The Sacrifice Zones of Hurricane Harvey

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In the first installment of the series, Abby Martin introduced viewers to a neighborhood called Lakewood that was virtually ignored by both state and federal officials during and after the hurricane. Lakewood is home to working class Houston residents, many of which are Black or Latino. Is it simply a coincidence that neighborhoods like Lakewood receive far less attention and support when it comes to recovery efforts than wealthier neighborhoods filled with middle to upper class white Houstonians?

According to the testimony of residents on the ground in Lakewood, the answer is a very clear no. In this second installment of Hurricane Harvey’s aftermath, Abby Martin explores how the petrochemical industry dominates the city and why its low-income, minority areas are at the highest-risk for flooding and pollution, earning them the name “sacrifice zones.”

Abby explores Houston’s unique lack of zoning and regulations that maximized the impact of the storm, the “fence-line communities” deliberately put in harm’s way, inhumane treatment of incarcerated people during the disaster, and how the ownership of the city by Big Oil puts thousands of lives in peril.

Houston is unique in that it is the largest U.S. city to have no zoning laws. It is also overrun with petrochemical corporations operating with few rules and regulations. Neither of these things lend to a safe and healthy city for those with few resources. Houston has a high amount of residential segregation and housing discrimination which forces residents seeking affordable housing into marginalized areas where they are exposed to higher amounts of pollutants, less access to amenities, and are often at a higher risk of flooding. In the second installment of the series “After Harvey,” Abby speaks with Dr. Robert Bullard about these issues, touching on gentrification of the city, where wealth is focused, and how modern weather events impact communities like Lakewood.

Not only were Houston residents affected adversely by the structure of the city, inmates being held in three prison units in the area were all but ignored during the disaster. Abby speaks to Azzurra Crispino, from Prison Abolition Prisoner Support, about what inmates experienced in the hours and days following Harvey. Reports from inmates included a buildup of standing water in the units, the inability to bathe for at least 10 days, and reports that when portable toilets were finally made available, they were only accessible to prison staff. In one unit, 500 men were evacuated to a gymnasium where they stayed and slept in close quarters without air conditioning or functioning fans, near portable toilets that were not being emptied or cleaned and with insects roaming the floors at night. According to Crispino, despite being located on a floodplain, the facility does not have a constitutional evacuation plan in place, leading to numerous health and safety concerns for inmates.

Abby also speaks with Yvette Arellano of the Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services. Yvette shared details surrounding the dangerous situation that unfolded at a chemical plant in Houston after Hurricane Harvey hit the area. As the emergency at the chemical plant began, the surrounding community was not properly informed of the situation, despite seeing smoke and flames at the plant. As time went on, few details were shared about what chemicals were stored at that particular plant and if the situation posed any immediate threat to the surrounding residents. Chemical plants like this are no longer required to be transparent when it comes to their operations due to the supposed threat of terrorist attacks. While hiding behind Homeland Security in an effort to keep the country safe, the communities surrounding these facilities are left in an unsafe position, completely unaware of potential disasters looming right around the corner. In fact, FEMA stepped up to make the community aware of the threat posed to the community as the emergency unfolded, but the very next day rescinded those statements due to pressures from above. Not only were communities subjected to significantly polluted air due to emergencies at individual chemical and oil plants in the area, floodwaters were contaminated as well, putting residents at risk in the midst of harrowing rescues.

Shockingly, there is a 16 mile stretch of residential communities located on the edge of the second largest petrochemical complex in the world, running from Houston to Louisiana, filled with cancer clusters and high emissions. Not only is this harmful situation allowed in the United States, there were no extra precautions taken to protect these communities during the disaster, communities full of children. These communities are subjected to harmful emissions daily and those emissions increased dramatically after the hurricane. The correlation is obvious – the higher the poverty rate in these areas, the greater the rate of harmful emissions. Human lives are sacrificed for the profit of the petrochemical industry, with major plants in view of elementary school playgrounds.

