((PKG))  35th AVENUE SUPERFUND SITE
((Banner:  Living on Polluted Land))
((Reporter/Camera:  Gabrielle Weiss))
((Map:  Birmingham, Alabama))

 ((Popup Banner:  
The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Superfund 
program is responsible for cleaning up some of the nation's 
most contaminated land.
The 35th Avenue Superfund site is located in North 
Birmingham, Alabama.))
((NATS)) 
((Keisha Brown, Resident of Harriman Park))
My name is Keisha Brown.  I live in the Harriman Park 
community in North Birmingham.  This area was declared a 
Superfund site about 5 or 6 years ago or even longer and 
the government declared it because there is so much 
pollution and toxins.  We used to have grocery stores out 
here, a café.  It was a thriving community and then people 
started dying out, getting sick and we didn’t know what they 
would get sick of until recently we found out a lot of our 
people die cancers and respiratory problems, skin disorders.  
I mean, everything you can name, people have it out here.  
Right now, I have to take two inhalers.  This is my life every 
day.  Most of people in our community have to function on 
medicine every day just to make it.
((Popup Banner:  To date, EPA has remediated over 440 
properties and more than 58,000 tons of contaminated soil 
have been excavated from the 35th Avenue Superfund site.))
((NATS)) 
((Keisha Brown, Resident of Harriman Park))
Well, you’re going to see this big mountain of mineral pile 
that’s across the street here.  It’s been there for about 18 or 
19 years and it’s toxic.  A couple of times, it caught on fire by 
itself.  We don’t know how it caught on fire but it caught on 
fire.  I live right there and here is the coal plant, the cement 
plant and the railroad yard, right there.  You see how close it 
is to my house?
((NATS)) 
((Keisha Brown, Resident of Harriman Park))
They dug up and tested my soil.  This little part right here, 
this little section right here, that’s where they dug up, right 
here.  And when they did that, they said, I had eleven out of 
fifteen chemicals but only, it wasn’t clean up level.  So, they 
didn’t replace my soil.  They just left it like it was because it 
wasn’t clean up level.  They just tested my neighbor’s front 
yard and side yard and said, it was the highest level of 
chemicals in the whole community and they replaced it with 
some soil, the front and the side but they didn’t do the 
backyard.  This is my neighbor.  We grew up together.  
We’re like family and we’ve been going through this for 
years.  You can hear his point.
((Dennis Moore Jr., Resident of Harriman Park))
This kind of dirt, whatever the chemicals…..
((Keisha Brown, Resident of Harriman Park))
Itchy dirt…..
((Dennis Moore Jr., Resident of Harriman Park))
We used to have it all in our yards.  We used to play in it. 
And then, we had to go in to take a bath.  It used to burn so 
much because you’d have to get all the chemicals out of 
your skin.  That’s why we used to call it, when we was 
young, we used to call it ‘itchy dirt’ and stuff.  That’s the way 
we used to call it.  My grandma said, ‘Don’t go out there and 
play in that dirt’.  And we used to be, you know, as kids, we 
were hard-headed.  We’d go out here and play in it.  And like 
I said, when you’d take a bath, oh my goodness, it burned so 
much.
((NATS)) 
((Dennis Moore Jr., Resident of Harriman Park))
I had a tumor removed off my pituitary glands and I don’t 
know where it come from.  We have never had that in our 
family or anything, so I don’t know where it come from.
((Keisha Brown, Resident of Harriman Park))
But now, we’re finding out a lot of people out here having 
those problems like he had.  They’re saying the chemicals 
causes brain cancer and tumors.  He didn’t know he had it in 
his head ever since he was a child and he didn’t even know 
it.
((Dennis Moore Jr., Resident of Harriman Park))
It’s mainly my mom.  She’s sick now and she can barely like 
breathe and she got COPD, the asthma.  And I believe it 
comes from being out here in this atmosphere.
((Keisha Brown, Resident of Harriman Park))
My community’s my family and you’re not going to ruin my 
family.  You’re not going to hurt my family.  When my family 
hurt, I hurt.
((Dennis Moore Jr., Resident of Harriman Park))
They’re supposed to have dug the bad dirt up and replaced it 
with dirt, some more dirt that was supposed to be clean dirt.  
But I’m still saying, if the front part is high contamination, that 
means our house is sitting on top of that too.  So, we’re still 
getting sick behind that.  I don’t see how they can say that 
it’s safe to live out here in this environment.
((Keisha Brown, Resident of Harriman Park))
It’s just like we’re invisible.  And I get tired of people who tell 
me they care.  They don’t care.  No, they don’t.  If they 
cared, they would come and see the needs of the people.
((NATS))
((Keisha Brown, Resident of Harriman Park))
How can you clean something up when it’s constantly falling 
and we’re still getting sick?
((Keisha Brown, Resident of Harriman Park))
I have to read them every day.  They help me through 
situations.  Without God, I don’t know how we would make it.
((Popup Banner:
Since the filming of this video, Mr. Moore's mother passed 
away.
Under current conditions, EPA anticipates that cleanup 
activities will be completed by 2023.))


TEASE  ((VO/NAT))
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Studying Climate Change
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I feel this sense of excitement and trepidation because we’re 
about to get it into space and collect the data and get it 
moving.