Above Photo: “Warren Residents Oppose Regional Landfill," front-page, Henderson Daily Dispatch,” by Scott Ragland, March 19, 1992. Inset reads: “It takes Rosa Parks and puts her on the back of the bus once again.” Ken Ferruccio

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If we’re looking for social change leaders to stem the tide of climate change, ordinary citizens must, as Princeton University professor and author Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., puts it, “be the leaders we have been looking for.”

In this episode, Deborah and Ken feature the legacy of such homegrown leaders in the early 1990s, as local and regional officials attempt to turn Warren County, especially the Lickskillet community situated just a few miles downstream from the PCB landfill, into a 1,000-acre toxic trash dumping ground.

This episode relates how ordinary people in Warren County, during a critical time in the county’s history and the history of North Carolina, become the leaders they are looking for, leaders who never claim the legacy they leave.

Some of the many who come to mind are: Cliff Jackson. Susan and Steven Bender. Jean Strickland. Earl Limer. James “Sonny” Davis, and his wife Geneva, neighbors of the Ferruccios, and they are county leaders such as Commissioners George Shearin and Butch Meek.

Warren County isn’t the only place being targeted for commercial dumps open for interstate waste. Sixteen North Carolina counties are being targeted, and Ken and Deborah are speaking out against them, trying to help keep the state from becoming a regional, East Coast, and possibly national waste dumping grounds.

Ken and Deborah go to Wilson County, Governor Hunt’s own home county, where they support local citizens’ efforts to stop an 800-acre commercial landfill, describing the failures of lined landfills and telling the people that with the support from the Episcopal Church, they’re going to prove the PCB landfill is leaking.

Two days later after their Wilson County presentation, Debbie Crane, spokesperson for the North Carolina Department of Environment, Health, and Natural Resources calls Ken and tells him the call is a courtesy call, that it’s only right that he learns the news directly from the department and not from the news media. She discloses to Ken that the PCB landfill has half a million to a million gallons of water in it that are threatening to breach the bottom liner, and something has to be done.

Why after a decade of silence and inaction is the state now describing the water in the landfill as a crisis, and why call Ken? Could it be that the real crisis is that Ken and Deborah have created an Ecumenical Environmental Leadership Coalition and are speaking out about leaking landfills and about waste expansion based on for-profit, commercial regional landfills? Could it be that the real crisis is that the Ferruccios are supporting grassroots leaders even in the Governor’s own back yard?

Above Photo: Bill Kearney and Dollie Burwell unveil the PCB historic marker at the September 15, 2012 30th anniversary PCB celebration held at Coley Springs Baptist Church, (Henderson Daily Dispatch, Earl King)

In this episode, it comes as no real surprise to Ken and Deborah that soon after the North Carolina Public Radio interview they did with “The State of Things,” the local Warren County government is facilitating efforts to plan the 2012, 30th anniversary celebration of the 1982 PCB protest movement. Leading the efforts is Bill Kearney and his newly formed Warren County Environmental Action Team which includes local, state, and federal government affiliates and state university academics and others.

As part of the celebration, Kearney proposes plans to build a park and recreation center on the landfill site, and government affiliates claim the site is safe. Deborah vehemently counters the claim.

Deborah negotiates for months with North Carolina state archivists to convince them to erect a historical PCB marker and to approve the wording for the sign, but the historic marker and the program are “essentially hijacked.”

More than the historic marker is hijacked as part of the 30th anniversary campaign though. The Action Team and its government and academic affiliates feature Kearney as the prevailing spokesperson for the re-narration industry that puts a basket over the light of truth, the basket that Deborah and Ken continue to remove again and again in this podcast series.

Deborah and Ken end the episode as they explain why they could not attend the 30th PCB anniversary Coley Springs Baptist Church celebration in letters to the editor published in the Warren Record soon after the celebration event, letters they know will become part of the public record, part of the history they are living and documenting as they go.

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Click below to see a photo of the PCB historic marker being erected in Afton by state workers while non other than health minister and Warren County Environmental Action Team Director Bill Kearney looks on.

https://www.wcaahc.com/uploads/1/3/8/3/138395702/naacp-memorial-2020-photo_orig.jpg

Ken and Deborah begin this episode with an update on the status of the Warren County Environmental Action Team's proposal for a partnership with county officials to seek EPA Justice40 community grant funds for an environmental justice center in the county based on the PCB legacy.

With EPA grant funding deadlines nearing and with no public engagement in the grant decision-making process, it seems that the Action Team may have decided to dismiss attempts to partner with the county.

Deborah shares excerpts from an October 16, 2024 letter to the Warren Record that address current environmental protection and justice issues in the county.

Ken and Deborah then do something different as they continue to address the people’s PCB legacy by sharing a 2011 interview they had with Frank Stasio, who was host of a WUNC NPR radio program titled: “The State of Things.”

They ask their listeners to go to the top or bottom of this Episode 39 summary page, and click the following link:

https://www.wunc.org/the-state-of-things/2011-10-24/meet-deborah-and-ken-ferruccio

The link can also be found on their website OurRoadtoWalk.com home page about half-way down.