David Caldwell, Jr. - On the landfill's environmental impact (clip)

David Caldwell, Jr. (DC): This was a dirt road, red, dusty, clay. All of this was cornfields, like I said, and a few houses, things, mostly a farming community. And when they did it, the road was so bad that it was tearing up the city s trucks, so they had to pave it sooner than they wanted to. So, that was the next biggest thing for us, at that time, in the [19]70s, was we had a paved road out here, which meant that people did not have to I mean, it was bad. It was tearing up cars right and left. So, that was a great and our elders felt, Well, maybe we did make the right decision in letting them come. Because we could see, Hey, they are keeping their word. But after that, that was about it. [Laughs] That was the last of it.

Darius Scott (DS): And, I guess, thinking about the environmental issues that have come up as a result of the landfill being there, could you describe how the neighborhood was prior to the presence of any landfill and waste sites? Were there any environmental issues then?

DC: No! No, we went for us, as kids, twelve, thirteen years old, like I said, we would walk the woods and we would hang out. We would meet at six o clock in the morning during the summer and we d walk the woods until six o clock at night, seeing all types of animals, and streams, and swimming, and all these things. I mean, it was a great life. It was really good. But, as the population grew and the landfill grew, you got more traffic. Of course, like I said, the air got bad. The water was bad. We had to take our clothes uptown. You couldn't wash white clothes, because they all came out muddy red, things of that nature. So, and there was a gradual thing for years we did, taking clothes uptown to wash them, and doing those type deals. Or you didn't buy white clothes or light-colored clothes.