"Pollution and poverty are often presented as separate problems," said UIC student John West. "This tour revealed how back-room political dealings and strong corporate interests led to pollution in the back yards of the working class people of Little Village."
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Feature Tue Jun 30 2009
Inside a Toxic Tour
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As he pauses at the
corner of
31st Street and Central Park
in Little Village, Rafael Hurtado can only think about
factories. Turn any way, and they're all he sees, and
on the worst days, they're all he smells. On a drizzly April
morning, the smell isn't nearly as repugnant as it is on
unbearably hot summer days, but Hurtado still has a message
for anyone listening. Hurtado, an 18-year-old Little Village
resident, volunteers as a tour guide for
Toxic Tours, which guide
people around the load of manufacturing plants and chemical
sites that have been polluting the community for years.
The
Little Village Environmental Justice Organization
(LVEJO) started the tours about seven years ago as a way to
educate the community and others about the looming toxic
presence of several industries right in their backyards.
On this April morning, in the midst of the
murmuring steady rainfall, the noise of sirens, trains and
cars passing through puddles briefly disturbs his message, but
Hurtado continues with his story. He became involved with
LVEJO in 2002 after noticing a rally outside his home
protesting for more parks in the area.
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"We only have one park in
Little Village, and it's only accessible to one-third of the community
because it's all the way on the west side," he says. "For you to go
over there, you don't have to be part of a gang... they'll harass
you."
Soon after the 2002 rally,
he started volunteering with the group, and slowly began connecting
some of the community's health problems with the industries
concentrated in the area. He thought back to fourth grade, when he was
diagnosed with asthma. At first, he thought asthma was something
hereditary, "like baldness," he says.
"So I was like, 'My dad has
asthma, maybe I have asthma,"' he says. His father worked in a factory
and developed breathing problems after years of work. "There were
times he couldn't sleep because he couldn't breathe," Hurtado
remembers.
After learning more through
LVEJO, he started to take a closer look at the industry that surrounds
his home and his school —
Multicultural Arts High School.
One day during baseball practice, he had to pause to catch his breath.
Looking at his surroundings, Hurtado could only see factories again.
"Our field is right by the
train tracks. And from our field it is a perfect view — you can see
the industry," he says. "My high school is next to a factory, and on
the side of the railroad tracks [there's another] ...it's surrounded
by industry, and from our baseball field you can see everything."
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Sites on the Toxic Tours
include
MRC Polymers,
Meyer Steel Drum,
Crawford Generating Station
[PDF] (a coal power plant owned by Midwest Generation, an
Edison International Company), and
Prima Plastics. When he
stops at the first tour site, MRC Polymers, Hurtado explains
that LVEJO was lobbying for more park space after this space
opened up, but the factory was built instead, even after
promises from
Alderman Ricardo Muņoz
(22nd Ward). While 75 to 100 jobs were promised, Hurtado
notes, so far only two Little Village residents have been
hired. (A phone call to Ald. Muņoz's office was not returned
before press time.) But even after these concerns, this site,
which recycles and melts plastic, isn't the worst of the
community's problems because it doesn't pollute nearly as much
as some other sites.
To see the pollution,
especially on hot summer days, Hurtado says to stop by the
Crawford Generating Station at 3501 S. Pulaski Rd. Children
call it the "cloud factory" because "they see all the smoke
going out to the sky and they think it's the clouds," Hurtado
says. According to stats from
Scorecard, part of the
nonprofit
Green Media Toolshed,
Crawford released 130,081 pounds of "suspected skin or sense
organ toxicants" in the air in 2002, followed by 110,821
pounds of "suspected respiratory toxicants" and 110,210 pounds
of "suspected gastrointestinal or liver toxicants."
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Midwest Generation
states on its website [PDF] that
nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emission levels are "well below" EPA
standards. The company has operated Crawford and the Fisk Generating
Station in Pilsen since 1999, says Douglas McFarlan, senior vice
president of public affairs for Midwest Generation. According to
McFarlan, the power plants emit three main pollutants that the company
strives to control: sulfur dioxide, which contributes to acid rain;
nitrogen oxide; and mercury. Since 1999, Midwest Generation has
installed new equipment and purchased a higher grade of coal to reduce
sulfur dioxide emissions by 30 percent, nitrogen oxide ("a precursor
to smog," McFarlan says) by 60 percent, and mercury by 80 percent.
Even with new controls to
limit pollution, however, striking numbers reflect Little Village's
ghostly past: According to a
report compiled by the
Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago,
Chicago ranks second among all cities in the country adversely
affected by power plant pollution, leading to 855 premature deaths,
848 hospitalizations, 1,519 heart attacks and 23,650 asthma attacks.
The report also states that according to EPA officials, fine particle
pollution from power plants shortens the lives of 1,356 Illinoisans
every year, citing Crawford and Fisk as two main pollutants. The
report goes on to mention that some of the current equipment in both
plants dates back to 1959, and "because of their age, plants such as
Fisk and Crawford are often exempt from rigorous clean air
regulations."
