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Racial Wealth Gap - How does a lack of wealth and resources, affect housing and areas of environmental sustainability?

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Racial Wealth Gap - How does a lack of wealth and resources, affect housing and areas of environmental sustainability?

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Explained | Racial Wealth Gap | FULL EPISODE | Netflix

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Housing Segregation and Redlining in America: A Short History | Code Switch | NPR

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Fortron Industries' plant on Highway 421, shared with Invista, produces a chemical that causes a cat urine-like smell in the Wilmington-area. Invista is the top discharger of toxic chemicals into the water in New Hanover County. (Port City Daily photo/Johanna Still)

NEW HANOVER COUNTY - Economic development officials promote the area as a fast-growing region with miles of beaches, year-round golf and a growing number of "clean-sector" businesses, like fin tech and pharmaceutical research. A recent report, however, is a reminder that New Hanover County is one of the state's top generators of industrial pollution.

Released in December, the Environmental Protection Agency's annual Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) tracks how industrial facilities manage the toxic waste they produce. Most importantly, it reports on toxins ultimately released into the air and water.
RELATED: Deep Dive (Part I): Wilmington residents never told about toxic substance used next door
Not all toxic-waste disposal is created equally. For example, Fortron Industries, which produces a plastic polymer at its plant on U.S. 421 North (and perhaps is best known for producing a scent that resembles cat urine), is New Hanover County's top producer of toxic waste. Instead of being released into the local environment, the vast majority of it gets recycled and is reused in the production process.

Some businesses, however, release chemicals into the air and water, or dispose of them in the ground. With 14 such facilities, New Hanover has the most of any county east of Interstate 95. There are eight in Brunswick County, four of which are directly adjacent to New Hanover. Pender County has no EPA-tracked facilities.

New Hanover's biggest discharger of chemicals into the air is Corning. The emissions it releases at its fiber-optics plant on North College Road contain chlorine and hydrochloric acid.

The county's biggest discharger of toxic chemicals into the water is Invista. It pumps treated wastewater into both the Cape Fear and Northeast Cape Fear rivers from its plant on U.S. 421 North.

In Brunswick County, the biggest air polluter is CPI USA, which burns wood, coal and tire-derived fuel to generate electricity. (After being fined for not complying with state air-quality regulations, the small power plant near Southport announced late last year that it is closing.)

The biggest water polluter in Brunswick is ADM Southport.

Companies can't simply emit pollution as they wish. EPA permits are required to discharge chemicals into the environment. The permits, which are issued by the state, set limits and requirements. Because of backlogs and other constraints, state regulators have often failed to enforce the regulations in a timely manner.

In 2019, the 14 plants in New Hanover County that are required to report to the EPA generated 192 million pounds of toxic chemical waste, meaning it could harm humans and the environment.

While the vast majority of that waste was recycled, a portion was released into the environment: 172,000 pounds into the air; 31,000 pounds into waterways, and 1.5 million pounds into the ground.
RELATED: Deep Dive (Part II): With little regulation, over half of New Hanover County may be overexposed to a toxic chemical
Across North Carolina, industries released 39 million pounds of pollution into the environment in 2019. That was the 17th highest amount nationwide when based on pollution per square mile.

The state's toxic emissions into the air and land continued to trend downward in 2019, but discharges into waterways were up, according to an analysis of the report's data by N.C. Policy Watch. (The group has created an online guide to help people navigate the extensive, complex report.)

Some of the biggest water polluters in North Carolina are poultry and livestock "factory" farms, but they are not as tightly regulated as traditional industries.

The handling of PFAS - the class of chemicals that contains GenX - will be included in the TRI report for the first time next year.
Send tips to scott@localdailymedia.com Value Port City Daily's in-depth local reporting on vital issues? Please, consider a monthly subscription for access to all of PCD's content, and sign up for the free morning newsletter.

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Wilmington area still a major source of industrial pollution in state | Port City Daily

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NEW HANOVER COUNTY - Economic development officials promote the area as a fast-growing region with miles of beaches, year-round golf and a growing number of "clean-sector" businesses, like fin tech and pharmaceutical research. A recent report, however, is a reminder that New Hanover County is one of the state's top generators of industrial pollution.

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Racism and Climate Change Are About You | Dr. Atyia Martin | TEDxDirigo

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Legislation Affecting NC Water Pollution

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Legislation Affecting NC Water Pollution

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The public utility for Wilmington and New Hanover County will spend about $46 million to filter out potentially carcinogenic "forever chemicals" from drinking water for an estimated 200,000 people.

In neighboring Brunswick County, bids totaling $137 million have been approved for a similar filtration system to remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances known as PFAS to be completed within the next two years.

In Cumberland County, officials have approved spending $10 million to run public water lines to two schools and homes whose wells have been contaminated with the substances, much of which is the result of contamination emanating from the smokestacks at the Chemours Fayetteville Works plant on the border of Bladen County.

And in the small Chatham County town of Pittsboro, officials are eyeing a $42 million filtration system for the removal of PFAS and perhaps an even more troubling chemical, a likely carcinogen known as 1,4 dioxane. The money would also expand the town's water treatment plant.
More: PFAS chemicals found 16 miles from Chemours plant, North Carolina officials say
If these projects move forward, ratepayers - and not the companies that contaminated the water supplies - will be footing the bills. Brunswick County recently announced in January that it is raising rates to offset filtration costs and expansion of its water treatment plant. Lawsuits have been filed in New Hanover and Brunswick counties in an effort to recoup the money.

Some of the state's lawmakers want to make the polluters pay.

Ten bills introduced

A bill introduced in the General Assembly by Rep. Deb Butler (D-Wilmington) would put the onus of cleanup on the backs of the industries that caused the contamination in the first place.

House Bill 444 is among 10 that have been filed since March 22 that aim to reduce or eliminate PFAS in North Carolina - and, in the case of Butler's bill - hold the polluters responsible. One of the bills, introduced by Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Greensboro), would go so far as to ban the manufacture, sale and distribution of PFAS in the state.

Most of the bills were filed with overwhelming support from Democrats - but including a handful of Republican co-sponsors - have been introduced in previous legislative sessions, and all of them, Butler and Harrison agree, have zero chance of being approved this time around.

They blame politics.
'Canary in a coal mine':Scientists test alligators for PFAS chemical compounds
"Let's just face it," Butler said. "DuPont, Chemours and all these other big industrial manufacturers pay a lot of money to politicians ... They pay the max to an awful lot of very influential Republicans. And I don't understand it because, honestly, clean water should not be a partisan issue. It really, really should not. But everything is these days. It is tragic, really."

