UPDATE Oct. 18 2024: Listen to Associated Press correspondent/producer Mike Hempen’s conversation with The Jamestowner’s Susan Dickenson on The National Press Club’s PODCAST-1:
ORIGINAL POST Sept 4, 2024: A series of four photographs shot in Jamestown illustrating the downside of irresponsible “fast-track” development on top of decades of ignored and unremediated manufacturing contamination are on exhibit in Washington, D.C. this month, as part of the National Press Club‘s 25th Annual Photography show, which opened today.
The photos present a very condensed version of one Piedmont town’s story – Jamestown – in southern Guilford County. Jamestown is the nexus for several industrial waste streams, all of which empty into Deep River, an ancient waterway that flows south through hundreds of acres of woodlands, landfills, superfund sites, tributaries and farms, on its way to Randleman Lake and Reservoir (Guilford and Randolph counties’ drinking water) and the Cape Fear River.
The Jamestowner series comprises four of 203 digital and print photos in this year’s National Press Club Photography exhibit, which includes news photos, as well as sports, travel, wildlife, nature, and art photography. An online show catalog tells about each photographer and image.
A direct link to the Jamestowner’s four-part series, submitted by Jamestowner editor and National Press Club member Susan Dickenson, is HERE. Print photos are on display in the Club’s main lobby through September 30th, and the official opening reception is Wednesday, September 4th in the Club’s First Amendment Lounge.
The Jamestowner photos represent a small segment of the ongoing devastation caused by North Carolina’s pro-business, anti-water-quality legislators who have, in recent years, put corporate interests ahead of North Carolinians’ health, permanently impacting the state’s drinking water quality, flood resiliency, stormwater systems, air quality, public health, and more.
North Carolina currently ranks third in the nation for 1,4-Dioxane and PFAS contamination, yet the N.C. state legislature, under state senate leader Phil Berger, has reworked the Environmental Management Commission with individuals who are stalling PFAS regulation.
These and other anti-environment, anti-building integrity and anti-flooding measures have led to growing problems and protests here, and are part of the motivation behind a 65-page petition filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center, asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to step in and revoke North Carolina’s authority to oversee its own water and industrial discharge permitting.