The cat is out of the bag or should we say the SKUNK IS OUT OF THE BAG! The Rattlesnake Alliance has repeatedly asked the media to expose the blatant environmental racist attack on Perry County, Alabama, one of Americas s poorest and blackest counties. The details of this dark and shameful attempt to secretly site and construct a MEGA LANDFILL in this poor area have finally been exposed to the light of day.

The Alabama Department of Environmental Management (www.adem.state.al.us) has posted in the public notice section of their web site PUBLIC NOTICE —422 PERRY COUNTY ASSOCIATES LANDFILL (Proposed Permit 53-03). Although the citizens of Perry County and Alabama have had no other notification of this 1000+ acre landfill, citizens have only until DECEMBER 27th, 2002 to comment and ask ADEM to hold a public hearing. Without a public hearing ADEM’s rubberstamp of approval means up to 7500 TONS OF WASTE PER DAY will be headed our way. This waste won’t be coming just from the local area but from NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY, PENNSYLVANIA, RHODE ISLAND, DELAWARE, KENTUCKY, LOUISIANA, FLORIDA, GEORGIA, MISSISSIPPI, TENNESSEE, SOUTH CAROLINA, NORTH CAROLINA, VIRGINIA, and WEST VIRGINIA.

A review of the permit application and related documents indicates a deal has been made between Perry County Associates (a Georgia based front company headed by Mr. Larry Mathews), ADEM, and the Historical Commission of Alabama to build the MEGA LANDFILL at the location of an old cotton plantation near Uniontown. Documents also make reference to a lost SLAVE CEMETERY on the same property where the landfill is to be constructed.

What will be the environmental effects of dumping 7500 TONS OF WASTE A DAY on a poor rural community? What will happen to the groundwater and environment of the area? Will the graves of slaves who worked on this cotton plantation be desecrated and destroyed? Will our Historic Voting Rights Trail be the conduit for 7500 TONS OF WASTE A DAY? What will the enrollments of Marion Institute and Judson College be after Perry County becomes America~s Dumping Ground? Why have our county and state leaders allowed this MEGA

LANDFILL to go forward In total secrecy without any public notice or public input?

By targeting a poor primarily black community the developers apparently hoped to permit and build a MEGA LANDFILL that would forever change the local environment without even informing the local citizenry much less gaining their consent. This is environmental racism at its worst. Our county and state are going to be overrun by out of state waste and our citizens don’t even know it is coming.

To date the citizens of this state have had no idea that the direction of future economic development for central Alabama is being decided by out of state environmental racists who could care less about real jobs and sustainable development and are hell bent on once again making Alabama the nation’s dumping ground.

Perry County Associates Is apparently the front company for Waste Management, the nation’s largest toxin hauler and dumper. The Perry County AssociatesLandfill is only the first step in the toxin dumper’s plans to construct a MEGA INCINERATOR in Alabama. If the Perry County Associates Landfill is permitted by ADEM, this deadly MEGA INCINERATOR will eventually be sited on the same property.

We urge you to review the ADEM documents, to ask our local, state, and national officials why the public has been kept In the dark, and to question those who place personal greed above the sustainable development of this state. The out of state fat cat landfill developers and toxin dumpers will take millions and millions of dollars out of Alabama and the citizens of this state and future generations will be left with millions and millions of tons of out of state waste and deadly toxic incineration plumes spreading across Alabama resulting in an incalculable toll of disease, death, and suffering.

These unfolding events go way beyond environmental racism. It is HUMAN RACISM.

The Alabama Department of Environmental MisManagement does not want a public hearing on this matter. The people of this state must demand a hearing and demand to know the truth. The toxin dumpers and burners can be stopped if we unite as citizens for the public good and the welfare of our children and grandchildren.