Our Road: Then -- E13: A Game of Chairs: Negotiations for a Meeting with Governor Hunt

Our Road to Walk: Then and Now

In our last podcast, Episode 12: Now, we fast-forwarded to the present because of recent testing at the PCB landfill conducted in conjunction with the 2022 40th anniversary of the 1982 PCB protest movement.
We shared the documented evidence from four independent scientists who had studied the PCB landfill over the years and who had reported the problems and failures they had found. The take-away from Episode 12 is that there is no scientific or ethical justification for developing the contaminated PCB landfill site. Warren County has thousands of acres of land available for development.
In this Episode 13: Then, we’re returning to our chronological narrative of the environmental justice movement as it begins to take shape in early 1979.
Time is of the essence. Warren County citizens have only three weeks until January 25th when the EPA plans to either approve or disapprove the state’s Afton Warren County PCB landfill plan.
On the momentum from the historic January 4, 1979 EPA Public Hearing, the press is eager to know more, and Ken is busy as Warren County spokesperson. Others are circulating petitions and educating the public on the dangers of PCBs and failed landfills. The plan is to try to meet with Governor Hunt before the January 25th deadline and deliver the petitions.
With the guidance of Mary Hinton Kerr, the wife of the late Senator John Kerr, and her friend, Ida Martin, Assistant to Warren County Attorney Charlie Johnson, Ken negotiates for a meeting with the Governor as they play a game of chairs.