Harrison agreed that partisan politics is a big part of the problem, but she said it goes even deeper than that.

"First of all, in terms of doing something more aggressive, I think it's a couple of things," Harrison said. "One, it's probably the problem is so huge and unwieldy that where do we even get started? Isn't this something that maybe EPA should be tackling, you know, do we actually have the manpower and the wherewithal to manage that in our state? How's it going to affect commerce? We just don't have a history of being very aggressive with exposure to toxic chemicals."

Republican PFAS funding

Butler and Harrison didn't mention a bill introduced in April by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Wilmington) and other Republicans that would allocate $15 million to the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory, which is housed at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill.

A branch of the collaboratory - the PFAS Testing Network - has been using more than $5 million in state funding to test all of the municipal water systems in North Carolina for PFAS contamination. In July, it released findings showing that nearly half of the public utilities tested had detectable levels of PFAS in their drinking water. Another round of testing continues.

Senate Bill 544 would allow the PFAS Testing Network to expand its analysis and statewide water and air testing of PFAS. It would also provide additional funding for toxicology work in laboratory animals, research on PFAS levels in citizens and their potential health effects, and development of technologies to reduce PFAS exposure.

According to the bill, at least $10 million would be directed to UNC for the development of technologies that use water filtration or other chemical or physical methods to remove or reduce GenX and other PFAS from water supplies. The bill has bipartisan support.

Lee said UNC has developed technology that can filter out up to 100 percent of PFAS from drinking water. He said the researchers are trying to bring the technology to scale.

Conventional filtration systems in water treatment plants and homes now only remove a portion of total PFAS, and the resin that removes the contaminants breaks down over time, according to UNC. University researchers made a resin specifically designed to filter PFAS molecules.

Lee said he has been working "really hard" on getting the bill passed.

"I'm willing to go to the mat as much as I can," he said.

Butler and Harrison said in later emails that they didn't mention Lee's bill because they didn't know about it. Both said they typically don't read Senate bills until they make it to the House. Lee said the same about House bills.

Nevertheless, Butler said, she prefers that funding be allocated to the state Department of Environmental Quality, "our watchdog who has been systematically underfunded by this leadership, and the collaboratory." Harrison called the DEQ "woefully underfunded."

Big problem, small response

North Carolina is said to have the third-worst PFAS contamination problems of any state in the country. Yet at least nine other states have set maximum contaminant levels for certain types of the more prevalent PFAS in public drinking water. North Carolina has set only a health advisory for one type of PFAS, called GenX.

A bill introduced in the House by state Rep. Ashton Wheeler Clemmons (D-Greensboro) would, at a minimum, set maximum contaminant levels for PFAS, 1,4 dioxane and hexavalent chromium, which is associated with coal ash. But again, the bill only has Democratic co-sponsors and without Republican support in a Republican-controlled General Assembly, there is little chance of the bill's passage.

Clemmons' proposed legislation, House Bill 521, would have to successfully complete its trip through committees and pass a vote in one of the legislature's chambers by May 13 or else be dead for the rest of the biennial General Assembly session. The bill, filed April 8, was sent to the House Rules Committee, where it stands little chance of escaping. A companion bill filed March 31 by state Sen. Sydney Batch (D-Apex) was referred to the Senate's rules committee.

Republicans have another PFAS-related bill that Butler and Harrison agree has a good chance of passing. Lee has introduced Senate Bill 327, which would require mandatory inventory reporting of aqueous firefighting foam and track its use. Ted Davis (R-Wilmington) has filed a companion bill in the House.

The foam, which is used largely for training purposes at airports, fire stations and military bases, contains PFAS that has contaminated drinking water sources. Drinking water for the town of Maysville near the coast is believed to have been contaminated by foam used by firefighters and an alternate water source had to be found. Military bases in the state have also been contaminated with PFAS from the foam, as has an area at Piedmont Triad International Airport.

Lee said there are cases in which firefighting foam has and should be used in real emergencies. He wants the state to keep track of where and how much is used.

But environmental advocates argue that there are already substitutes for the foam that work just as well and don't contain PFAS. In December, Congress agreed to phase out firefighting foams containing PFAS at military installations by 2024.

Little Republican support

Butler said only two Republicans - Frank Iler and Charles Miller, both of Brunswick County, downriver from Chemours - have signed onto any of the PFAS-related bills filed by Democrats. Iler and Miller support Butler's bill to make polluters pay for cleanup. Both have a vested interest, providing clean drinking water and keeping their constituents happy by avoiding a rate increase on their water bills.

Lee said that he also favors making polluters pay and that a bill he sponsored in 2018 had a provision to do so.

"So I certainly believe that those who pollute should pay for the cleanup," he said. "What I'm really concerned about is not just that but the amount of PFAS in the environment, generally. It's ubiquitous. It's everywhere."

Democratic lawmakers do have support from the top - Gov. Roy Cooper has pledged $8 million in his proposed budget to help mitigate PFAS and other emerging contaminants.

Chemours response

After spinning off from DuPont in 2015, the Chemours Fayetteville Works chemical plant is now responsible for much of the PFAS contamination in the lower Cape Fear River and in private wells surrounding the Bladen County plant. The plant had been discharging PFAS into the river since the early 1980s. Although Chemours has been prohibited since 2017 from discharging its wastewater, PFAS still show up downstream, mostly in runoff, groundwater seepage and from river sediment.

If signed into law, Harrison's bill to ban the manufacture, use and distribution of PFAS could place extreme hardship on the Chemours plant, which employs more than 500 workers and contractors. Among the plant's primary functions is to produce GenX, the PFAS substance used in everything from nonstick pans to wiring and components for computers, automobiles and airplanes.

Lisa Randall, a spokeswoman for Chemours, said the company continually reviews all proposed legislation that would impact its operations and the communities where it operates. Randall said some of the pending PFAS legislation in the General Assembly would have a profound negative effect on North Carolina and the country.

If approved, the bills would deny "North Carolina hospitals access to critical respiratory applications, and prevent our Fayetteville Works employees from supporting the supply chain to produce chlorine bleach, desperately needed during the current pandemic," Randall wrote in an email to NC Health News.

