The Brockovich Report

Remember when the million man march, a vast grassroots movement, conveyed to the world a different picture of the African American man?

Move over men, it's baby time.

There's another march on the way, only it's not for a million men. It's not a march either--it's the Million Baby Crawl.

Seventh Generation has invited me to be a spokeswoman for the Million Baby Crawl, a movement to focus public attention on toxins in household products.

Currently the government only tests 200 of the more than 80,000 chemicals on the market. Who knows how many dangerous ingredients are sitting on our own shelves?
This movement is around to focus attention on protecting our families from toxins secreted in products on the shelves in every American home.

Yes, under our kitchen cabinets, there's a hotbed of toxic chemical soups marketed as cleansers, polishes, insecticides, etc.

The national dialogue about 'Kid Safe Chemicals ' is designed to focus national attention on chemicals used in everyday products, including those used in baby bottles and children's toys. With some attention from the public, we're hoping that Washington will amending the weakness of the current law known as the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), one of the reasons for the lack of safety and consumer protection.

You can join the crawl at the website:
http://www.seventhgeneration.com/million-baby-crawl/

You can visit a "crawl to action" event in in person in:
Boston,
Burlington,
Denver,
Minneapolis,
New York,
Portland, or
Seattle.
I hope many of you out there will join us on the Million Baby Crawl. The live events will include picture and sign-making opportunities, a computer station where you can join, entertainment, public appearances, a children's Crawl to the Capital area, a substance Control Act rally, free giveaways and more...

Maybe I'll see you there.

If we had a crystal ball and could see a 60 foot wall of water coming right at us, or an F-5 tornado ready to rip our house off its foundation, would we do something to stop it? Of course we would—unless it is an environmental disaster of our own making. Those we tend to ignore. Environmental disasters need no gypsy fortune-tellers or wizards to reveal ominous portent. All it takes is a little common sense, and people who pay attention. We all need to pay attention because that 60 foot wall of water is on its way. Only in some places it is arsenic, or benzene, or hexavalent chromium, or lead.

Recently there's one situation that one keeps me up at night because of the children affected. There's a small quaint Missouri town, a quiet, peaceful, safe, tree lined haven sung to sleep with the night music of the locust. The shadow in this Norman Rockwellian picture is contamination from a lead mine.

The mining company that is contaminating the town is no small time business. This is a big business with big counsel who should know better. Their pockets are deep enough to clean the mess up or buy out the entire town if they so choose. To give credit where credit is due, they are making efforts to clean up. But it is not fast enough—one of those little too late efforts. They pick and chose which property they will clean up, while others equally afflicted wait and watch and wonder what will happen to them.

In this town, children run and laugh and play in lead dust. Lead dust covers their yards, their streets, the formerly pristine woods where they ride their bikes.

We have tested and have confirmed levels of lead in people’s yards in the thousands of parts per million. Blood tests reveal that one third have lead poisoning.

The entire time I was there, I had a metallic taste in my mouth. I could feel swelling in my ears and sinuses. No wonder I came home from this particular trip sick. What I was doing there without some kind of protection? But how could I wear a mask and protective gear? This wasn't Love Canal. It's a neighborhood. How would neighbors feel if I walked around with a mask, or hazmat suit?

People who live there are worried. They tell me they want to protect their kids but who are they supposed to believe? Industry tells them one thing (Don't worry, they're fixing it), EPA says another (off-roading on the mine waste piles is within harmless recreational exposure though we want to phase it out in a five-to-seven year period.) Then we say yet something else--just what the test results tell us. It's dangerous.

Would others accuse me of a publicity stunt if I wore that protection? But since when have I cared about that? More importantly, I was concerned about how the people, especially the children were feeling. Were they sensitized? Have they already been afflicted with growth retardation, speech or language dysfunction, anemia, and attentional or behavioral disorders? How will this affect their future?

This enormous mine yawns open, free standing lead, free to blow through the town, free to sift into yards, doors and windows, into lungs, into blood. I felt as if I were on a third world journey witnessing the despair of the lost and disenfranchised of a country that ignores the plight of its people. Is this the real America?

Yet industry continues the status quo. Industry is free to dabble in reparations, but continue to work at full blast, in close proximity to people. Industry is free to broadcast lead dust indiscriminately, unimpeded. The lead is free to fly where ever the wind blows it. What is people’s freedom? They have no choice, they have no voice. Is this the real America?

While we move forward for cleaner energy, better technology and a new tomorrow, we cannot ignore the damage that continues. We can not leave hazards in place that continually spoil the water, the land, the lives of our children. As we move forward into better technologies, we must clean up yesterday's damage, or all our efforts for tomorrow will be for naught.