It took a long time, but the Town of Shelburne’s predominantly Black community is finally getting the well that the South End Environmental Injustice Society (SEED) had been fighting for.
Talks between the Town of Shelburne and a group advocating for clean water access for a Black community within town limits appear to have broken down completely. It’s a sad story. Here’s hoping there’s a way out of the impasse.
An offer by filmmaker and actor Ellen Page to pay for the drilling of a public well to provide clean water to a long suffering African Nova Scotian community is said to experience some push back from the Town of Shelburne.
The mostly Black residents of the Town of Shelburne’s South End community continue to worry about water and they continue to worry about their health. “It’s still affecting the Black community, and it’s still environmental racism,” says Louise Delisle, who’s been fighting for change for a very long time..
While municipalities reliably test the quality of water delivered through the utilities they manage, rural residents who rely on wells are on their own, reports new contributor Fazeela Jiwa. Now a new organization, Rural Water Watch Association (RWW), will respond to rural community members’ calls to test their water quality, addressing concerns about living close to toxic sites like landfills or incinerators.