The roundtable draws to a close with final remarks from Judy Freiberg — urging a statewide strategy aimed at the Florida governorship, where real power over agency appointments lies.

Dr. Yvette Edghill Spanos shares a FOIA request tip for obtaining disease occurrence data from the Florida Department of Health.

Reverend Benjamin Carroll closes the evening in prayer, lifting up the community's pain, its leadership, and its generations-long fight for justice: "We pray to God that you will heal our land."

Dr. John Capece closes with a reminder that contamination doesn't respect property lines — it flows downstream through soil and groundwater in ways that are "quite complicated." He pledges DECF's full support and points to data already gathered by Dr. Polite, Mr. Flo, Dr. Stewart Washington, and professors at EWU and FAMU as a strong foundation to build on.

Dr. Therese Wakefield-Gamble issues a call to action: submit your stories before October 1st for the Green Church Climate Summit in Atlanta. She outlines the full strategic roadmap — geographical mapping of contaminated addresses, a Florida-wide Environmental Justice Committee, recruiting environmental activist candidates for 2026 and 2027 elections, and connecting the environment directly to hurricane season to mobilize constituents who don't yet see the connection.

Dr. Yvette Edgehill-Spano pushes the community to think beyond the 19 homes in Pullman Court. How far does the contamination reach — 500 yards? A mile? She urges a statistically defensible, geographically broad data collection effort that captures every family impacted, wherever they may have moved.

In this episode, Mr. Roy McKenna shares the decades-long consequences of unknowingly purchasing an ash-contaminated property in Jacksonville's Polk Place neighborhood in the 1960s.

From a crumbling foundation to EPA cleanup crews that left the job unfinished, Mr. Roy recounts the physical, financial, and emotional toll of living on land that was never disclosed as a dump site.

He reflects on draining his JTA retirement savings to stabilize his home, the legal dead ends his family faced, and the contaminated soil that still sits beneath his house today. His wife plans to write a book about their experience — tentatively titled Living on a Ash Dump.

A powerful story about property, perseverance, and the lasting harm of redlining.

Community activist and City Council District 10 candidate Lydia Bell has spent 15 years stopping crematoriums, liquor stores, road closures, and a 300-body forensic morgue from being planted in her neighborhood all within feet of homes and a school. Her message: on Jacksonville's Northside, Black residents aren't just ignored. They're dying.

Retired teacher and radio announcer Linda Johns Harris grew up in Durkeeville surrounded by three giant trash-burning incinerators. When a government contractor came to dig up contaminated soil — then vanished without a report — Linda knew something was being buried. Her family's $68,000 home sits blocks from houses worth two-three of a million dollars.

Althea Mikell bought her first home in Jacksonville's Sherwood/Paradise Park neighborhood (AIP 32209) in 1985 - not knowing the ws a former city dump. Decades later, she's counting over 25-30 neighbors with cancer, heart disease, and respiratory illness, and she's still fighting to get the soil and water tested.