Texarkana's toxic truth The tragic history of a Black neighborhood turned environmental disaster in Texarkana remains widely unknown and unrecognized

by Phoebe Neff, Editor-in-Chief

'Toxicana'

How the city poisoned its most prominent Black neighborhood

West Third Street: the site of an environmental tragedy right in the middle of town. From 1903 to 1961, it was Koppers Co., a wood treatment facility. In its near 60 years of its activity, it leached deadly chemicals into the ground such as creosote, zinc and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. From 1964 to 1993, it was Carver Terrace, a charming, predominantly Black neighborhood in the center of Texarkana.

Since then, it has been known as one of Texarkana’s three Superfund sites: locations designated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as environmental hazards that must be cleaned up by the government. Because of this, activists related to the sites have dubbed the town “Toxicana.” What was once a prosperous, Black community has been reduced to overgrowth and tragedy at the hands of poison in the ground, leached from the wood treatment facility that once sat there.

“Everyone wants to have the American dream of living in their own home,” former Carver Terrace resident Bess Gamble-Williams said. “My mom was one of those people that saw that they were going to build a brand new brick home addition for people of color, and was passionate because when I was a little girl, they wouldn’t allow us to buy in some of the wealthier neighborhoods.”

Carver Terrace was a subdivision of 79 homes only about a mile away from where Grim Stadium is now. There was a strong sense of community and togetherness in the neighborhood. For many of the residents, it presented opportunities that were difficult to achieve at the time.

“It was just a dream of a lifetime for my mother. We were all happy. We had the dog, we had the land, the area in the backyard where my mother planted everything. We just loved it,” Gamble-Williams said. “But then, we started noticing as time went on, whenever it rained, there was always a slick on top of the water.”

However, the true nature of the land would not hide for long. Over time, sickness crept over the community.

“Pretty soon, the lives of some of our community residents started to be affected very severely,” Gamble-Williams said. “Some came up with cancers. Some of them [lost pregnancies], lost babies. I even caught a skin disease that almost took my life, and my skin boiled from the inside out. Many of us still have a lot of the ramifications from that, from living off of the land.”

Gamble-Williams believes the land was marketed to Black people intentionally. Her mother, in her environmental activism, was the first to coin the term “environmental racism:” the idea that there is environmental injustice on the basis of race.

“Why didn’t white people move there? Why didn’t they sell it to white people?” Gamble-Williams said.

At the age of 12, Gamble-Williams had developed Stevens-Johnson syndrome, a condition that “burns your body from the inside-out.” She was given only a 50/50 chance of survival.

However terrible the effects on this community were, getting the attention of the government was unfortunately difficult. At the time that things were unraveling for this community, Gamble-Williams had gone off to college. Still, her mother, Patsy Oliver, along with many other residents, fought for something to be done about the issues they were facing.

“[The community] got together; they just started complaining to the city about it. The city didn’t do anything at first until they continued to push the matter,” Gamble-Williams said. “Once they continued to push, to start getting momentum with the local newspaper, they started to talk about this. Then, that got the national attention of Greenpeace. My mom would write me and tell me about it.”

Greenpeace is an international, nonprofit, environmental advocacy organization, so getting their attention was significant. Oliver along with her neighbors and colleagues were instrumental in getting this recognized by the EPA. After initial testing on the land in 1980, it took six years to be put on the National Priorities List — for anything to be done for the residents. Meanwhile, the neighborhood continued to fall ill.

“Out of all of the communities in the country up to this day that were ever bought out, and many applied for it, only two were bought out, and Carver Terrace in Texarkana was one of them,” Gamble-Williams said. “That’s it. That’s how the government treats us.”

After years of fighting for recognition and action, the homes were bought out by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and all residents were relocated by 1993. By 1996, 3,000 tons of soils and materials were removed and replaced. However, since then, little of what was promised has been done. Little proof of ongoing cleanup or any further remedial efforts exists. The former residents demand more be done to preserve what happened here, whereas it is currently left dilapidated and desolate.

Poisoned past, fearful future

Technical adviser for Superfund Site gives insight to testing and outcome

In the center of Texarkana lies an abandoned neighborhood left barren after all residents were relocated in 1993. This was Carver Terrace, a thriving Black community from the 1960s to 1980s. However, the area was declared a Superfund site in 1984 by the Environmental Protection Agency after many residents began to develop skin diseases, miscarriages and cancer.

Catherine Howard is the Dean of STEM at Texarkana College and the former technical adviser for the Carver Terrace Superfund site. She acted as a messenger between the Environmental Protection Agency and the residents. She witnessed firsthand the effects of this site and has been presenting this information since she was hired in 1989.

“The first time I met with the residents, I was going in the neighborhood introducing myself to [the] 79 homes in that area. An EPA representative wanted to come with me, and I showed up over there and they had full hazmat gear on,” Howard said. “So here I am, walking door to door, in my early 20s, happy to be doing something, and [the EPA representative] has got this whole white suit on, so that scared the residents to death.”

The affected residents had issues with the EPA from the start. The most prevalent issue to them was the lack of urgency; the bureaucratic process lends itself to delays, and time was of the essence for the neighborhood. Once the EPA was made aware of the toxicity in Carver Terrace in 1979, the EPA didn’t declare the location a Superfund site until 1984.

“The residents were very hostile because although I was really working under the guise of the Black Chamber [of Commerce], they considered that I was part of the EPA system that was prolonging this and not telling the truth,” Howard said. “It was a very difficult job to be that in-between person and to try to get them to trust me.”

Regarding the flaws, the actual testing on the site was considered a red flag by Howard. According to her, the party responsible for polluting an area is also responsible for conducting the testing on the area they polluted once it is declared a Superfund site. She claims that this is a conflict of interest that would result in faulty results. The EPA reported that there was a, on average, 5/100,000 chance of illness occurring after contact with the area. However, the lived experiences of the residents may contradict this.

“The official findings from the EPA were that the levels of toxicity were low enough that they weren’t dangerous. Now, I don’t believe that in any respect. I’ve seen the numbers themselves. [The EPA] claims that the buyout was purely a political move because they were getting so much political pressure, but I disagree.” — Dr. Catherine Howard

“The buyout” was in 1992; the United States Army Corps of Engineers bought out all of the homes in an effort to relocate the residents. Once completed, all of the homes were demolished. The buyout also resulted in the termination of Howard’s position as technical adviser. Supposedly, following this, the EPA’s remediation of the site would involve placing several inches of red clay over the top of the land. However, Howard claims that this was never done.

“I could still see the [concrete house foundation] slabs. I could still see everything, so apparently, that clay barrier hasn’t been installed,” Howard said. “And if you look on the EPA website, [the city’s] plan for that area is to build a baseball park. So I asked the city about that, and they didn’t know anything about that either. It sounds like the EPA thinks it’s been remediated, but if it had a clay cap on it, you wouldn’t be able to see the slabs. Something’s not right.”

The ballpark is sore news to the many who hope for the former neighborhood to be turned into a memorial and historical site. Not only that, but the lack of progress in remediation efforts after 30 years does not bode well for anyone seeking justice for the victims.

“I think that the EPA should do what they said they were gonna do, and do the remediation. I don’t think, at this point, there’s anything that can be done for the residents that were there,” Howard said. “It’s sad to me to go by there and still see that fencing and all that stuff. It just brings back some bad memories, and I don’t think it’s a good look for our town.”