Lindsay Thomas, former U.S. congressman and a citizen of Wayne County, approaches the podium. He stands proud, comfortable with the mic and crowds. He speaks with vestiges of a Southern dialect quickly disappearing — the cultured inflection of land-owning Southerners that softens the “r” to a short “u” and lengthens vowels, especially “o.” I love this manner of speaking and mourn its disappearance. I practice it when I am walking alone, although I myself speak the harsher, less cultured patois of working-class Southerners.

True to his origins, Thomas is a top-shelf orator.

“There are no limits or parameters (‘parametuhs’) on what the future really holds for Broadhurst,” he says. He scolds the company for withholding information. “Does a responsible and reputable corporate citizen take the regional landfill and turn it into a national dump without a word to the community in which it is located?” he asks.

The crowd becomes more difficult to control. They applaud thunderously. “Amen!” I hear around me, and “Uh huh.” Thomas calls the reps “gentlemen” and asks them to imagine a 100-year flood or an E-5 hurricane. In the Southeastern coastal plains, neither is hard to conjure.

If everyone else has done their homework on the issues, Mike Conner got himself a Ph.D. His law firm has prepared, with a team of environmental attorneys hired by the newspaper, a 14-page document of questions, complete with 20 exhibits that include letters, photographs, plans, addenda, rules, emails. It is more than impressive.

Now he jerks around on stage as if he has been set on fire. And he is burning up.

“God puts a lot of things in nature,” he says. “But he didn’t put that beryllium in your groundwater.” He points directly at the Republic reps, working like a preacher. “Those people put it there, through coal ash.” The audience agrees vociferously. “Those people put that beryllium there. Not from dirty diapers. Not from burned-up tires. Not from thrown-away notebooks. But from coal ash.” His voice rises into a crescendo. He slams the podium. People are clapping, yelling “No!” over and over.

So much suffering is wrought by industry. For the love of money, land and people are laid to waste. Mountains are blown up, people poisoned, the troposphere ground to nothing, the climate wrecked. But love is stronger than money, and it’s stronger than the law. Love is a powerful, indomitable force that can rip out an enemy at its root. What I see in the eyes of Mike Conner is love, the love he feels for his gardener grandmother, hoeing at 102 on the corner lot. The love for his father, a former deputy sheriff, or his athletic Uncle Paul, a high school coach. He loves his brothers, his cousins, his deep history in this place. All of that is shining in his fierce, badger-like, blackthorn eyes. He crosses his arms over his chest to try to contain it, but the flames of love are burning him up.

Finally it is the community’s turn. One by one residents rise to the microphone and ask highly intelligent and well-researched questions.

“How will you control the fugitive dust particles?”

“What about the endangered hairy rattleweed found only in two counties in Georgia?”

“What happens if there is a spill?”

“Who’s going to compensate me when this landfill leaks?”

“How deep are the monitoring wells?”