Environmental justice activists come together
Boston Banner
June 15, 2006
Over the past ten years, activists have sought to educate shoppers about the unseen consequences of their routine purchases. From the boycott of grapes picked by striking farm workers to anti-sweatshop campaigns to socially responsible investing, consumer groups have raised awareness about the abuse of workers too easily hidden behind corporate logos and slick TV commercials.
Last Monday, roughly 100 environmentalists, academics and community organizers attended the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow’s Annual Meeting in an effort to make similar connections. Rather than everyday products and workers’ rights, member organizations have drawn links between local health concerns and the broader problem of environmental racism. With an eye towards how industrial pollution disproportionately burdens people of color in Massachusetts and throughout the nation, this alliance has sought to pass legislation in the State House forcing companies to replace toxic products with safer alternatives.
According to environmental justice activists Delma and Christine Bennett, many of these toxic products are manufactured next door to communities of color, like their own small town of Mossville, La. Founded in the 1800s by free African Americans, today Mossville is surrounded by 14 different chemical factories, including oil refineries, vinyl manufacturers and a coal-fired power plant, all of which contribute to hazardous levels of air and water pollution.
“I want you to all picture a little community of about 350 people — it used to be about 700 or 800. But right now we are in the middle, right in the middle, with all these plants around us,” explained Christine Bennett, one of the founding members of Mossville Environmental Action Now (MEAN) during her keynote speech. “I came up as a little girl in this neighborhood — that was my home. And there was no plants there.”
“The plants start coming in. And because the people didn’t know what to do, one plant came in, the next came in, and the next. And then all of a sudden the sickness began to come, and all our lives start dropping off.”
Mossville residents suffer from serious health problems like cancer, asthma and infertility that are linked to the toxic chemicals released from these industrial facilities.
For instance, a 1999 U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry report found that Mossville residents have two to three times more of the cancer-causing chemical dioxin in their bodies than the general public.
“We know that it is not an easy fight in order to make people understand that we are actually being killed,” explained Delma Bennett. “We have 14 different plants in our vicinity and at least 5 of them put out dioxin. And the reason they put out dioxin is because of the fact that they have to burn the product in order to turn it into the stuff that we actually need to make our lives convenient. That’s what it is all about, making our life convenient.
“And we also live a little longer because of some of these products, but still we are being killed. Here we are living in our area, and it is billions of dollars being produced in our area each and every day. And we are not against that, but we are against being killed for these products.”
In March 2005, MEAN and legal supporters filed a petition with the Organization of American States’s Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C. The suit claims that U.S. government authorization of toxic facilities so close to residential areas violates rights to life, health and racial equality.
This year, the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow (AHT) is advocating for the “Act for a Healthy Massachusetts” bill that would force manufacturers to phase out the use of ten of the most toxic chemicals found in everyday products. Activists hope that the passage of such legislation in Massachusetts will inspire similar action on the part of other states, as well as push manufacturers to remove toxic chemicals from products sold across the country, not just those in the Bay State.
Such changes would help to safeguard the health of state residents as well as those in Mossville. Earlier in 2006, AHT member organizations worked in support of a bill that would phase out the use of mercury in consumer products. Both the State House and the Senate passed the bill unanimously.
During the event, speakers also highlighted the particular danger of vinyl plastic, or PVC, a malleable plastic made from petroleum oil that is often used to make shower curtains, children’s toys and other vinyl products. Bill Walsh, founder of the Healthy Building Network referred to PVC as “the worst plastic on earth for the environment” because the chemicals used to make it soft can release dioxins during production and can seep out of it later in its everyday use.
Walsh also paid tribute to Damu Smith, a pioneering African American environmental justice activist who fought to empower Mossville residents and those of other polluted communities throughout the South. Smith died from colon cancer earlier this year. Reflecting on the event, Walsh remarked that Smith “would love the outreach to not forget people who have a hard time speaking for themselves because they are poor, or sick, or already forgotten or they are not already on the list. He was about finding those people and bringing them in and having victories.”
Posted by Toussaint at June 19, 2006 01:10 PM