Houston is dominated by the petrochemical industry with little regard to the health and safety of its most vulnerable residents. Hurricane Harvey did not cause this problem but it has finally brought more of the shocking situation to light. Profits are valued over people in Houston and the basic layout of the city along with its laws and regulations are proof.

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Abby Martin: Houston is not an unusual place for devastating hurricanes but in the air of climate change disaster, Harvey hit the state like no other. In just six days, 33 trillion gallons of water were dumped onto the area, the greatest amount of rain for a single storm in continental US history with three times more rain than Katrina. The catastrophic flooding destroyed thousands of homes and left many areas of Houston in ruins, but these homes all have something in common. Like the devastated neighborhood I visited in Northeast Houston, low income Black and Latino residential areas are what is known as fence-line communities, or those in the highest risk borders of flooding and pollution.To learn more, I talked to an expert on fence-line communities, Dr. Robert Bullard, distinguished professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University.

Robert Bullard: Well, if you look at … Houston is a petro capital and it’s has lots of industries. Many of the communities that are near the refineries and petrochemical plants along the Ship Channel, many of them are also in the areas that’s prone to flood. And so you get this … people who are living in the areas that’s affordable, areas that … Because of residential segregation, because of housing discrimination, in many cases, people are forced to live in the areas that are risky and very vulnerable not just to storms like Harvey or these monster hurricanes but also just with downpours. Harvey was different is that it spreaded the pain. It kind of democratized the suffering, but yet and still when you look at it, the communities that have few resources and few bank accounts that can allow them to bounce back quickly, that’s how it’s hit them the hardest, because they don’t have the cushion to make them more resilient.

AM: Right, the recovery certainly was not democratized, Professor, as we know. Let’s talk about how urban planning and gentrification has exacerbated these fence-line communities and vulnerable communities.

RB: Well, you know that Houston is a city that, in many cases, defies logic in terms of where things get built and how they get built and the whole idea of where investments go. We have sparkling downtown areas, we have beautiful urban complexes that’s of high-rises. But at the same time, we have areas that are semi-rural, areas that have very little infrastructure in terms of drainage, in terms of flood control, the areas that have basically open ditches and gullies and no sidewalks and kids have to walk along the street next to ditches to get to school. When it rains, those gullies and ditches fill, presents a lot of problems in terms of health and safety for children.Houston is the only major city in United States that does not have zoning. It has allowed for really willy-nilly, haphazard kinds of development. Because of that unrestrained capitalism, it means that if you have the money, you can almost build anything anywhere. That kind of less protection for poor communities and communities of color and not having the kinds of investments in infrastructure, such as flood control, has made many communities basically sacrifice zones. When you start looking at laying a map out on the table and talking about which communities are over-polluted by industry and air pollution and water contamination, which communities have open drainage ditches and which communities are more likely to have illegal dumping of waste, I mean, these are the same communities that are low-lying and generally poorer and have an infrastructure that’s older and not maintained.Most of this is on the east side of Houston. In Houston, Houston’s east side is heavy industrial, heavy concentration of African American and Latinos. And so when you talk about that schism between these two Houstons that we’re talking about … The west side is more residential and it’s more upscale, and then you talk about on the east side is where you have a lot of these industries and these neighborhoods that are fence-line. Often times, people call them sacrifice zones, in the areas that are where anything goes. These are the same areas that don’t have grocery stores. These are where you have concentration of food deserts. These are the neighborhoods where you don’t have a lot of parks and green space. When you talk about things that communities don’t have, what we’re saying is that if we are to recover in a way that’s equitable, we have to address a lot of those disparities that existed before the storm.

AM: The areas that suffered most from the hurricane are Houston’s historically oppressed and marginalized communities.

