There are two good things to be said about last Monday's explosion and fire at the Perma-Fix chemical plant on East Bodley in South Memphis. First and foremost, no one was injured or killed. And secondly, perhaps this incident will finally jolt city officials into action.
For approximately 20 years, residents of the surrounding neighborhood have tried to get someone to listen to their concerns about the plant, which is literally right behind their backyards. Community activists, a few elected officials, and the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center have organized public hearings in an attempt to have the plant shut down or relocated.
Their efforts have been unsuccessful, though some progress has been made. When Perma-Fix bought the facility from American Resource Recovery three years ago, the new owners tried to compromise by moving their operations as far away from people's homes as possible. And they're still working on cleaning up contamination in the soil and groundwater, a legacy from a previous occupant of the property.
Perma-Fix is doing nothing illegal. The company collects hazardous wastes, such as used oils and solvents, and recycles those substances into fuel for cement kilns. That's a worthwhile enterprise. The problem isn't with what Perma-Fix does, but where it does it. And for this, we blame the city's zoning office.
Why is heavy industrial use permitted adjacent to a residential neighborhood, with no buffer zone in between? We think it's because the unlucky residents happen to be black and working-class. And if you believe "environmental racism" is just a figment of the NAACP's imagination, ask yourself this: Would a toxic-waste facility such as Perma-Fix ever be built in East Memphis?
We all know the answer, don't we?
It surely can't be denied that our mayor, W.W. Herenton, is an impressive figure once he gets his dander up. And just as on a couple of other notable occasions during his five-year tenure up it got last Friday, this time on the subject of crime and the police.
Maybe too many eyebrows were raised last month when the mayor seemed to be proposing a new council to "study" the rising incidence of major crime in Memphis. (As we pointed out, he already had a commission to do that job.) Or maybe, as His Honor said, he just got tired of seeing too many cops in too many convenience stores chomping down on too many doughnuts when they were supposed to be keeping a vigil.
Whatever the case, the mayor certainly got the attention of the Memphis Police Department's ruling elite last Friday when he served them what amounted to a seven-day ultimatum: Do something about the crime problem, or else. The contours of the "else" were made clear to director Walter Winfrey and others by Herenton's promise of "reorganization" a reminder of a previous command-level shakeup in 1994.
We commend the mayor for sounding the alarm. It has, after all, been only a few days since a visitor to our downtown Welcome Center was kidnapped and raped. That would have been a devastating fact even if our city weren't so dependent on its tourist economy.
Fix the problem, Mr. Mayor, by any means necessary. Two thoughts: (1) If you replace the head man, be prepared to go outside the city just as if this were a serious matter like looking for a football coach. And (2) please don't content yourself with a few cosmetic, face-saving changes. Follow through on this one; it may be the issue by which history will judge your tenure.