Larry Lowery and his wife have grown accustomed to losing their appetites when odor from the Robeson County landfill wafts into their home in St. Pauls.
Sometimes, especially on hot and humid days, the stench clings to their noses and they get headaches. Meal times are often interrupted.
“It makes you sick to your stomach,” said Lowery, who has lived on Toot Toot Street since 1983. “Just put it like this: You want to vomit. That’s ugly isn’t it?”
Neighbors have complained for years about the stink from Robeson County’s only landfill that spans 537 acres. Despite their pleas, county commissioners have agreed at least twice since 2017 to expand the dump, which accepts trash from Bladen, Cumberland, Hoke, Scotland and other counties.
But the foul odor and noisy garbage trucks aren’t the only concern. The landfill has more PFAS than any other in North Carolina, according to sampling data in March from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. PFAS, often called “forever chemicals” because they do not break down easily, have been linked to cancer, decreased fertility and other health issues.
Maia Hutt, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, urged Robeson County commissioners on Monday to delay a vote on whether to expand the landfill by 35 acres. More testing should be done to understand the extent of PFAS contamination in drinking water in the area, she said.
“Without more information,” Hutt said, “it would not be appropriate to move forward today.”
The board agreed. It was the second delay, after the commissioners took no action in May when about 75 people showed up to oppose the expansion plan.
Lance Herndon, vice chairman of the board who made the motion to delay the vote Monday, said county leaders must find a solution.
“We have to do something with our trash,” he said. “I think we all don’t want everybody going back to burning the trash in their backyard.”
PFAS Assessment Plan
In November, the N.C. Department of Waste Management sent the Robeson County solid waste department a letter warning of high contamination levels. It said the county must “take immediate action to terminate and control the discharge, and mitigate any hazards resulting from exposure to the pollutants.”
The county responded with a PFAS Assessment Plan on May 30. As part of the plan, Robeson County began testing private wells within 1,500 feet of the landfill last month, Cody Hunt, an environmental consultant, told commissioners on Monday. Three wells have been tested so far, he said, and he hopes more residents will sign up for testing. A final report will be completed in December.
Many of the chemicals found near the landfill are known carcinogens, including benzene and vinyl chloride, that can cause a slew of health problems like liver damage and a weakened immune system, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center. Other heavy metals like arsenic and chromium were also found when the state began testing two years ago.
Hutt said the landfill still needs to answer for more than a dozen environmental violations from the state over the last six years related to not managing stormwater properly and letting flood water come into contact with waste.
The Southern Environmental Law Center is also worried about PFAS in the Big Marsh Swamp, which runs south of the landfill and feeds into the Lumber River and other wetlands in the area.
Chemical companies Chemours, DuPont, and Kuraray have been dumping waste into Robeson’s landfill for at least the last eight years. The most recent receipt shows 7.28 tons of waste from Kuraray and Chemours that was dumped on June 24, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Hutt estimated that more than 5,000 tons of landfill waste has come from the Chemours’ Fayetteville Works plant in the last eight years.
Former North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, who is now the governor, sued Chemours and DuPont in October 2020 “to hold them accountable for how their manufacture, use, and disposal of PFAS have polluted North Carolina’s drinking water and other natural resources.”
Researchers at N.C. State University said in a GenX Exposure Study published in March that dust containing PFAS has been detected in homes Bladen and Cumberland counties. PFAS was also found in the air, waste, soil and blood of those tested. They sampled 65 homes.
“We know that PFAS is in the leachate in the landfill,” Hutt said Monday. “We know that the PFAS is present in the highest numbers measured at any landfill in the entire state, in the groundwater under this landfill.”
Lowery said he worries toxic chemicals are “poisoning” the drinking water.
“The landfill is just as deadly as drugs,” he said, “or the drugs are just as deadly as the landfill.”
EPA Regulations
Myron Neville, director of public utilities for Robeson County, told commissioners on Monday that his department plans to use an activated carbon filter to filter PFAS from the water system.
Under the Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency wants to roll back PFAS regulations. This month, the agency said it no longer wants to require polluting facilities to report emissions data.
Sybll Farr, who lives near the landfill, said county leaders should focus on the health of local residents and not base their decisions on PFAS regulations that come and go.
“The EPA and other government standards are not what should be the priority for our commissioners,” she said. “The health of their constituents and long-term economic impact of their decisions on future development in this area should guide them.”
Viv Tolson, who still lives in her childhood home near the landfill, said she is used to seeing buzzards circling her yard. When the smell is really bad, she wears a mask to tend to her garden. It’s a shame, she said, because she enjoys breathing in the land around her.
Apple trees, grape vines and peaches grow on her patio. In the backyard, a row of magenta and teal lantanas sprout from pots, leading to a greenhouse. The flowers attract butterflies and help tame the smell of rotting trash.
Tolson’s father was also passionate about gardening and planted an apple tree in the yard when she was young. The tree used to produce at least 50 apples during peak season, she said. Now it sprouts about half as many, and some of the apples are filled with maggots.
Tolson said many of her neighbors have died from serious illnesses, including cancer.
“We’re supposed to be able to count on the water we drink,” she said, “but I still believe there’s some of the chemicals in there.”