RB: In many cases, the people that live closest to the industries don’t even get the benefits of working at the industry. They get the pollution and they get the risk and many times, they get sick. The environmental racism is when we allow certain types of risk and health threats to somehow be targeted toward groups and communities because of their race. It’s real. We live, as I say, we live in areas in the South and in Houston, and Houston is definitely a Southern city, that many of us … Its neighborhoods and its environmental landscape was shaped by Jim Crow segregation, racial segregation.If you look at, as I say before, we have … In 2017, we still have racially identifiable neighborhoods that we know by name and we know when you travel through, you know by when you see the population. You see certain things are not there, you can identify in terms of amenities. What happened in terms of the infrastructure and the flooding of certain neighborhoods and the disparate impact of the flooding, that’s not natural. That’s an unnatural disaster. The political dynamics involved in pushing people toward risk and not allowing certain communities to have the benefits of infrastructure improvements, that’s not natural. That’s unnatural. Racism is unnatural, it doesn’t make sense, it’s an illness. It’s becomes a mental health issue.

AM: But it’s not just poor residential areas that were treated so inhumanely, and even more marginalized sectors treated with similar heartless disregard. I talked to Azzurra Crispino, co-founder of PAPS, Prison Abolition Prisoner Support, to find out what happened to Houston’s incarcerated population.Let’s start by discussing what you know about the damage done to those three prison units run by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Azzurra Crispino: In terms of the Gist, Stiles, and Leblanc Unit, we know that there was standing water in all three of the units. We know that there was lack of sanitation available to the inmates. They weren’t able to shower for a minimum of 10 days. When porta potties were finally delivered, they were insufficient porta potties. In at least one of the units, the porta potties were clumped together in such a way that it was not accessible to all of the inmates to be able to go there. We have widespread reports that only the guards were allowed to use the porta potties. So men are obviously having to make do, in terms of sanitation, however they can.

AM: You mentioned the evacuees. What happened to them?

AC We know from an activist who went to visit inmates in Ferguson Unit that more than 500 men were evacuated to this unit. They were placed in a gymnasium. They were told to bring their fans but no other property. When they got to the gymnasium, they were not allowed to plug in their fans, so no air conditioning, no ability to plug in your fan. There are porta potties but the porta potties are not being cleaned. Ants, roaches, and snakes crossing them at night. No ability to go anywhere or do anything except to be in this gymnasium.You have a situation where a Federal Government agency has recognized that this is a coastal floodplain that is likely to flood anytime. If I lived there, I would have to carry additional flood insurance. But TDCJ does not have an evacuation plan in place that is constitutional, humane, and respects the taxpayer.

AM: That’s the big question, right? I mean, you mentioned that these prisons were built on a known floodplain. I guess you can ask that about all these facilities in Houston: Why were there no precautionary measures taken, knowing that this is going to happen not just now but again and again?

AC: Because prisons are built for profit, not rehabilitation. It’s cheaper to build on a floodplain, right? The reality is that we have this fiction that prisoners are people who have done something wrong and they’re being punished for a reason. The reality is that prisons are a huge profit-making industry. If you were to put these units in non-floodplain areas, that’s real estate that’s substantially more expensive.

AM: But it’s much more than flood water that earns Houston’s low-income areas the title sacrifice zones. The mega corporations that siphon vast wealth from Texas land puts them in even graver danger. On the poorer, mostly minority east side of Houston, you’ll find big oil refineries, which emit countless harmful pollutants. You’ll also find all the chemical plants, which emit even more toxic emissions, littering the residential areas hurt by the floods. This gets even more disturbing when you see it’s not just homes but also schools. Countless children go to schools built inside of these poison-spewing zones. When hurricanes strike these facilities, it’s the east side communities who bear the brunt of the toxic fallout. Hurricane Harvey was no exception.Behind me is the Arkema chemical plant, the facility that exploded one month ago during Hurricane Harvey. Innumerable noxious, polluting chemical were released into the air endangering thousands of local residents, some of whom live directly next to the plant. They were told to return home but to wear protective clothing and to not drink the water.We’re driving by the Arkema Chemical Plant right now, where water was about six-feet deep in the plant. They said it was an unprecedented amount of flooding but as we know, they had experienced something very similar just a few years prior and actually failed to take those precautionary measures to prevent more explosions. Right across from the plant, there’s people. There’s houses, there’s trailers, hundreds of people who live here who have to return back to their home. Many of them have farms, they have lives to live. Holy– There’s just a huge dead deer in the gutter. Wow. That was really intense.I spoke with Yvette Arellano of Houston’s grassroots Texas Environmental Advocacy Services to learn more. Can you start by outlining what exactly happened at the Arkema chemical plant back in August?

Yvette Arellano: In August, Arkema basically lost their backup energy source, and they had a total of nine different refrigerated units. The first three went up on Thursday and Friday of that week, and nobody even knew. The community had no idea that a fire was bound to happen. The plant knew because they were inundated with six feet of water. The next day, all of a sudden, you had notices that Arkema was having any issues. People were trying to find out what was the volume of substances that were being held. All we were told was that there were organic peroxides but not the amount and not any other chemicals.Any plant like Arkema that is a chemical plant will produce more than just organic peroxides, but because they hide behind Homeland Security and terrorist threats, they’re not forced to disclose that information to local communities, which is completely unfair. All of a sudden, you had FEMA come out and say, “Well, we have plume modules. Our plume modules disclose that these are hazardous chemicals to public health and safety.” The next day after he made that statement, he rescinded that statement because of pressures that came from above. We’re under Scott Pruitt’s EPA. When we spoke directly to the EPA a week after Harvey had passed, during this entire Arkema situation, we asked, “Are the plumes hazardous?” This is Region 6 EPA, under Scott Pruitt, and they said no.

AM: Your response to the whole, “It’s nothing more than a campfire,” the smoke inhalation and also just their warning to the community about returning.

YA: That was absurd. The community wasn’t given the information that they needed, just like none of the communities during the Harvey disaster were. We were told that no flood waters were toxic because of industrial entities during the storm.

AM: And this had happened before about 10 years prior at the Arkema Chemical Plant, not six feet of water but at least six inches of water. Why were no precautionary measures taken then?

YA: All this stems back to the Chemical Disaster Rule. The Chemical Disaster Rule outlines that these facilities that are called RMP facilities, or Risk Management Plan facilities, have to be transparent with communities and outline evacuation plans and let communities know what they’re storing. Under the Trump administration, there was a 90-day delay. That 90-day delay kept any of those safety mechanisms from going into place. After the 90-day delay, everyone was very hopeful that the mechanisms would go into place, and all the sudden, we were slapped with a 20-month delay. That was beyond belief. We’re talking about common sense policies that protect our communities. Of course, they’re not gonna be in favor of it because then they’d not only lose revenue but they would have to put in safety mechanisms and that costs money.

AM: But still, it seems like such a measly amount of money when the owner is a multimillionaire. We’re really just talking about putting these bins or vats up on stilts.

YA: There’s no enforcement. Under the TCQ, which is the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality, their head is basically appointed by Governor Greg Abbott, or whoever the governor is at the time, a governor who sued the EPA over 28 times, a governor who is a climate denier, a governor who receives a ridiculous amount of money from oil and gas and petrochemical industry in general. When you have that amount of influence, you’re going to protect your best interest, which, in that situation, is money.

AM: I think the part that shocked, at least me, the most was that we’re at a point of this high-stage capitalism where CEOs of chemical plants can just sit back, how many years after Fukushima, and say, “We’re just gonna sit back and watch this explode because we can’t do anything else.” That’s insane.

YA: Any single time that there’s a chemical fire along the Ship Channel, first responders are never fully trained on how to deal with chemical fires. They’re told to allow anything, any substance it is, and most of the time, they have no idea what’s even burning. We still have no idea what burned at Arkema. There is no information that’s come out. The information that was relayed to the community is old, it’s outdated. None of it’s up to date.

AM: It’s not just Arkema, it’s Exxon, it’s multiple other petrochemical, big oil companies that basically dominate the state, Yvette. And Exxon also had refineries damaged during Hurricane Harvey and released massive amounts of pollutants in the air. Can you give us just kind of a general assessment of what kind of pollution was emitted from these companies during the hurricane?

YA: Right behind you is a running list of just the amount of emissions that we were able to track. We stopped at 5 million in excess pounds of fugitive emissions that were let off into the communities affected by Harvey. Three days after the storm, we took an aerial tour all the way from the east side of Houston to Port Arthur and not only saw Shell Deer Park terminal, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and the Motiva plant. The Motiva plant in Port Arthur is the largest refinery in this nation, ExxonMobil plant is the second largest refinery in this nation, and they both produce over 500,000 barrels per calendar day.They were flaring like crazy, and no one was there to stop them because there are loopholes hidden within our regulations currently. Our regulations and any policies that are there to protect our community stand like Swiss cheese. The lowest fine that we’ve seen for any of these companies has been around $2,500 for doing air releases. Now, I can’t even buy a used car for that amount of money. It’s cheaper for these companies to pay the fines than it is to actually update the equipment. The companies are allowed to do any number of things. They’re not fined if any of these events happen during a natural disaster or during startup and shutdown.What was told to the community was that these refineries and the chemical plants were going to go through a shutdown process. They weren’t told how many emissions they were gonna let off. In fact, you had public officials just kindly reminding these entities, “Please be considerate as you’re starting up and you’re shutting down.” When you have public officials asking kindly, these entities, to please be considerate, that means there is absolutely nothing else. They are not enforcing. When you’re asking politely, you have no power in that situation. That’s what we were facing. This is the largest petrochemical complex in the entire nation, the second largest in the world. The first largest is in Saudi Arabia. You’re telling me that a first world nation, a developed nation who lives in a democratic society allows a 16-mile stretch of frontline communities with children, elderly, sick, cancer clusters running from Houston all the way to Louisiana? You’re telling me that this is what’s allowed in this kind of nation in this kind of society?

AM: Houston’s open secret is that these same communities are subjected to deadly hazards from these big corporations every single day, not just during natural disasters. The correlation is clear, areas with very low poverty rates have very low rates of harmful emissions. The higher the poverty rate, the greater the rate of dangerous pollutants. Cancer clusters, which are heightened rate of deadly cancer in these polluted areas, prove how many lives are sacrificed for big oil, how many are sentenced to sickness. According to a 2016 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Manchester community, 98% minority and mostly low income, experiences cancer at 30% greater than those in more wealthy areas. 19 industrial oil and chemical facilities dot this small community.

YA: Not only were the families along the Houston Ship Channel affected by any current leaks or fires or emissions but legacy contamination that continues to sit at these sites. When we asked Texas A&M to come in and do testing, when they got to the Brio site over on the south side of Houston, there was an attorney at the Superfund site manually … He was physically attempting to stop them from taking a water sample. They had a Community Department liaison with them who used their body as a barricade.These are wild stories that people have no idea even exist. Whenever we go ahead and we recount them, they sound like lies. They’re not lies. This is what happens in states that are infiltrated with oil and gas infrastructure, they’re extractive industries. Everyone is affected, everyone in Houston sits under a benzene plume. Houston has never even met the federal air quality standards since the Clean Air Acts’ establishment.

AM: Let’s talk about how this all happened. Let’s talk about urban planning. Let’s talk about gentrification and how basically this concrete jungle was built on a swamp and how that’s affected this.

YA: This entire area wasn’t meant to be inhabited by people in general. Houston is nicknamed The Bayou City, but most of our natural waterways and bayous were covered in order for development to even start. The communities of Manchester, of Clinton Park, of the Fifth Ward, have always been predominantly communities of color. The Houston Ship Channel was originally only 10-feet wide, 4-feet deep, and it wasn’t until oil and gas infrastructure started coming in after the discovery of oil in Corsicana and Spindletop, Texas in 1901 … What Houston saw was throughout Goose Creek and the Houston Ship Channel, hundreds and just hundreds of oil derricks and pumps just coming straight out of the ground. From 1901 to 1906, you have oil and gas just infiltrate the entire area.We didn’t export any of this. Originally, it was cotton. It’s the South, so the communities that also outlined the Houston Ship Channel were going to be your historically Black communities. Slavery, cotton, the exportation of cotton, historically Black neighborhoods, the same ones who continue to have to pay the price except now you also have communities that are majority immigrant communities or Latino communities and you can look down the Houston Ship Channel and see this legacy continue.You have the east side and the west side. On the east side, you have every single refinery worker job, every just worker job. Every refinery, any oil infrastructure’s going to be there. On the west side of town, you have the densest population for the headquarters of these energy firms. You have BP America sitting on the west side of Houston in their high towers. You have an entire section of Houston called the Energy Corridor. You have the densest amount of headquarters sitting right in downtown, and they’re all sitting there with nothing to fear.

