An American Cause
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.
Currently, I am the President of the consulting firm, Brockovich Research & Consulting, where I am involved in numerous major environmental cases 
Comments
Hello Erin
I met you when you were at University College Dublin sometime ago but I am afraid it is only now that I looked at your website.
I find it disturbing that our Irish EPA look the other way when it comes to certain pollution and I just wish we had someone like like you to clean up Ireland.
I wish you Good Luck and I know you will continue to "stick at it"
Yours sincerely
Helen Riordan.
Posted by: Helen Riordan | November 8, 2009 12:51 PM
Erin:
You wrote. "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." I noticed, however, you didn't mention the name of the mining company that has polluted this small Missouri town. Why not? Is it because the case is in litigation or has been litigated and one of the stipulations is not to publicly name this mining company? Since the mining company has already polluted the town and by all accounts is making piece meal efforts at cleaning it up it would seem responsible to name the mining company.
Posted by: Michael | November 24, 2009 11:26 AM
Hi, Erin...I am a Chemistry Teacher and i show your movie every year to my students when we cover oxidation numbers and elements (i have seen it enough times that i am able to make it a relative "clean version"...the thing that i have a hard time with, still, is when the kids ask "how did they get away with this" and the above story shows it goes on and on and on, still....it is difficult to tell them answers that i, myself, believe are crap....how do you keep fighting a battle that doesn't seem "winable?" and in your experience do you really think that "Our America" will ever be as tough on businesses about their responsiblities as it should.....
thanks for listening
sheryl schrader
medina high school
medina, ohio
Posted by: Sheryl Schrader | December 1, 2009 10:26 AM
Erin:
This is also going on in other places. The Town of DISH, TX has residents getting sick, but the Texas Committee on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) detected no pollutants above the hazard level. The Mayor of DISH, Calvin Tillman, ordered private air tests last fall. The results were shocking, for benzene, a known carcinogen, and carbon disulphide, a neurotoxin, were well into the danger level there. Someone in the gas industry suggested that some of the pollutants were from a rayon manufacturer, but there is no active rayon plants in that region.
The TCEQ then called for "voluntary" reductions of benzene emission from natural gas producing & shipping facilities there. Voluntary? No enforcement of the regulations? No fines? No shut downs? The head Toxicologist of the TCEQ is also hoping that controls on benzene will also control carbon disulphide, but he admits no expertise on gas drilling matters. The TCEQ won't talk about testing the levels of other chemicals beyond benzene, so how will they track them after controlling benzene?
The people in DISH have no choice, either, if they live there.
Natural gas is supposed to be a "bridge" fuel for the future, but the new "fracing" technique used to extract gas from shale uses many toxic chemicals, including organophosphates, another known neurotoxin, ethylene glycol, aka antifreeze, a kidney toxin, benzene, multiple types of acids, and even your old nemesis, hexavalent chromium, is being used in the "fracing fluids"!
Posted by: Mike H. | December 2, 2009 6:40 PM
Hello Erin, I just want to tell you that you are doing a good job, and thank you for opening up my eyes and realizing that anything is possible if you just try and dont give up. I watch the movie over and over and you inspire me so much. Thank You and you are my Hero.
Posted by: Abraham Garcia | December 9, 2009 11:04 PM
If this is a small town with a big corporation, who is working? Why would I work for a corporation that is killing me and my family? These companies can't do business if nobody worked for them. While the corporate world has no concern for doing what's right, why are we never looking at the worker who also isn't dong what's right?
Employment is a problem, we all need to eat. When will we learn to create our own income doing what you were born to do? We all have a full potential, we all have special talents. Why are we blind to doing what we would love to be doing over working for another who is doing nothing but sucking our energy and killing our families?
I truly mean not offence to those who are suffering, but responsibility and accountability starts with self. If a corporation has no workers, they would be forced to change their ways if they want to earn a living. We are scared to stand up, scared to take a stand because we are just as guilty of not doing the right thing as the corporate world.
I'm just saying.......
Posted by: Judy | January 23, 2010 1:09 AM