Old Dump Links Jacksonville Lead, Gun Violence

Residents of Duval County, Florida, are grappling with a connection between historic environmental hazards and current public health crises. Researchers found that children exposed to lead in their first six years face a higher risk of firearm violence in early adulthood. This link is particularly strong in neighborhoods shaped by redlining and industrial pollution.

The history of this risk is rooted in Brown’s Dump, a 250-acre site in Jacksonville. From the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, the city used the land as a landfill for toxic ash from municipal incinerators. The Duval County School Board built an elementary school on the site in the 1950s, and developers constructed homes nearby. Generations of Black children lived and played on the polluted ground. Federal officials declared the soil a potential public health hazard in 1999, and cleanup efforts began in 2009 after the school closed in 2001.

Lindsay Emer, lead author of the study from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, described the situation as a legacy of segregation and redlining. She called it a major environmental injustice for the African American population. Hospital billing data from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration shows that more than 4,000 children were hospitalized for firearm injuries in the state between 2018 and 2024. In Jacksonville, at least 375 children were hospitalized for such injuries during that period. At least 150 of those hospitalizations came from ZIP codes 32206, 32208, and 32209, which cover the Brown’s Dump area.

Community members argue that the physical environment continues to affect their safety. A.J. Jordan, a community organizer, stated that parents must work hard to ensure their children get home safe because the risk of being killed is constant. Anthony Brown, founder of the Red Alliance for Justice, connected the history of redlining to current issues like the placement of a new medical examiner’s office. He noted that the City Council spent more than $60 million on the morgue but has not established a dedicated funding source to improve redlined neighborhoods.

The city approved a resolution in 2024 to redress the effects of redlining, but public health experts say progress remains limited. Lydia Bell, a lifelong resident of Brentwood, described the new morgue across the street from a public charter school as a second wave of redlining. She believes the city placed the facility there because over 80% of the neighborhood’s residents are Black. Council member Jimmy Peluso acknowledged that the north side of the city has been ravaged over the years and lacks proper opportunities.

An Environmental Protection Agency report from December 2024 stated that much of the Brown’s Dump site had been cleaned or covered with new soil to reduce exposure. Authorities are also cleaning a second Superfund site called the Jacksonville Ash Site, which covers more than 1,100 acres. Jeffrey Goldhagen, a professor emeritus at University of Florida Health Jacksonville, said severe damage had already been done to residents. He advised that getting lead out of the environment is among the most important steps to impact gun violence in the Black community.