"North Carolina workers could no longer support the large battery industry, which is the key to growing solar and wind energy, as well as the electric vehicle markets the U.S. is relying on to help fight climate change," Randall said. "Companies would no longer be able to manufacture or repair anything that involved wiring or computer components. North Carolina's military bases would risk not being able to receive many replacement parts for their jets, helicopters or vehicles. Data centers in our state may not be able to cool equipment or get replacement parts to maintain those server farms."

Butler, a primary sponsor of the bill to ban PFAS, said Chemours is missing the point.

"Human health is being negatively affected by these forever chemicals," she wrote in response to Chemours. "Regardless of the usefulness of some of these applications, it is past time to transition from them by using the categorizations identified by researchers.

"Some PFAS applications are nonessential and should be abandoned immediately. The second category is those products that are substitutable and an aggressive plan for alternatives should be developed. Only those applications that are essential for human health and safety should be available in a limited and heavily regulated manner. It doesn't matter how useful or profitable a product is if it is a hazard to human health."

PFAS have been associated with many human diseases. In large enough concentrations, scientists say they may cause cancers of the thyroid, liver, testicles and kidneys. They are believed to suppress the immune system, raise cholesterol levels and cause low birth weight. Recent studies have found that PFAS may make people more vulnerable to the coronavirus and less responsive to COVID-19 vaccines.

The EPA now says there are an estimated 9,000 different types of PFAS, more than 600 of which are currently being used. PFAS are referred to as "forever chemicals" because they accumulate in the human body and don't break down in the environment.

North Carolina Health News is an independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit, statewide news organization dedicated to covering all things health care in North Carolina. Visit NCHN at northcarolinahealthnews.org.

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There are harmful chemicals in North Carolina's waterways. Will lawmakers address the problem?

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The public utility for Wilmington and New Hanover County will spend about $46 million to filter out potentially carcinogenic "forever chemicals" from drinking water for an estimated 200,000 people. In neighboring Brunswick County, bids totaling $137 million have been approved for a similar filtration system to remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances known as PFAS to be completed within the next two years.

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'This is environmental racism'

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April 6, 2021

Ben Chavis

His words defined a movement

(Kyna Uwaeme for The Washington Post)

WARREN COUNTY, N.C. - Ben Chavis was driving on a lonely road through rolling tobacco fields when he looked in his rearview mirror and saw the state trooper.

Chavis knew he was a marked man. Protests had erupted over North Carolina's decision to dump 40,000 cubic yards of soil contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals in a poor Black farming community in Warren County, and Chavis was a leader of the revolt. The trooper pulled him over.

"What did I do, officer?" Chavis asked that day in 1982. The answer shocked him.

"He told me that I was driving too slow."

Chavis was arrested and thrown in jail. When the cell door slammed shut, he gripped the metal bars and declared: "This is racism. This is environmental racism."

The term stuck, and now - nearly 40 years after Chavis spoke the words that have come to define decisions by governments and corporations to place toxic pollution in communities of color - the issue has risen from the fringes of the American conservation movement to the heart of President Biden's environmental agenda.

One week after his inauguration, Biden signed an executive order vowing to steer clean energy investments to minority communities battling pollution, placing environmental justice at the core of his plan to fight climate change. He named a Native American and African Americans to powerful environmental posts.

And last week, he tapped more than two dozen advocates from around the country to counsel his administration - "for the first time ever, bringing the voices, perspectives, and expertise of environmental justice communities into a formal advisory role at the White House," said Cecilia Martinez, a Biden appointee on the issue.

Systemic racism has long influenced where major sources of pollution are located within communities. Beginning in the early 20th century, White government planners in many municipalities drew redlining maps that identified Black and Latino neighborhoods as undesirable and unworthy of housing loans. Heavy industry was permitted to cluster in those places, adding a toxic dimension that persists today.

Given little support by White philanthropists, environmental justice groups run by Black, Latino, Native American and Alaskan Native advocates historically have been as impoverished as the communities they represent. While White environmental groups tended to focus on wilderness and wildlife, activists fighting everything from toxic dumps in Alabama to massive oil and gas refineries in California have largely worked in the shadows.

Today, Black people are nearly four times as likely to die from exposure to pollution than White people. According to "Fumes Across the Fence-Line," a recent study by the Clean Air Task Force, African Americans are exposed to 38 percent more polluted air than White Americans, and they are 75 percent more likely to live in communities that border a plant or factory.

[ Shingle Mountain: How a pile of toxic pollution was dumped in a community of color]

During the coronavirus pandemic, the consequences have proved particularly deadly. More than half of all in-hospital deaths from the start of the U.S. outbreak through July 2020 were of Black and Latino patients, according to researchers at Stanford and Duke universities. Black patients were far more likely to require ventilation.

"If your Zip code is buried with garbage, chemical plants, pollution ... you'll find there are more people that are sick, more diabetes and heart disease," said Robert Bullard, a professor at Texas Southern University and the author of " Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality." "Covid is like a heat-seeking missile zeroing in on the most vulnerable communities."

Though the cry "I can't breathe" has come to define today's Black Lives Matter movement, Chavis, now 73, said it echoes generations of environmental activists of color, including those who fought the toxic waste dump in North Carolina in 1982.

"There were public outcries of 'We can't breathe' and 'I can't breathe,'" Chavis said, "by African American environmental justice protesters in Warren County."

'The injustice in it all'
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Dollie Burwell

Fought to protect her community

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Charles Lee

Studied the scourge of pollution

(Kyna Uwaeme for The Washington Post)

Even before the protests, the federal government had recognized the danger PCBs posed to human life.

Short for polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs were widely used in paints, plastics and adhesives, and as industrial coolants. Then scientists discovered that, if inhaled or absorbed through the skin, the chemicals can cause birth defects, cancer and other disorders in multiple human organs.

In 1977, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency moved to ban their domestic production.

Enter Robert Burns, the owner of a New York trucking company, who hatched a plan to become America's " PCB king" by amassing discarded PCBs and selling them to companies that still needed the chemical, court records show. Burns approached a friend, Robert Ward Jr., owner of the Ward Transformer Co., which had stored thousands of gallons of PCB-laden oil in a warehouse near Raleigh.

The plan, however, was a disaster. The high cost of driving hundreds of 55-gallon drums of toxic liquid to a storage facility in Pennsylvania made the operation financially untenable. So Burns "devised a scheme, for which he sought Ward's approval," court records said. He would dump the chemicals instead.

The first location was a range at Fort Bragg, but the soil there failed to absorb the liquid. So Burns told Ward that his sons, Randall and Timothy, would spray the oil along rural North Carolina roads.

