Alabama landfill activists seek dismissal of slander suit

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Omaha World Herald-AP

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Four activists from one of Alabama's poorest communities asked a federal judge Thursday to dismiss a $30 million slander suit filed by Georgia companies that claim they were maligned by complaints about a landfill that accepted tons of coal ash from a Tennessee Valley Authority spill.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed court documents saying the four Perry County residents — Esther Calhoun, Benjamin Eaton, Ellis B. Long and Mary B. Schaeffer — were only exercising their First Amendment rights in protesting Arrowhead Landfill at Uniontown.

The four argued that some claims cited by Canton, Georgia-based landfill operator Green Group Holdings and a subsidiary, Howling Coyote LLC, concern nothing more than posts on a Facebook page. They also argued that no one has knowingly made false claims about the landfill's safety.

The companies filed suit in federal court in Mobile in April claiming they were being slandered by false allegations and protests over 4 million tons of coal ash waste shipped from Tennessee.

FULL story at link. Also see this feature story from May 19th in the African American Group: http://www.democraticunderground.com/118751657


Jay Reeves

This file photograph taken Feb. 10, 2010, shows the massive Arrowhead Landfill near Uniontown, Ala. Opponents of the landfill are asking a federal court to dismiss a slander lawsuit filed by the Georgia-based landfill operators, Thursday, June 2, 2016, who contend they have been wrongly maligned by false allegations and protests over the operation. The landfill accepted tons of coal ash spilled during an accident at a Tennessee Valley Authority electricity plant in Tennessee December 2008. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)

Read more: http://www.omaha.com/news/nation/alabama-landfill-activists-seek-dismissal-of-slander-suit/article_c610585b-cd13-5c6b-a55b-3403ae7072bc.html

[azureblue]

1. Great news

the suit was a SLAPP suit. And this opened the door for the four defendants to counter sue and win.

[yeoman6987]

3. Depends if they were factual in their statements

The problem for the company is if they win, they will never see that money. You can't win money if the ones who lost the case don't have any money.

[KT2000]

2. EPA used to have an Environmental Justice

department that handled cases where toxic materials were dumped in poor neighborhoods and those with people of color. The department has pretty much been neutered.
There also used to be an ombudsman, Robert Martin, who assisted communities in their efforts to have toxic materials cleaned up in their communities. His position was independent of the EPA. They fired him and made the position part of the EPA.

This is what happens when those with no power face off against business - they can expect to be sued into submission.

The republicans in Washington just stopped all public participation grants that are required by the federal government for Superfund cleanup sites that are being handled by the state.

Republicans are entitled to dump their toxic materials anywhere they want and they will sue you if you object.

[The Polack MSgt]

4. K & R nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Unbelievable. Here's the ACLU on this:

In This Poor, Black, Polluted Alabama Town, Speaking Up Gets You Sued

“We all should have the right to clean air and clean water.”

Would you agree with that sentence? Would you say it yourself? It seems uncontroversial — something kids might be taught in school. Something any of us might say without blinking an eye. Unless, that is, you happened to say it in Uniontown, Alabama — an overwhelmingly Black and poor rural town in the heart of the South’s Black Belt. In Uniontown, it turns out that having the audacity to fight for your fundamental human rights — for instance, by saying the exact sentence above — can get you sued for $30 million in federal court by companies seeking to silence their critics.
...
In Uniontown, seeking health and justice means highlighting a municipal sewage “system” that sprays fecal water onto a field while emaciated cattle graze nearby. It means fighting the suffocating smell of aerated whey that is shot into the sky, making the town reek like putrid processed cheese — on a good day. It means following the trail of a $4.8 million Department of Agriculture grant that residents feel just evaporated without any benefit to the citizens it was intended to help.

Fighting for justice in Uniontown means opposing the trains that roll into town carrying hazardous coal ash from 33 states to deposit it at the Arrowhead landfill — a dump bewilderingly located in a residential neighborhood, near wetlands, within this spacious county full of rolling fields and open space. It means worrying about the safety of that coal ash — the very same coal ash that catastrophically leaked out of a Tennessee facility in 2008 and destroyed the surrounding environment before it was hurriedly redirected to Uniontown.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/poor-black-polluted-alabama-town-speaking-gets-you-sued