AM: And you’re gonna get a lot of resistance, obviously, in a petrochemical, big oil town where people are working in the industry. We saw the same thing with the BP oil spill. It seems like there’s so much resistance. As you mentioned, these are entrenched red states with climate denial public officials. What can be done to get environmental justice here?

YA: We’re the only entity down here in this city, basically advocating for environmental justice. It’s difficult, just like you said. You have an education system that STEM programs, science and math, are completely funded by oil and gas interests, where teachers get reprimanded if they talk too long about climate change, where the future of students lies in maritime programs, where they don’t necessarily get advanced math or science skills, they get taught how to work a tractor or a pipe. There is no study that even has chemical exposures and their effects on public health available. You just won’t see that. Why? Because you have hospitals in the medical center with wings that are funded by Kinder Morgan, with wings that are funded by ExxonMobil and Shell, and it’s not going to happen. Our local universities, as much as you have kind-hearted souls working there, their departments are held at the behest of oil and gas because as soon as they have any real studies, they’ll lose funding. What we do is try to uplift the narrative and the stories and we try to advocate, and then we get down to the main issue, which is the people who are being sacrificed are the most powerless in this situation. The people who are being sacrificed are also those who lack the influence with public officials. We don’t have the amount of PACs or money to basically sway the vote. We live in the deep red south, an extremely racist area in this entire nation. We’re not in a post-racial society. We’re poor and we’re affected, and no one cares.

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Governments around the world acknowledge the science that connects industrialization, increased greenhouse gas emissions, and their detrimental impact on the climate, and are currently acting upon solutions. Yet the US, one of the largest greenhouse gas producers, has repeatedly refused to participate in global climate reform. To further confound this reality, the November midterm elections placed ardent climate-change deniers in line for senior legislative environmental policy positions.

Meanwhile, the evidence continues to mount. An abundance of reports show that not only does climate change exist, but that it’s human-induced and will cause severe and non-reversible negative consequences for the planet. Most recently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its 2014 Climate Change Report, which states the observed changes in the climate are “unequivocal” and that carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gas emissions have increased exponentially in the past 60 years. The majority of carbon emissions are absorbed into the ocean, causing rapid acidification which has already caused mass die-offs.

Despite having presented overwhelming evidence from over 130 countries that support this conclusion, IPCC reports continue to be attacked by US media outlets. In 2007, minor errors in the Climate Change Report were widely exploited to justify a denial of its findings, forcing scientists in the US to respond in an open letter. Instead of acknowledging climate change science, the US media continues to distort reality by creating a false equivalency between the two sides.

Additionally, when extreme weather phenomenons are reported, climate change is rarely mentioned as a contributing factor. Project Censored found that out of 450 news segments about weather anomalies in 2013, only 16 of them mentioned climate change.

One may be inclined to believe that politicians who deny man-made climate change are innocuously naïve, but many times they are consciously furthering the neoliberal business agenda at the expense of the planet. Accepting the true human impact on the world would mean instilling regulations to curb pollution, which would cut into corporate profits. As Naomi Klein keenly elucidates, the destructive nature of neoliberalism does not lend itself to a sustainable environment, now or ever. Free-market advocates don’t look at earth resources beyond market shares, and their corporate mantra is to continuously maximize profits.

