This week we’re debuting a new podcast series called Broken Ground, produced by the Southern Environmental Law Center and hosted by Claudine Ebeid McElwain. Episode 1: The Kingston, Tennessee coal ash spill of 2008 and and its devastating consequences for hundreds of workers who had to clean up the toxic mess. Find more episodes at brokengroundpodcast.org.

Later in the show: In 2010 the small, mostly black community of Fulton, Virginia, was shocked to learn a black mountain of 85,000 cubic yards of toxic coal ash had been dumped at the edge of a landfill half a mile from the town center. Jason Sawyer (Norfolk State University) says low income communities are often targeted by industrial polluters, looking for the cheapest and easiest way to dispose of toxic materials.

Also: Rob Atkinson (Christopher Newport University) and Jon Hallman (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation) discuss the decline of the Atlantic White Cedar, a tree found in vast stands from Maine to Florida, whose wood once supplied roofs, barrels, and ships for Colonial America.