For more than three months, driving under cover of darkness, they poisoned an area spanning 14 counties with 30,000 gallons of PCBs,government records show.

It didn't take long for state officials to notice the 211-mile stain. The men, all White, were convicted of committing an environmental crime. Burns pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges and was sentenced to a year in prison. Ward was acquitted of state charges but convictedin federal court, where he was sentencedto two years in prison.

North Carolina was left to clean up the mess.

Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. (D) first proposed to treat the PCB-contaminated soil where it lay, but the EPA nixed that plan. So Hunt pursued another option: dumping 10,000 truckloads of contaminated dirt in a soybean field in rural Warren County, a largely poor area that was nearly 60 percent Black.

There, in a modest ranch house off Tower Road, lived a young Black mother of two named Dollie Burwell. Barely 30, she was already a fierce civil rights activist, raised by sharecroppers who had instilled in her an unwavering sense of right and wrong.

Her parents had hammered home a Bible verse that Burwell still quotes by heart: "And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"

Burwell said her mother "always made us believe we were the hands, the eyes, the feet of God on Earth." It wasn't enough to believe in justice; the scripture said to fight for it.

So Burwell assembled a small group of Black women to fight against the dump. Theyfeared it would contaminate groundwater, and make their community a magnet for future toxic waste disposal.

During a recent interview not far from the protest site, Burwell said her community was an easy target: "We were poor, we were Black and we were politically impotent."

But they were not silent.

The women organized gatherings at Coley Springs Baptist Church, a large brick and stained-glass building near the township of Afton. They "did the cooking and feeding the protesters and doing the fliers and passing out fliers and calling people to make sure we had people to participate," Burwell recalled.

As a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference founded by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Burwell "had the ability to call on people to come and march and go to jail with us." Civil rights titans came: the Rev. Joseph Lowery of the SCLC in Atlanta, and his wife, Evelyn; Walter Fauntroy, the delegate representing Washington, D.C., in Congress; and the Rev. Leon White, a field director for the United Church of Christ racial justice commission.

White also called Chavis, a member of the Wilmington 10 - nine Black men and a White woman wrongly convicted of a 1971 firebombing at a grocery store in Wilmington, N.C. After they spent years behind bars, their sentences were commuted in 1978. Years later, Gov. Bev Perdue (D) would pardon the group, saying the trial was infected by "naked racism." Investigators uncovered notes by the prosecutor showing he preferred jurors who were Ku Klux Klan members and that he described a Black juror as an "Uncle Tom type."

Just three years out of prison, Chavis believed he was still being closely watched by the state. He worried about being locked away again.

[ As in the '60s, protesters rally in Warren County]

But the women of Warren County had his back.

Over the six-week protest, women lay in the path of massive dump trucks beside men. Children often protested with their parents. More than 500 people were arrested, including Burwell, who was hauled away five times.

"A couple of times, I didn't even intend to get arrested," she said. "But you just saw the injustice in it all, and the next thing you know, you were blocking the trucks."

The struggle took a toll not only on Burwell, but also her 8-year-old daughter, who attended some of the protests.One day, "just as I was being put in the paddy wagon, I saw all the reporters around her," Burwell recalled. Bound in handcuffs, she saw her daughter in tears. "It just tore me up."

The protests failed to stop the landfill. On Sept. 15, 1982, the state began piling contaminated dirt into a 22-acre dump carved out of farmland.

Hunt vowed to oppose future landfills in the county and to detoxify the site as soon as technology to eliminate PCBs became available. But that would take decades.

In Warren County, a battle had been lost. But across America, the larger fight was just beginning.

'Toxic Wastes and Race'
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Vernice Miller-Travis

Helped shaped a pivotal summit in Washington

(Kyna Uwaeme for The Washington Post)

Nationaltelevision networks and major newspapers had covered the Warren County demonstration, a first for a Black environmental protest. Activists as far away as Alaska were paying attention.

In poor, racially segregated communities across the country, people had been quietly fighting pollution from rail yards, coal-fired power plants, sewage treatment facilities, oil and gas refineries, and concrete batch mills. They saw their own stories playing out in Warren County.

Charles Lee, a Chinese American researcher, traveled there from New Jersey. Later, he read a 1983 federal report commissioned by Fauntroy that showed that 3 out of 4 major landfills in the South were surrounded by Black communities. Lee suspected that environmental racism was more widespread.

"I said, 'We need to replicate this on a national scale,'" Lee recalled. With the backing of the United Church of Christ, he began to assemble the first major study of the environmental justice era, " Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States."

Published in 1987, the study found that "communities with greater minority percentages of the population are more likely to be the sites of commercial hazardous waste facilities." But the report does not use the term "environmental racism."

"The conversation we started having was about 'environmental racism,'" recalled Vernice Miller-Travis, who worked with Lee. "Because everybody was uncomfortable with racism, we called it 'environmental justice.' It's not accidental. It's all intentional."

For the report, Lee networked with hundreds of local activists. One was Richard Moore, a Latino in New Mexico. Moore was frustrated that mainstream, mostly White environmental groups were not fighting environmental racism, focusing instead on land use, climate change, general air quality and wildlife protections.

Several green groups were established by white supremacists. Sierra Club founder John Muir once described African Americans as lazy "Sambos" and Native Americans as "dirty." Madison Grant, a prominent early conservationist, argued for white supremacy in his book "The Passing of the Great Race, or The Racial Basis of European History" - a tome Adolf Hitler called "my bible."

[ Liberal, progressive - and racist? The Sierra Club faces its white supremacist roots.]

In March 1990, Moore and 90 activists fired off a letter to the National Wildlife Federation calling for more diversity.

"Although environmental organizations calling themselves the 'Group of Ten' often claim to represent our interests, in observing your activities it has become clear to us that your organizations play an equal role in the disruption of our communities," Moore wrote.

Once again, Lee saw an opportunity.

"Let's do something that really kind of makes a statement about the leadership that already exists in people across color communities on these environmental issues ... and use it as a way to coalesce a movement," he recalled thinking.

Lee pitched the idea for the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit. If 300 people showed up, organizers thought, it would be a success.

When the summit began on Oct. 24, 1991, at the Washington Court Hotel on Capitol Hill, about 1,000 peopleflooded into Washington.

"We sold out the hotel," Lee said.

