Stories and Quotes

 

“‘We had big carp fish out there, eating all the waste,’ Byrd said. ‘Fish be all out in that field out there. It be so many of them’” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

The last time Walter Byrd drank his tap water, he suffered a heart attack. ‘At the hospital, my doctor warned me never to drink the water again. I haven’t drank it in 10 years,’ he says” (Earthjustice).

“Small fountains of raw sewage bubble up into the yards twenty-four hours a day, flowing into fetid sluiceways that run between the houses. Some days, especially in the summer, the whole town smells like an outhouse…Many of the houses in Centreville, even the best-maintained houses, bow in the middle, where the foundations are gradually sinking into swampy ground” (Boston Review).

“‘No, I’m not going to abandon my house,’ McNeal said. ‘It’s all I got’” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

“‘Sometimes you can look and say, ‘Oh, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.’ That will make the hardships seem worth it,’ Johnson said. ‘But with this situation here, it seems like there is no light. It almost takes your hope away from you’” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

“In heavy rain, water fills Gladney’s block and basement, which is crumbling and cracking. Three times, she and her family have had to be rescued by boats, she said. The last time was nearly two years ago, when her husband had lost his right toe to diabetes and the wound was healing from an infection. ‘That water was nasty to walk through to get in the boat,’ she said. His toe got reinfected. Last summer his lower leg was amputated” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

“Many of those who moved to Centreville put their life savings into homes that were worth fifteen or twenty thousand dollars when they bought them; their homes are now worth literally ten cents on the dollar of what they paid decades ago” (Boston Review).

“It was rising 5 to 6 inches every 20 or 30 minutes.” Fuse said he has experienced significant flooding in his basement over the nearly 30 years he has lived in his home. The walls of his basement have caved in at least five times, making it uninhabitable.” (Belleville News-Democrat).

“’People don’t realize,’ Johnson said, ‘the toll it all takes — not being able to flush your toilet, embarrassment when friends visit, the constant smell, the dirt and rust on your car, watching where you step when you walk, having all the money you’ve invested in your house disappear, feeling trapped, feeling like you let down your family, trying to encourage your children to see a bright future’” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

“Sharon Smith, 58, says spots of black mold in their bedroom are so bad that she and her husband can’t stand the dust. ‘Me and my baby sleep on the couch,’ she said” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

“‘Can you imagine bringing your family up in waste?’ he said. ‘After working all your life, you gotta live up in it? Retire in it?’” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

“When it rains, Hopkins keeps watch out the window and gives updates to her children calling to check on her. She gets scared when it rains, she said, because the water gets so high and she can’t swim” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch).