chapter 561

June 26, 2020

Housing

your home can be your castle

While in the Army at Fort Gordon (or maybe Fort George Floyd in this upside down world of black is white, white is black, everything you know is wrong) a few soldiers rented a house so we could feel like civilians. I borrowed wig from roommate here. We were south of Augusta and north of the Gordon Highway (will they rename that racist road) and a few blocks to 1931 Tubman Home Road (might could rename because Emily Tubman was plantation slaveowner ,yet remarkable abolitionist ). It was relatively cheap but just a mile from the ghetto of Hyde Park which was one of the neighborhoods where colored people (negros, or blacks) were allowed to live under Jim Crow segregation conditions. After the reconstruction of the Civil War damage the south put these laws into effect that would segregate the races.

Finally found my exact house address with help from the Richmond County GIS site and staff. I lived at the edge of the one mile radius of the Southern Wood Piedmont contamination site that polluted the groundwater, settled a lawsuit with the white Virginia Development in 1970, shut down their facility 1988 and later cleaned up their hazardous waste site. The black Hyde Park neighborhood nearby claimed they were not allowed to join that law suit because of racism, but I believe the reality is because they were upstream of the contamination. I visited the white Virginia Development monthly to pay the landlord and used to jog in combat boots thru the development while doing my laundry at the nearby Arnold Palmer laundromat.

The next neighborhood over from the white Virginia Development is this black Hyde Park & Aragon Park development. It was built in the 1960s but got pretty run down and especially while they were awaiting relocation by the City.

It was recognized as an environmental disaster for 50 years but only during the last few years have the people been relocated as of 2016. Until 1968 they had no running water or sewer. During my time there and up to the mid 1980s the EPA determined toxins had been in the ground and the groundwater they were drinking for decades. Multiple pollution dischargers affected the area.

The property is still not yet fully remediated. It's quite a pathetic debacle but not the only problem the city has to deal with.

The book 2005 Polluted Promises book online Buy book Amazon was written about this case and a movie Hyde Park the film is just about to be released.

A Richmond County study found 180 cancer deaths in that area over from 1985-1995. In 2008 the State of Georgia said there was no connection between the pollution and cancer deaths. The city decided to relocate 130 residents from 300 properties out of there but it took until 2016 to accomplish that. You can properly call that Environmental Racism (or lower classism) but I dealt with the same thing for decades of environmental involvement with white neighborhoods of Love Canal and the Niagara River Toxics Commission. In fact Lois Gibbs of the Love Canal fame now runs the Center for Health and Environmental Justice (CHEJ) and features Charles Utley of Hyde Park story.

Currently the City has a stormwater retention basin planned for part of Hyde Park but a future plan for the rest of Hyde Park is not yet formulated. Bear in mind that most of the City staff planners and police are black. These are complicated situations that are not solved by marching, looting and burning.

These links best give a feel for the area and illustrate the devastation

Pastor Utley interviews some of the residents awaiting relocation.

Video drive thru 2016 Leona Drive in Hyde Park.

2018 Drive thru some of the "less polluted" hoods of Augusta south side Will open your eyes.

Augusta resident and ex-con Gangsta Black in this illuminating interview succinctly and eloquently sez it best here, "The streets here, how the streets is...but don't listen to everything you hear." He teams up with Mista Playa here for a rap promoting peace.

A couple years ago 90 street gangs were identified in Augusta. They took down one of the worst ones (L.O.E) about a half mile north of my old house. The gang culture seems to be systemic, but it wasn't something I caused?

Chicago's Gang Wars

Glen Hills High School, half way back to Fort Gordon, is not exempt from trouble either. This teen was killed a few years ago.

Hyde Park Swampclick video. Group composed of 4 rappers from the Hyde Park.

This is not to paint in a bad light all of Augusta nor all the black population, it's simply A NEIGHBORHOOD I lived next to. If the BLM movement was serious about improving society they might want to focus on real issues rather than the sometimes bad reactions of police who must deal with bad actors every day. The screaming and destruction is not a very constructive way to bring about improvement.

I recently helped a family move into this wonderful home nearby ( private identity concerns). The achievement has something to do with a good family upbringing, motivation and education.

Note that in my view, racial integration or institutional racism does not seem to be a particular problem in our school district. It does not seem relevant but our superintendent is black.

Hyde Park background info

Hyde Park Timeline Ch 561B

Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League

Hyde Park Aragon Improvement Committee HPAIC HPAIC home Charles Utley

1990 Virginia Development homeowners receive small settlement from SWP

1992 court judgement

1995 court judgement SWP class action suit squashed

mid1995 class action won by Virginia Development against SWP

2008 Georgia environmental report

2008 No pollutant connection to cancer

2008 Georgia Comprehensive Plan update

2011 Contamination Running Deep: Oral Histories Georgia Southern Univ