Grist: Esther Calhoun lives in Uniontown, a small town in Alabama where more than nine out of ten residents are black, and half live below the poverty line. Her family has been there for as long as she knows. Her parents and grandparents worked as sharecroppers on a plantation, and generations of her ancestors were buried in the towns cemetery.
Uniontown is also home to the Arrowhead Landfill, a dump that draws tons of coal ash - a byproduct of burning coal - from across the country every day. A 53-year-old...