Digital Scholarship and Initiatives

Describes the Lumbees' opposition to the proposed siting of a regional hazardous waste depository on the Lumber River.  Regan argues that the Deep South - particularly rural, poor areas populated mainly by minorities - has become a target for new depositories because minorities have little power and their communities need the economic benefits of the depositories.  The depository planned by GSX, Inc. would have discharged over 200 different chemicals; at the time, the EPA had established water criteria recommendations on only 62 of them. 

Regan notes that “throughout the GSX controversy all components of Lumbee culture have been utilized to maximize effect.  Native American dance, music, and regalia have marked every GSX public hearing.  Local Lumbee churches have provided convenient locations for the planning sessions.  Leaflet distribution at these churches has reached a diverse cross-section of people who would otherwise have remained uninformed about the GSX crisis” (p. 15).  North Carolina passed a law requiring a 1,000-1 dilution ratio for all surface water in the state that serves as a municipal drinking water source.  This regulation would have required GSX to reduce its planned discharge rate from 500,000 gallons per day to 80,000. 

As of this article's publication date, hearings on the proposed facility had been postponed indefinitely. 

This article is an updated version of Regan's 1987-88 article for The Egg (see The Lumbee Indians: an annotated bibliography, item 1059).