Kingsley Park in Buffalo

Kingsley Park is a playground in a mostly black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York. The site had once been the location of a company which manufactured an arsenic-based syphillis medicine. Many residents recall seeing plant workers dump material into a pit on the site. When the city of Buffalo acquired the spot in 1967, workers dug up the topsoil and left it lying in mounds at the location. Residents came and used the soil for their gardens. After residents began experiencing various maladies such as cancers, respitory problems, rashes, and transient fevers, they blamed it on the contaminated park and the soil they had took from it to use in their gardens.

In 1983, the Erie County Department of the Environment finally recognized the park had significantly high levels of arsenic in its soil. But despite numerous protests from citizens, the park was not closed until 1988 and clean up did not begin until 1992. Many more residents became sick and some lost their lives in this period. Meanwhile, a predominantly white neighborhood in Buffalo succeeded in blocking a planned medical-waste incinerator in their neighborhood. To many, this was clear evidence of "environmental racism." Black groups often do not possess the resources that white groups do in fighting ecological problems. Kingsley Park is just another example of this lack of environmental justice in the United States today.

David Thigpen "The Playground That Became a Battleground." National Wildlife. February-March 1993.

[MAIN PAGE][Bayview Power Plant][Kingsley Park][Methyl Parathion in Detroit][Apartheid in South Africa][Sable v. GMC][Burt v. Fumigation Service and Supply][US vs. Cello-Foil][Farm Bureau Insurance v. Porter&Heckman][Hazardous Waste Deep Injection Well][Incinerator in Moss Point]