North Port St. Joe is a historical Black community located on the Gulf of Mexico. Discriminatory housing policies forced North Port St. Joe residents in the 1950s to purchase land in an area that was previously a wetland used as a toxic waste dumping site by a local paper mill, the city’s largest employer until 1990. In disaster recovery and sea level rise adaptation it was imperative to understand the histories that led to uneven geographies that exacerbate risk. This historical ecology details the archival and workshop focused analysis that led to understanding the specific risks to the Black community from the interaction between historic pollution and flood waters.