Since the factories are old, McFarlan recognizes that the
plants are "regulated differently than brand new
construction," but he adds that there are still
"cost-effective ways to reduce emissions." Midwest Generation
employs about 200 workers between the two sites," he adds.
On some of the tours, Hurtado says that it's not uncommon
for people to get sick from the smells, especially during the
warmer weather. Many times, people have to go back to the
group's offices, at 2856 S. Millard Ave., in order to get away
from the smells and to relieve headaches. He sometimes refers
to Little Village as the "asthma capital" of Chicago, and
though more people are spreading the word about the pollution,
statistics only seem to get worse over the years. |
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"When we used to do Toxic
Tours two or three years ago, we would say statistics like, 'There are
41 premature deaths a year, 2,800 asthma attacks per year in Little
Village and 551 emergency visits related to asthma,'" Hurtado says.
"We tell people now it's probably worse. Let's say you're near a river
and you start kicking dirt in it. If you kick some dirt in it, it's
just going to wash away. But if you keep doing it, it's going to get
dirty... It's not like there's a box over Little Village that keeps
the pollution here. The pollution's spread over a 300-mile radius.
There are probably 50 premature deaths now, more than 3,500 asthma
attacks and over 600 emergency room visits [related to asthma]."
For more information, and
to sign up for a Toxic Tour, check out
LVEJO's homepage. The group also
produces great blogs on
public transit,
clean energy and
general activism. Since leading
this particular tour in April, Hurtado graduated from
Multicultural
Arts High School. He will be attending
Morton
College in the fall.
To view photos on
Flickr from this particular tour
click here.
What's
In Our Backyard Biohazard Poster (Downloadable PDF)
Reflections from Activist Summer Camp!
posted by
joshua kahn russell in
RAN General on September 30th, 2008
Ever
wanted to know what happens at RAN’s activist training camps and network
gatherings? Last week we co-hosted a gathering of 60 activists in
Chicago with the Student Environmental Action Coalition. Below is a
reflection from Robin Markle, one of the youth leaders in RAN’s network.
Robin serves on the national council of
RYSE (explained below), and also helps coordinate the new
Students for a Democratic Society, nationally. Below, she shares an
insider’s view of the camp.
Robin Markle
Last weekend I was fortunate enough to travel to Chicago, IL for the
first RAN/RYSE/SEAC Gathering. As a
RAN supporter and member of the
RYSE (RAN Youth Sustaining the Earth - yes that’s an acronym within
an acronym!) Council, I was pretty familiar with RAN’s campaigns, but
it’s rare that I get a chance to meet other RAN supporters outside of my
local chapter. This gathering brought together RAN and RYSE supporters
from all over North America, as well as members of
SEAC, the Student Environmental Action Coalition. There was also
representation from
IEN, The Indigenous Environmental Network. Having so many
enthusiastic activists in one place, the vast majority of them people
under 25, was truly energizing and inspiring.
The gathering began Friday evening,when, after some pizza and salad, the
freshly arrived participants met in a big circle to introduce ourselves
and play some embarrassing ice-breaker games. The group was diverse,
especially compared to other environmental gatherings I’ve been to.
People came from Boston MA, Orlando FL, Oakland CA, Mexico City and
Alberta, Canada. I would estimate that about half the group was female,
half were people of color, and the range of identities was endless.
Saturday morning we loaded ourselves onto a schoolbus for a
Toxic Tour of Whiting, IN and South Lawndale (affectionately known
as “Little Village”) in Chicago. Whiting is the site of an oil refinery
that is currently being expanded. Our tour was lead by two long-time
community members who have been fighting the expansion. When the bus
pulled up by the refinery, my first instinct was to hold my breath until
we passed. The stench of oil and chemicals in the air was potent. Then I
realized that a) this would not be possible since we were staying in the
area for much longer than I could hold my breath, and b) this was the
air some people breathed every day. Wow, privilege check.
After checking
out the sights in Whiting, we moved on to Little Village. There, our
second tour was lead by several youth from an organization called
LVEJO (La Organizacion de Justicia Ambiental
de la Villita, or, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization).
LVEJO gave us an eye-opening tour that included a visiting a chemical
plant and a recycling center. The youth leading the tour had been
directly involved in trying to stop the chemical plant from being
erected in their community. Everyone on the tour left refreshed and
inspired by the work of LVEJO - to see youth standing up for their
community against incredible odds was invigorating.
Sunday morning began with more stories from communities on the
frontlines of environmental devastation. The first presenter was Danny
from SEAC, who has been living in West Virgina and organizing around
coal issues there for the last 5 years. Danny’s presentation brought
tears to my eyes. We learned how the people of Appalachia are suffering
severe exploitation of their land and livelihood by coal companies. Coal
is a way of life there, yet it destroys the environment and hurts the
health of the locals, and everyone knows it’s going to run out soon.
Danny explained that though some people are resisting coal mining in
their communities, a lot of the time coal companies are the only source
of employment in the area. In addition, people who resist have been
intimidated. People’s lives are on the line in so many ways.
