A toxic site in one of Greenville’s historically Black neighborhoods is going to be cleaned up.

For more than a decade, residents in Greenville’s Southernside community have feared health and safety impacts from the former Duke Energy manufactured gas plant along Bramlett Road.

Coal tar waste from the plant drained into the site beginning in 1917. An unpermitted landfill was later placed on top of the contamination.

Now, 35 acres in Southernside’s Newtown neighborhood are heavily contaminated with coal tar, which the National Cancer Institute says has been linked to cancer of the skin, lungs, bladder, kidneys, and digestive tract.