Written by Stel Bailey | A contributor dedicated to sharing stories of resilience, advocacy, and the human spirit.
Suburban parents, rural residents, retirees, and young survivors stepped forward one by one, their voices carrying the weight of communities scarred by coal ash. They spoke before the crowd about poisoned wells, scarred landscapes, and the cancers that had stolen neighbors and children, all reminders of a legacy of contamination ignored for far too long. Bound together by betrayal and neglect, they stood not just to share their grief but to demand that the silence of those sworn to protect public health finally come to an end.
The Weight of Neglect
For decades, families like these have shouldered the work the Environmental Protection Agency and state health departments should have done, tracing cancer clusters, uncovering toxins, and connecting dots between industry negligence and human suffering. Instead, the agencies charged with protecting them often deferred to corporations allowed to self-report spills, manipulate data, and influence policy.
The consequences are staggering. According to Consumer Reports, more than 25 million Americans drink from the country’s worst water systems. Few realize how vulnerable they are, how many contaminants remain unregulated, or how fragile the nation’s infrastructure has become. The reality is that contamination is not an anomaly like Hinkley, California—the “Erin Brockovich” town—it is everywhere, seeping quietly into tap water, soil, and air.
The Poison of Coal Ash
Among the gravest threats is coal ash, the toxic residue from burning coal in power plants. Laden with mercury, arsenic, lead, and thallium, it is capable of inflicting heart damage, lung disease, kidney failure, reproductive harm, and cancer. Yet despite its dangers, the EPA has refused to classify coal ash as hazardous waste. Officially, it is treated no differently than household trash.
The ash is often mixed with water and dumped into ponds, which almost inevitably leak. Nearly every coal-burning power plant in the United States has contaminated nearby groundwater. The poison spreads silently, trickling through aquifers, flowing into streams, infiltrating wells.
A Mother’s Relentless Fight
For Susan Wind, a mother from Mooresville, North Carolina, these facts became painfully real when her teenage daughter Taylor was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. She was not alone. Taylor was one of 110 people in their community to receive the same diagnosis. Susan remembers the scars, the children marked ear to ear across their throats from surgeries that should never have been necessary.
Her grief hardened into resolve. With a background in criminal justice, Susan treated her town like a case file. She raised more than $100,000 to fund a Duke University study, tracked down cancer diagnoses, and uncovered the unthinkable: coal ash from a nearby power plant had been used as soil substitute in construction projects, with more than 40,000 tons spread beside her daughter’s high school.
She pressed officials, demanded answers, and was dismissed at every turn. The EPA itself acknowledges that living near coal ash sites increases cancer risk, yet has failed to act. “With the EPA on the sidelines,” Susan said, “well-connected companies with lots of cash have the final say regarding what is safe in your backyard.” Eventually, she moved her family to Florida, but she never abandoned the fight. Instead, she built networks with other advocates across the country, mothers and fathers who recognized the same pattern of denial in their own towns.
Dr. Edward Marshall speaking at Freedom Plaza. Image by John Nelson
The Chorus of Experts
Others have joined this fight, lending their voices and expertise. Dr. Edward Marshall, a recently retired Duke University professor, has lived in Chapel Hill for more than three decades. He now leads opposition to a proposal to build housing atop 60,000 tons of coal ash, warning of the dangers such development would bring, particularly to low-income communities of color that bear the brunt of environmental injustice.
Chris Nidel, once a chemical engineer, saw coworkers fall ill with rare cancers and traced the cause to contaminants leaking beneath a plant. Outraged by the indifference of the company, he became an environmental attorney. His cases now span cancer clusters, unsafe landfills, and toxic water systems, his career fueled by the realization that profit too often outweighs human life.
Lisa Evans, an attorney with Earthjustice, has spent years specializing in hazardous waste law. A leading voice on coal ash, she has testified before Congress and the National Academies of Science, warning that unchecked contamination threatens not only ecosystems but the survival of entire communities. “Pollution from coal ash dumps can devastate communities,” she has said, and the families at Freedom Plaza were living proof of those words.
The Gathering in Freedom Plaza
As the day wore on, the plaza hummed with both urgency and solidarity. Survivors embraced strangers as kin. Parents knelt to explain to children why they were there, careful to shield them from the heaviest details. The stage became a place where individual tragedies wove into a collective story, one of neglect, resistance, and determination.
Each testimony built on the last. Together, they revealed a pattern that stretched across states and decades: agencies that failed, industries that hid, and communities forced to fight alone. Yet the gathering itself was proof of transformation. What had once been isolated voices of grief and suspicion was now a movement with reach and resolve.
The advocates wanted coal ash to be recognized for what it is: hazardous waste. They wanted water systems cleaned and monitored, disease clusters investigated, and accountability delivered not to corporations but to the people who had borne the cost. As the sun dipped behind the federal buildings, the mood remained resolute. This was not the end of a march or a protest but the continuation of a fight too important to abandon.
Chemical engineer and environmental Attorney Chris Nidel speaking at Freedom Plaza. Image by John Nelson
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| Chemical engineer and environmental Attorney Chris Nidel speaking at Freedom Plaza. Image by John Nelson |
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| Left to right: Lisa Evans, Steven Donziger, and Susan Wind |