The second panel presenter was a woman named Leticia who had flown in
from Paraguay. In her community, U.S. transnational corporations have
bought up the rainforest land where her community lives and are planting
soy and palm plantations. The companies (which include Archer Daniels
Midland, Bunge and Cargill, check out the
RAN Agribusiness campaign site for more info) say that they are
providing jobs in Paraguay, but the plantations only employ one person
per 1000 hectares, whereas the historical subsistence farming practices
practiced by Leticia’s community employed 5 people per 1 hectare. So
basically the land has been taken away from them so they can’t grow
their own food, they can’t get jobs (or the few that are available are
with the businesses that exploit them), and their entire culture, which
is dependent upon their traditional farming practices and connection to
the rainforest, is slowly being destroyed. And again, people who resist
are having their lives threatened.
The final panelist was Eriel, a member of the Chipewya First Nation in
Canada. She’d been a participant in the camp all weekend, but I didn’t
know until the night before when I ran into her preparing her
presentation that she is an organizer in Saskatchewan, where U.S. oil
companies are drilling up her community’s land to extract oil in the
dirtiest way possible, through
tar sands. Eriel talked about the tar sands extraction in Fort
Chipewya where she spent her summers growing up and where most of her
family lives. There, oil companies have polluted the water where her
family lives to the point where first they couldn’t swim in the river
and then they couldn’t fish in it, and now they can’t hunt any animals
that have drank water from it (i.e., all of them) because the animals
are poisoned. The community already has very high rates of cancer.
Because they depend on the land and animals for 80% of their needs,
members of her community are now being forced into outside jobs so they
can buy food and clean water from a store. And, much like in Appalachia
and Paraguay, the only jobs being offered are with the oil companies,
the very people responsible for all the destruction in the first place.
In addition to impact on the local communities, the tar sands extraction
process is very scary - a barrel of tar sands oil produces 2.5 times as
much greenhouse gases as a barrel of conventionally produced oil. The
target site for tar sands extraction in Canada is roughly the size of
Florida - if oil companies are allowed to extract from this entire area,
the gases produced will literally put us past the tipping point for
global warming, and we will never we able to repair the damage to our
climate. This was some heavy information to be hearing at 10 in the
morning, especially after the other two panelists.
When I saw Eriel the night before her presentation, she
showed me some pictures of the tar sands and of her community on her
computer. One picture she showed me I could describe with no other term
than heart-breaking. It was a photo of a three-dimensional piece of art
made by a member of a First Nations community impacted by the tar sands.
The 28 year old artist had recreated the coast line of the water where
he lives in black against a stark white background. Coming out of the
coast line were two hands, black oil dripping and dribbling off of them
down the page. At the bottom of the page was a line of text, “How many
barrels of oil is my life worth to you?”. He made it before he died of
cancer.
After hearing from all three panelists, participants divided up into
three groups to learn more about the RAN campaigns targeting each issue
a panelist had spoken about. The rest of the day was spent in
participant-led workshops, the topics of which varied from “Resistance
Music” to “Reiki” to “Building Intentional Communities”. Personally, I
spent the rest of the afternoon and evening preparing for Monday’s
action. After combining several ideas suggested by participants, a group
of us developed a skit in which happy rainforest plants, animals and
land-based people frolic in the understory, but are soon disturbed when
a group of CEO’s (the famous ABC’s of Destruction - ADM, Bunge and
Cargill) barge in and set up shop. The plants, animals and people are
shoved into a machine and come out the other end as monocrop soy and
unhappy, enslaved laborers. The skit is performed in silence while a
narrator stands at the side, reciting a Dr.Suess-like poem telling the
story of “The Problem with Palm Oil”.
Monday morning adrenaline was running high as we loaded back onto the
schoolbus to head to our action site.The majority of those who had
planned the action in detail, staying up after the talent show the night
before to run through the logistics, were youth, most were high school
students from Oakland CA. For many, it was their first direct action.
When it came time to deploy, we literally jumped out the back of the
bus, ran into position, and performed our skit for a crowd of startled
traders and tourists. To the side of the skit, some participants held
banners while others handed out flyers and talked to passerbys about the
campaign.
In total, we probably performed the
skit about a dozen times in different locations around the Board of
Trade. We reached hundreds of people and actually ran out of flyers! It
was one of the smoothest actions I’ve ever been a part of, thanks in
part to good communication with police and the positive messaging and
energy we brought. Onlookers were much more interested in learning more
about a bunch of kids dressed as jungle animals than they are when
protesters are chanting and carrying signs. It was a great lesson in how
to build a movement that’s fun and accessible to a wide range of people.
It was also a great reminder that you don’t need to be a super skilled
organizer to plan and execute a really successful action - the action
had been planned literally in a day, all props had been made the night
before, and all of the ideas had come from high school and college
students, some of whom had no previous experience doing this kind of
work. With support from RAN’s staff, we had pulled together an awesome
action and had a lot of fun along the way.
After an action debrief in a nearby
park, we headed back to our hotel where new friends said goodbye as
people slowly left in shifts for the airport. Knowing that we were all
returning to very different parts of the hemisphere was sad, but also
exciting: everyone brought back with them new ideas, skills and
experiences that they can now share with their local community.