'Taking charge of their destiny'

Beverly Wright

Took on polluters in "Cancer Alley"

(Camille Lenain for The Washington Post)

They came from Prince William Sound, Alaska, where the Exxon Valdez oil spill had ruined Native American fisheries; from Albuquerque, where open uranium mineswere emitting high levels of radiation; from Chicago, where power plant pollution had dirtied neighborhoods. They came from Houston, where garbage dumps were located next to Black communities.

Some of their homes had terrible names, such as the strand of tiny towns between New Orleans and Baton Rouge known as Cancer Alley.

On opening day, only organizations with people of color in executive positions were allowed to participate. Over the four-day summit, activists prayed into microphones in English and Sioux, Korean and Spanish, long prayers seeking deliverance from suffering.

"The summit was about people of color taking charge of their destiny," said Bullard, who had published "Dumping in Dixie," his groundbreaking book about the siting of toxic facilities in the South, a year earlier.

Among the attendees was civil rights legend Jesse Jackson, a gifted orator who had made remarkable bids to become the first Black presidential nominee for a major party in 1984 and 1988. Jackson had not been deeply involved with the environmental justice movement, but after sitting quietly and listening for portions of the summit, he finally spoke.

"Your challenge to the anemic character and the exclusivity and the elite policies of the essentially White environmental movement is right on time," Jackson said. "There can be no elite environmental movement. There must be a universal movement."

The roar that followed sounded like a battle cry.

At his home near Logan Circle, Lee keeps a 234-page synopsis of the conference proceedings, including 17 principles of environmental justice, which instructed participants "to carry back home and institute in all of our communities." The principles demand "respect and justice without discrimination," an end to the placement of polluting industries and toxic waste sites in communities of color, and accountability for polluters.

[ America will one day hear you: The 1991 environmental justice summit]

After the summit, activists saw some progress in Washington. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush established the first EPA Office of Environmental Justice. Two years later, President Bill Clinton signed an executive order creating an environmental justice working group.

But there was no action from Congress. Later, President George W. Bush weakened the office, proclaiming that it should advocate for all Americans rather than concentrating on racial minorities disproportionately affected by pollution.

In 2004, the EPA inspector general took issue with Bush's stance, and also found that the EPA had failed to incorporate environmental justice into its day-to-day decision-making. "It has not developed a clear vision or a comprehensive strategic plan," the inspector general said.

In 2008, President Barack Obama revived the office's original mission and put renewed focus on affected communities, though some activists argued the administration should have been more aggressive. President Donald Trump later tried to zero out the office's budget.

And then, in 2020, came a racial reckoning.

A Minneapolis police officer knelt on George Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes as onlookers recordedhis last moments.

A global pandemic preyed on Black, Latino and Indigenous people in polluted communities.

And a presidential candidate who spoke passionately about environmental injustice started to rise in the polls.

A daunting problem
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Peggy Shepard

Led protests for clean air in Harlem

(Courtney Garvin for The Washington Post)

It happened a lifetime ago, but Joe Biden still talks about it.

When he was 10 years old, Biden's family lived in the shadow of an oil refinery in Claymont, Del. On the ride to school, his mother, Catherine, sometimes switched on the windshield wipers "and there would be a slick in the window."

"That's why so many people in my state were dying and getting cancer," Biden recalled while campaigning last year. "The fact is, those front-line communities, it doesn't matter what you're paying them. It matters how you keep them safe."

As president, Biden has vowed to funnel 40 percent of relevant climate investments to disadvantaged communities. He has promised to weave environmental justice considerations into virtually every federal agency, and to issue a yearly scorecard that measures progress.

What will success look like? So far, the administration has not set clear goals.

[ Biden to place environmental justice at the center of a sweeping climate plan]

In a recent interview, White House domestic climate czar Gina McCarthy promised to make environmental justice activists "part of the decision-making." And EPA AdministratorMichael Regan, a former North Carolina official who established the state's first environmental justice and inequity advisory board, has called the issue "near and dear to my heart."

"We have a lot of ground to make up, and I'm sure that I will be back before this committee asking for additional resources in this area to be sure that allAmericans have access to clean air and clean water," Regan said during his confirmation hearing.

Activists are withholding judgment until they see results.

"You've got to make a commitment that you are going to clean up X number of landfills, and you are going to reduce pollution in X number of communities," said Peggy Shepard, co-founder and executive director of We Act for Environmental Justice in New York. "I'm impressed that these first steps have been out of the ordinary. But there are high hopes and high expectations."

Christy Goldfuss, a senior vice president for energy and environmental policy at the Center for American Progress, said Biden should emulate states such as California, where officials have targeted communities most in need of funding. "When you look at the fossil fuel infrastructure across the country," she said, "it becomes more obvious which communities bear the brunt of this industry."

Certain places stand out. The 85-mile chemical corridor along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans - home to 14 major manufacturing companies, including DuPont and Shell Chemical - is one example. The town of St. Gabriel alone is surrounded by 30 petrochemical plants, according to one analysis.

Another study, conducted the year of the Warren County protest, found that people who lived within a mile of factories in the corridor were more than four times as likely as the average American to develop lung cancer.

Miller-Travis hopes Biden can secure additional federal funding for environmental justice issues, so activists today won't have to endure the intimidation she felt as a Black woman asking White philanthropists for help in the late 1980s. She likened the experience to "taking an elevator to heaven to talk to God."

Some advocates worry that federal dollars could be diverted by less-committed officials at the state and local level. Mustafa Ali, who directed the environmental justice office in Obama's EPA, said, "It's going to take folks in the press watching and trying to hold people accountable."

Back in Warren County, a historical marker commemorating the protest that "sparked [the] environmental justice movement" now stands along the lonely stretch of road where Chavis was arrested.

On a recent afternoon, Burwell stood near the aging toxic waste site. "It was the first time that environmental issues had been looked at through the lens of civil rights," she said.

The marker doesn't tell the whole story. Warren County residentsnever stopped fighting the landfill. State and federal officials eventually spent more than $17 million on detoxification.

In 2004, more than 20 years after the protests started, Warren County finally was declared clean.

A historical marker now stands in Warren County where the PCB protests took place in 1982. (Brady Dennis/The Washington Post)

Darryl Fears is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter on the national staff who covers environmental justice. Over more than two decades at the Post, he has covered the Interior Department, the Chesapeake Bay, urban affairs and race & demographics. In that role, he helped conceptualize a multiple award-winning project, "Being A Black Man." Brady Dennis is a Pulitzer Prize-winning national reporter for The Washington Post, focusing on the environment and public health. He previously spent years covering the nation's economy.

