Number of Americans who live within three miles of a coal-fired power plant, which typically stores toxic coal ash waste in unlined pits that aren’t currently subject to federal oversight: 6 million

Their average per capita income: $18,400

Average per capita income for U.S. residents overall: $21,587

Percent of people living within three miles of a coal plant who are people of color: 39

Percentage points by which that exceeds people of color’s representation in the overall U.S. population: 3

Number of the nation’s 378 coal-fired power plants that received an “F” in a 2012 report because they’re responsible for a disproportionate amount of pollution in low-income and minority communities: 75

Average per capita income of the 4 million people who live within three miles of those failing coal plants: $17,500

Percent who are people of color: 53

Number of the nation’s power companies that got an “F” in the report, including Duke Energy: 12

Average per-capita income of people living within three miles of Duke Energy’s Dan River plant near Eden, N.C., where a Feb. 2 coal ash spill has contaminated the waterway for 80 miles downstream: $15,772

Percent of the state’s average income that amount represents: 77.7

Percent of the residents of Danville, Va., a community downstream of the spill that draws its drinking water from the Dan, who are people of color: 53.3

Percent of Virginia’s population overall that is non-white: 36

While the population living within three miles of the Dan River plant is not disproportionately minority, the percent of people living within a mile of Duke Energy’s Belews Creek plant in Stokes County, N.C. and its Sutton plant in New Hanover County, N.C. who are: 60

Amount that the community near Duke’s Sutton plant will have to pay for a new water line because of groundwater contamination from the leaky coal ash pits: $472,000

Risk of cancer for people living within a mile of unlined coal ash pits: 1 in 50

Number of times that exceeds what the Environmental Protection Agency considers an acceptable risk: 2,000

Number of times more likely it is for someone living near a coal ash pit to develop cancer than someone who smokes a pack of cigarettes per day: 9

Rank of African Americans among the U.S. racial groups with the highest cancer incidence and cancer death rates: 1

Rank of African Americans’ lower socioeconomic status among the reasons for that disparity: 1

Donate

Editorial director of the NC-based Institute for Southern Studies, publisher of Facing South and Southern Exposure, where she focuses on energy & the environment.

1 Comment

  1. And the continuing injustice of racial inequality in health care
    The war on poverty in 50
    Drastic changes before the climate in the south-east of
    The general high cost of fast food jobs
    NC heads down the path of economic development that suffer from scandal
    The strange politics of South hunger
    More pain for the poor to stop the government
    Highlight the heritage of apartheid in North Carolina

    http://www.d-lov.com

Leave A Reply

Subscribe

All the latest from Z, directly to your inbox.

Institute for Social and Cultural Communications, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit.

Our EIN# is #22-2959506. Your donation is tax-deductible to the extent allowable by law.

We do not accept funding from advertising or corporate sponsors.  We rely on donors like you to do our work.

ZNetwork: Left News, Analysis, Vision & Strategy

Subscribe

All the latest from Z, directly to your inbox.

This is your article this month.

We’re glad you keep coming back. If Z’s work has informed, challenged, or inspired you, that’s no accident: there are no paywalls, no ads, and no billionaire owners here, and there never will be. Independent media survives because readers choose to support it.

Billionaires fund their own media. We fund ours. Help us reach 1,000 sustaining donors:

Number of donors688
Our goal1,000

Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.

Already a sustainer? Click here and we won’t ask again. Thank you!

Your reading count is stored only in your browser and is never sent to us.

Sound is muted by default.  Tap 🔊 for the full experience

CRITICAL ACTION

Critical Action is a longtime friend of Z and a music and storytelling project grounded in liberation, solidarity, and resistance to authoritarian power. Through music, narrative, and multimedia, the project engages the same political realities and movement traditions that guide and motivate Z’s work.

If this project resonates with you, you can learn more about it and find ways to support the work using the link below.

Independent media is not disappearing because the ideas are weak.

It is disappearing because platforms reward speed, outrage, and algorithmic visibility over thoughtful analysis.

More than 100,000 people read Z every month, free of paywalls, ads, and billionaire owners. It takes fewer than 1 in 100 of them to fund all of it: 1,000 donors who keep Z independent, for everyone, and build what comes next.

Number of donors688
Our goal1,000

Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.

Subscribe

Join the Z Community – receive event invites, announcements, a Weekly Digest, and opportunities to engage.

Exit mobile version