprosy. Why do they still live in leprosy colonies?
Leprosy is one of the least contagious diseases around — and perhaps one of the most misunderstood. The colonies are relics of a not-too-distant past when those diagnosed with leprosy were exiled.
This season, ‘The Pitt’ is about what doesn’t happen in one day
The first season of The Pitt was about acute problems. The second is about chronic ones.