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"I Can't Breathe" were George Floyd's dying words under a White police officer's knee. They eerily echo what Black, Latino, Native American and other non-White environmental justice activists have said for decades about choking pollution in their communities.

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Brunswick County Ranked Highest for PFA Contamination

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Brunswick County Ranked Highest for PFA Contamination

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Wilmington is also in the top five of nationwide sites tested by Environmental Working Group for 'forever chemicals'

A study from the Environmental Working Group tested tap water samples from 44 sites across the county in 2019. The results of that study, fully released at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, found Brunswick County had the highest level of PFAS contamination at 185.9 parts per trillion.

Wilmington, at 50.5 ppt, was also in the top five on the list that ranks 31 states and the District of Columbia for presence of these per- and polyfluoroalkyl compounds that includes PFOA, PFOS, GenX, and more than 600 others.

"This was a broader look at PFASs," said David Andrews, a senior scientist with the EWG, a non-profit focused on human health and the environment. The group wanted to expand on the testing and the types of testing that have been done in the past.

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"We found that there are places that need to act quickly to remove the contamination," he said. "It's a higher priority for those places higher on the list."

While the study found PFASs are present in rainwater and all major U.S. water supplies, locally the high levels are likely a result of the legacy of the Chemours facility in Fayetteville discharging these chemicals into the Cape Fear River.

Brunswick County's sample was collected from Belville Elementary School by the nonprofit group Clean Cape Fear, said Monica Amarelo, a spokesperson for EWG.

"This really puts our contamination in perspective, how it relates to the rest of the county," said Emily Donovan, with Clean Cape Fear. "It's alarming. We are still living in an area with an active problem."

Brunswick County's PFAS level also puts it above the level recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency, which is 70 ppt. Dr. Andrews said, however, that the EWG recommended level is much lower, 1 ppt. PFAS are known as "forever chemicals" because they do not break down and can build up in blood and organs.

"Studies show that the level in blood can be 100 times the level in water," he said.

Only a few locations in the study, including Seattle and Tuscaloosa, Ala., showed levels of PFAS under 1 ppt.

The samples were collected by staff or volunteers between May and December 2019 and analyzed by an independent laboratory for 30 different PFAS chemicals.

Brunswick County Public Utilities and Cape Fear Public Utility Authority both regularly test samples for PFAS as well. In fact, CFPUA tests for more than 40 PFAS compounds.

Samples show that levels of PFASs in the Cape Fear River can fluctuate significantly over time, said Vaughn Hagerty, spokesperson for CFPUA. But this contamination will likely be a local issue for some time.

Hagerty said CFPUA is taking steps to reduce PFAS and began a $43 million project in November to build eight new deep-bed granular activated carbon filters at its Sweeney Water Treatment Plant.

"We're taking these steps to address a problem caused by Chemours and DuPont during their years of profitable operation upriver from us," he said. "We believe Chemours and DuPont should be paying for the costs to address the problems they caused."

Dr. Andrews agrees.

"In some cases, action needs to be taken soon and the cost should be paid by the polluter," he said.

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Brunswick County tops national list for PFAS contamination

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Wilmington is also in the top five of nationwide sites tested by Environmental Working Group for 'forever chemicals' A study from the Environmental Working Group tested tap water samples from 44 sites across the county in 2019. The results of that study, fully released at 12:01 a.m.

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ILM Ranks highest among US Cities for Cleanest Air

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ILM Ranks highest among US Cities for Cleanest Air

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North Carolina is home to one of the least polluted cities in the country, a new air pollution study finds.

Wilmington was included on a list of places with the lowest levels of harmful particles in the air, according to a report released Tuesday from the American Lung Association.

To come up with its list, the association says it examined data from 2016 to 2018 for potential dangers in the air. The study weighed particle pollution, caused by wildfires and other events, as well as ozone pollution, which is sometimes called smog.

Across the country, the American Lung Association says more restrictions are needed to keep people healthy. California cities dominated the list of most polluted spots in the United States, results show.

In North Carolina, the story is a bit different.

Wilmington, near the coast, was the only city in the state to earn top rankings in all air quality categories, according to the American Lung Association.

For the ninth year in a row, the Charlotte metro area was among the cleanest for "short-term particle pollution," results show. In the same category, the Asheville region tied at 31st worst in the country, likely due to drought or wildfires, the association said in a news release.

Also, "Wilmington, Fayetteville, Lumberton, Sanford, Hickory, Lenoir, Morganton, New Bern, Morehead City, Rocky Mount, Wilson, and Roanoke Rapids recorded zero unhealthy air days and were named to the cleanest cities list for ozone pollution," the news release said.

It's not the first time that the report, called "State of the Air," has given a nod to Wilmington.

In 2019, the city was tied for the No. 13 spot for cleanest air in the country, the Wilmington Star News reported.

Though Wilmington may have low air pollution, it lies on the Cape Fear River, which has high levels of dangerous chemicals called "per- and polyfluoroalkyl" substances (PFAS).

This year, other areas joining Wilmington in the lung association's national top four rankings include Bangor, Maine; Honolulu, Hawaii; and the region near Burlington, Vermont.

The results were released during the coronavirus pandemic. Though experts say pollution can increase the likelihood of some respiratory infections, precautions to protect against the spread have led to cleaner air, McClatchy News reported.

This story was originally published April 21, 2020 3:21 PM.

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This North Carolina city has some of the cleanest air in the US, study finds

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North Carolina is home to one of the least polluted cities in the country, a new air pollution study finds. Wilmington was included on a list of places with the lowest levels of harmful particles in the air, according to a report released Tuesday from the American Lung Association.

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Hiding in Hunger Food Insecurity in North Carolina

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Visit NC Farms app helping in fight against food and nutrition insecurity

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Virtual Roundtable - Wilmington area food insecurity experts

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Greg Casaletto inside one of the freezers at the Food Bank's distribution facility in Wilmington. "Before [the Covid-19 pandemic], we'd get 800 pounds of meat from grocery stores [per day]. After this started, we get maybe 250 to 300 pounds, some days 40 to 50 pounds," Casaletto said. (Port City Daily photo/Mark Darrough)

WILMINGTON - Since the pandemic forced massive economic shutdowns in March, leaders of more than 40 food assistance agencies have held weekly internet conference meetings to address the rising demand among the groups they serve, and others who are seeking food assistance for the first time in their lives.

