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Letter from Henry Rooker to L.H. Fountain, January 25, 1982

Letter from Henry Rooker to L.H. Fountain, January 25, 1982
Letter from Henry Rooker to L.H. Fountain, January 25, 1982

Item Information

Title

Letter from Henry Rooker to L.H. Fountain, January 25, 1982

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Type

still image

Identifier

https://exhibits.lib.unc.edu/items/show/7418

Text

January 25, 1982
Route 2, Box 12
Warrenton, N.C. 27589

JAN 27 1982

Congressman L. H. Fountain
2188 Rayburn Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Congressman Fountain,

As a resident of Warren County, I am asking you for help in preventing the state of North Carolina from locating a hazardous waste landfill in Warren County. The proposed landfill site is only about two miles from my home. As you know, P.C.B. is a cancer causing chemical. I have first hand knowledge of what cancer
is all about.

In the past 20 years, I have had three types of cancer. I have had surgery so many times that I have lost count. I have had radiation-therapy, chemo-therapy, and hormone-therapy. The medications caused me to have high blood-pressure, for
which I have to diet and take medications. I have reason to believe that my problems were caused by something that I came in contact with while in the army, serving in Korea. My best friend that I served with while in Korea also had cancer. He died at Christmas 1980. There had been no cancer in his family or mine. Neither of us smoked. Neither of us have received service-connected compensation for the pain and hardships that this has caused. It has nearly destroyed my family and me.

Is this the kind of compensation that the people of Warren County are to expect after their health and lands are destroyed by hazardous waste leaking out of a landfill that we are reasonably sure can not be made safe?

I am afraid that if the State of North Carolina is allowed to bury the P.C.B. and possibly other chemicals that are more toxic than P.C.B. in Warren County, there will be more and more people with such problems as I have.

The most recent reports that I have received on the burial method of hazardous waste came from New Jersey where four out of five such E.P.A. approved landfills built in the last five years are leaking wastes out into the environment, and in Louisiana where E.P.A. approved landfills are reported to be leaking. At one such Louisiana E.P.A. approved landfill it is reported that waste had leaked out along a mile and a half ditch and had killed trees 40 feet to each side of the ditch. The E.P.A. report the day before this finding was. “everything-is-alright. I have no reason to believe that a Warren County landfill would be more successful than these.

I am not afraid for myself. I am afraid for my children, and their children. Will they be plagued with cancer, and will their children have birth defects? I am afraid they will if the state is allowed to follow through with their plans.

Your help with this matter will be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
Thomas H. Rooker