Africatown Remains Overburdened by Polluting Industries, Overlooked by Local Political Leaders

 

 

Twenty years ago Africatown historian and community leader Henry Williams, led a group of 40 Africatown residents to Mobile's City Planning Commission meeting to protest the construction of an asphalt plant being constructed by Hosea Weaver & Sons Inc. on Bay Bridge Cut-Off Road in Africatown.

 

 

It seemed as though the plant was 75 percent complete before its layout and subdivision of the property came before the Planning Commission. Company president Paul Weaver endured criticism from Africatown residents as well as Planning Commission members. When asked why he continued construction even after the city learned of it and issued a stop-work order, Weaver told the commission that he did not stop work because he was fighting at the time to get the permit. When pressed he finally admitted that he really did not have an excuse and that he was the "Goat".

 

Weaver previously had admitted that he did not think that he needed a permit to build in that area of the city (Africatown). He also said the plant was valued at more than $3 million, but earlier he told the Planning Commission that his company would have invested $7 million in it by the time it is finished. Commissioners voted 4-2 to give preliminary approval to the project. One commission member did not vote and said after the meeting that he had disqualified himself from voting because he had worked with the Weaver Company on the project.

 

Africatown residents have said that "it's too close, it's noisy and dusty". The permit to build and operate was granted to the Hosea Weaver Asphalt Plant with only one requirement, that a tree planting and landscaping be designed to create a buffer between the plant and nearby residents. The commission required an 8-foot privacy fence and two strips of 16-foot tall trees and shrubs, totaling a width of 40 feet to buffer the businesses and residential property owners that back up to the asphalt plant.

 

What a joke! Twenty years later, it seems as though no governmental agency has ever audited the Hosea Weaver plant site to see what negative effect it has inflicted upon the community and its residents.

 

There is no privacy fence only a small chain linked fence. There is no thick planting of trees and plants to prevent dirt, dust, noise and other airborne pollution from negatively affecting residents of the area.

 

Residents have moved out and torn down their houses to get away from the smell and pollution caused by the Hosea Weaver asphalt plant. Piles of sand, gravel, dirt and other materials are sitting on their yard, uncovered, blowing throughout the Magazine Point neighborhood whenever the wind blows hard. Nothing is covered up, not even during a hurricane. No public air monitors are in the area, so no government agency ever monitors the pollution conditions.

 

 

Last year, the Kemira chemical plant, located in the Hog Bayou section of Africatown, came close to causing a very serious incident when one of the chemicals used in their production facility nearly exploded, resulting in the evacuation of residents in a nearby neighborhood. The chemical in question, acrylamide monomer 50%, had been stored in a rail tank car. When it was examined, it was determined to have a temperature of over 300 degrees. The safe temperature of a tank car of acrylamide monomer should not exceed 100 degrees. The local fire department was called in and the plant was shut down, all employees evacuated and a small neighborhood north of the incident was evacuated.

 

Although Africatown residents are closer to the Kemira plant and within the same community as the near fatal incident, no one from Africatown was notified of the danger or evacuated from the area.