Sarah Daniels, a former director for Feast Down East who now runs her own food insecurity consultancy company, leads the meetings every Wednesday as head of the Cape Fear Food Council (CFCC).
RELATED: Virtual roundtable: Food insecurity expands its reach due to Covid-19
Two troubling trends have become apparent in the past two months, she said. First, a health crisis that has killed more than 100,000 Americans has further deepened underlying disparities of what is already a chronic issue in the Wilmington area. While the needs for school children were addressed relatively quickly, a group that has most often "fallen through the cracks," according to Daniels, is low-income seniors who face a larger risk of contracting the coronavirus while using public transportation they rely on to shop for groceries.

Second, with about 955,000 North Carolinians applying for unemployment since mid-March, many people who have lost their jobs are now "having to make the choice between food versus other expenses," according to Daniels.

"It's both illuminated and deepened an existing crisis and added another layer of complexity to it," Daniels said.

Beth Gaglione, the Wilmington branch director of the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, said she met a 65-year-old man through one of her partner agencies who mentioned that he hadn't been jobless since he was eight years old.

"And it is hard for [people like him] to come forward and ask for the kind of help they need right now," Gaglione said. "We've seen enormous increases in requests for support with food stamp applications at the Food Bank, to the degree that we've had to pull many, many staff off of what they normally do ... to help with those efforts."

To understand how the pandemic has exposed an issue that is not publicly discussed as often as it should be, according to Daniels, one must first see how it caused far-reaching disruptions to the national and local food supply chain.

Decreased demand meant less meat, dairy, produce

Empty meat shelves at the Harris Teeter on Oleander and Independence Blvd. on March 17, an hour after Governor Roy Cooper issued a statewide stay-at-home order. (Port City Daily photo/Mark Darrough)

Dr. Jill Waity is a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington who studies food insecurity. Nationally, she has observed dairy farmers dumping milk while vegetable and fruit farmers plow under healthy crops because the widespread closure of restaurants, hotels, and schools ravaged the food market.

Meat processing and packaging plants across the nation began suspending operations due to workers contracting the virus. In the Cape Fear region, even small meat processors faced severe bottlenecks. Juliann Janies of Red-Tailed Farm in Burgaw told WECT that she was "facing record high demands for my products and without getting my meat legally inspected and processed, packaged, I can't get it to my customers."

The pandemic's agricultural impact was devastating in a region where farmers were hoping for their first full, healthy harvest year since Hurricane Florence, according to Cara Stretch from Feast Down East.

"Florence hit in the fall of 2018, so that impacted their ability to grow in all of 2019 as well," Stretch said.

On April 17, a month after North Carolina's governor closed restaurants for dine-in service (along with many other businesses), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it would purchase up to $3 billion in fresh produce, dairy, and meat products. By May 15, it said it would begin distributing family-sized boxes to banks and other nonprofits.

"That took longer than those of us who work in food insecurity were hoping ... Farmers had been clamoring for someone to do something about this, so they didn't have to waste their food," Waity said.

According to Politico, industry leaders and lawmakers urged USDA to make the move in March, which they said acted far too slow in connecting the surplus with a surging demand that stemmed from the highest unemployment figures ever recorded.

Meanwhile, grocery stores began running out of meat, produce, toilet paper, and cleaning products as Americans rushed to gather food and supplies amid the uncertainty of how long stay-at-home orders would last, including stores in Wilmington.

Gaglione said that before USDA stepped in, the Food Bank suffered from a lack of supply from its normal suppliers, mainly local grocery stores and distributors.

"For weeks and weeks, [Sarah Daniels], myself and others in the community were getting calls from food distributors that were desperate to find a place, a home, for their food," she said. "As much as they would've liked to donate it to food banks, Feast Down East, and anyone who would be willing to distribute it, they were struggling with the loss that they would take on that product."

Although she has seen shortages of meat and produce in the past, she was surprised to see products like broccoli missing from the produce aisles of local grocery stores. She said her team has heard that such items - those that are traditionally accessible - will likely be scarce for the next 12 months.

"When they can't get it, it's a sure signal that others of us who are trying to access food for other reasons are having major difficulties accessing some of those items," Gaglione said.

Walking out of one of the freezers at the Food Bank's Wilmington distribution facility near South 16th Street, Operations Supervisor Greg Casaletto said that before the pandemic, they'd receive on average about 800 pounds of meat per day from local grocery stores.

"Now we get maybe 250 to 300 pounds [a day], somedays 40 to 50 pounds," Casaletto said.

Although the USDA program has increased the supply of meat, he said many food assistance agencies are not qualified to receive it.

'Falling through the cracks'

In early April, shoppers leave the Walmart Supercenter near College and Market Road as others wait in line to enter. Local food insecurity experts say low-income elderly, immunocompromised, African American, and Latin communities are most exposed to the challenges of buying healthy food. (Port City Daily photo/Mark Darrough)

"One of the biggest concerns is: Who's out there falling through the cracks who we don't know about?" Daniels asked.

Although the New York Times reported that only 15 percent of eligible children had received benefits approved by Congress to replace school meals by May 15, it said North Carolina was one of two southern states that acted quickly distributing funds. This was also true in Wilmington, according to Gaglione, but low-income elderly and immunocompromised communities did not receive the same attention.

"It seemed like the immediate response of our community was very heavily focused on children. And that was fantastic, but there didn't seem to be a really strong coming together to help seniors in our community in any significant way," Gaglione said.

Daniels has observed that the issue is compounded for senior citizens because much of the Covid-19 response is technology-dependent.

"It's one thing to ask a neighbor to get you groceries, but if you're social distancing or don't have people to rely on, using an app or an online ordering system - those challenges are very real," Daniels said.

She said many low-income seniors are forced to make a difficult decision: use public transportation like WAVE Transit bus routes to buy food, further exposing a vulnerable group to the risks of contracting the virus. On top of that, much of the food offered by food pantries are packaged in boxes and cans, difficult for older people to make meals from.

Stretch said safe food access for the disabled and immunocompromised population - including those of all ages with diabetes, cancer, and genetic immune deficiencies - had also been inadequately addressed by the community.

She believes the neighborhoods that Feast Down East has traditionally addressed already struggle with accessibility issues because transportation to a grocery store is a challenge.

"But now that people are out of work, it's even harder. Not only are they struggling to get somewhere, but now they don't have the money to pay for it either," Stretch said.

The USDA identifies six food deserts in New Hanover County, one in Brunswick County, and one covering a large portion of western Pender County. (Port City Daily/Courtesy USDA Economic Research Service)

She said the public transportation hurdle is particularly prevalent for those who live in the Wilmington Housing Authority communities located in 'food deserts,' defined by the USDA as low-access and low-income neighborhoods located at least one mile from a grocery store in urban areas and at least 10 miles away for rural communities. In these food deserts, at least 20 percent of the population live in poverty or their family income is less than 80 percent of the median income for their area.

According to the USDA's latest data, there are six food deserts in New Hanover County, two in Brunswick County, and one covering the western portion of Pender County. In early 2018, New Hanover County Manager Chris Coudriet estimated roughly 16,000 Wilmington residents live in a food desert.

Nick Pylypiw, director of data science for the Cape Fear Collective, said that number has risen to 26,170 Wilmington residents.

Stretch said that Latino communities like migrant farm workers in Pender County are also facing exacerbated challenges to food access because of the pandemic. This arises from a hesitation to access public assistance due to a lack of proper documentation, language barriers, transportation issues in rural areas, or not owning smartphones or computers to access information.

In addition, there are fewer relief agencies in rural areas due to the sparse geographic disbursement of a rural population.

Volunteer Pam Whitlock loads a family food box with cereal, pepper, and other dry food items at the Food Bank in Wilmington on Wednesday. (Port City Daily photo/Mark Darrough)

The pandemic's long-term effects

The pandemic's impact on vulnerable families will be long-lasting, just as it has been after recent hurricanes and the Great Recession, according to Dr. Waity.

When she was researching the economic impact of the recession on food insecurity in 2012, four years after the government bailed out big banks, she found that food bank workers were still experiencing its lingering impacts.

"It's really important for us to realize that, once this is over and they develop a vaccine and everything, there will be ripple effects with the economy and food insecurity," Waity said. "This year was the first year the food insecurity rate finally dipped below the rate [that existed] before the recession in 2008. And now it'll be back up again."

Gaglione said the pandemic has created so much job loss, with so many employees let go or furloughed, those ripples could last for years.

"Whether it's six weeks of no work, eight weeks of no work, 12 weeks of no work, or just less work, when you're trying to live on $25,000 a year and feeding four people, that is not easy to recover on," Gaglione said.

For Daniels, the health crisis has forced organizations like the CFFC and Food Bank to put bandaids on the issue during a crisis, but in the long-term, community leaders need to evaluate the conditions that are creating these vulnerabilities. There needs to be more conversations around supporting small business and restructuring agriculture at the federal level "to make it a more fair game," she said.

She said public health experts in the community are doing well in highlighting Covid-19's disproportionate impact on black people across the country. (A study by scientists at John Hopkins' University, Emory University, and the University of Mississippi showed counties with large black populations accounted for 58 percent of coronavirus deaths nationally.)

Not only is food insecurity among low-income populations exacerbated by the health crisis, but the increasing disparities in access to healthy food in turn increases those populations' vulnerabilities to Covid-19.

Boxes of apples are loaded onto a truck at the Food Bank distribution facility in Wilmington, bound for a Leland-Navassa area nonprofit called Town Creek Vision. (Port City Daily photo/Mark Darrough)

"We know that when folks are low-income and have other risk factors, that food insecurity is a contributing factor that can make people more vulnerable to a virus or add stress to their overall situation," Daniels said.

Send comments and tips to the reporter at Mark@Localvoicemedia.com, @markdarrough on Twitter, and (970) 413-3815

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Deep Dive: Covid-19's long-term impact on Wilmington-area food insecurity [Free] | Port City Daily

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WILMINGTON - Since the pandemic forced massive economic shutdowns in March, leaders of more than 40 food assistance agencies have held weekly internet conference meetings to address the rising demand among the groups they serve, and others who are seeking food assistance for the first time in their lives.

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nCino Develops Food Bank Facility in ILM

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nCino Develops Food Bank Facility in ILM

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Wilmington-based nCino is donating $1 million to the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina, which will help develop the food bank's new facility named nCino Hunger Solutions Center at 1000 Greenfield St., according to a press release Wednesday.

The $1 million donation will be distributed over a five-year period and will help the food bank "expand its food relief efforts and ensure substantial growth in its nutrition services, food access and distribution throughout southeastern North Carolina," the release stated.

"For decades, the food bank at Wilmington has been a pillar of support for this community in the fight against food insecurity, and we're proud to broaden our partnership to support their important work," said Zedrick Applin, program manager of diversity, equity, inclusion and community at nCino, in the release. "As a company that has been based in Wilmington for nearly a decade, we're committed to giving back to impactful community institutions and supporting our neighbors throughout the region."

The new facility will be about 35,000 square feet, or almost three times larger than the food bank's current facility, and will accommodate the distribution of an additional 4.2 million pounds of food annually, a 37% increase in the overall distribution, according to the release. In 2020, Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina purchased 1000 Greenfield St. from Cameron Management Inc. for $375,000.

The nCino Hunger Solutions Center, slated to have a groundbreaking this year and to open in 2022, will also work with community partners to offer programming in workforce development opportunities and health education, a community garden and a teaching kitchen where meals can be prepared.

Jennifer Caslin, marketing and project manager with the food bank, said this expansion will allow the organization to be more resilient and better able to respond to emergencies such as hurricanes.

The new facility will replace the current one at 1314 Marstellar St., a location the food bank has operated in since 1990, Caslin said.

Construction of the new facility is a critical step toward bolstering the food bank's capacities to address urgent food insecurity throughout Brunswick, Columbus, New Hanover and Pender counties in North Carolina, the release stated.

The Wilmington food bank has provided more than 150 million pounds of food across its service area since 2002, an investment valued at nearly $200 million. The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting unemployment increased food access need in the community, with an estimated 35% increase in visits to food bank partner food pantries.

"The pandemic has clearly shown that food insecurity is a defined reality for thousands in our community," said Beth Gaglione, Wilmington branch director at the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina, n the release. "Insufficient space has prevented us from increasing our efforts to nourish more people and build solutions to end hunger. With nCino's generous partnership and support, we are one huge step closer to bringing our new facility to life and bolstering our ability to help those most in need in our community."

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nCino donates $1M to develop local food bank's new facility | WilmingtonBiz

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Wilmington-based nCino is donating $1 million to the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina, which will help develop the food bank's new facility named nCino Hunger Solutions Center at 1000 Greenfield St., according to a press release Wednesday.