Fossil fuel companies know their time is running out, so they’ve launched a propaganda war to confuse the American public about climate change, raising serious questions about democracy and the right to information. Journalist George Monbiot has extensively researched the ties between oil companies and the reproduction of climate change disinformation. As Abby Martin on Breaking the Set revealed, those who want to protect oil interests fund think-tanks with the sole aim of derailing climate change evidence and environmental advocacy.

One example of intentionally manipulating public opinion is EPA Facts, whose single purpose is to debunk research by the Environmental Protection Agency. Sourcewatch describes it as a “front group operated by the PR firm Berman & Co.” which manages several similar groups that work to further market fundamentalism, including anti-minimum wage campaigns, food safety, and a host of other social policies. Another egregious example of this collusion is the American Enterprise Institute. This Exxon Mobil-funded think tank blatantly offered funding to scientists and academics that could produce research to dismiss human caused climate change.

Other industries that contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, such as the beef industry, also have ties to climate change denial. A report by the 2006 UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that livestock production is responsible for up to 18 percent of total emissions, more than all transportation combined. Coincidentally, Koch Industries, which oversees Matador Cattle Company, has consistently funded climate change denial.

These astroturf groups have subverted the dialogue, toxified the political process and halted environmental progress. Sociologist Robert J. Bruelle found just how prevalent they are too, with at least 140 organizations existing solely to poison the well and delay legislative action on climate change. Mega rich donors who also want to chip in are becoming more savvy in their funding techniques, using third-party agencies such as Donors Capital Fund to anonymously funnel money into neoliberal policies. As the Guardian revealed last year, anonymous billionaires donated up to $120 million to anti-climate groups to discredit the scientific consensus using Donors Trust.

As journalist Lee Fang discussed on Democracy Now, Republicans who deny man-made climate change and are largely backed by fossil fuel companies will soon be in key positions to block environmental policies. This includes Senator Jim Inhofe in the Environment Committee, Senator Ron Johnson in the Homeland Security and Government Reform Committee, and possibly Senator Ted Cruz in the Science Subcommittee, which controls federal scientific research. Beyond their proclaimed skepticism or outright denial of climate change, these leaders’ ties with oil giants will dismiss any chance of judicious policy decisions.

Because campaign funding is intimately tied to corporate interests, Americans must recognize the influence that corporations and politicians have on media, advertising, think-tank research, and other avenues of information. It’s also a critical time to recognize neoliberalism (or market-fundamentalism) as a toxic system that places corporate profit over any chance for democracy. Acknowledging climate change as a global reality is the first step to demanding sustainable environment policies and proper investment in renewable energy sources.

Other countries are quickly progressing on this front. Germany’s Energiewende project (energy transition plan) has successfully turned nearly one-third of their electricity production carbon-free over the past ten years, and are projected to be 100% renewable as early as 2050. The country’s renewable plan uses electricity through solar photovoltaic and onshore wind power energy.

The US could do this too. Dr. Mark Jacobson from Stanford University developed a plan for America to shift to 100 renewables by 2050, tailoring the proposals for each state based on regional resources available. California, for instance, would meet its energy needs by switching to 55% solar, 35% wind, 5% geothermal, and 4% hydroelectric power. Details of the intricate plan include land requirements, projected cost and savings, expected job creation, and how the proposed trade-off would significantly reduce pollution and global warming emissions.

Plans like this demonstrate the potential the US has in shifting its energy policies and being a leader in sustainable development. Rather than watching the fictitious ‘climate change’ debate unfold, the American public should be aggressively advocating for the development and implementation of green energy plans. It is now or never, and unfortunately, the planet cannot wait.

Written by Sabrina Nasir

Photo by flickr user Kim Seng

A US District Judge has found BP grossly negligent and it’s subcontractors, Halliburton and TransOcean, negligent for their roles in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent dumping of more than 210 million gallons of toxic sludge into the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people and countless marine creatures in the process. Under the Clean Water Act, the new ruling could effectively quadruple the penalty per barrel spilled that BP will have to pay.

BP’s criminal negligence shouldn’t come as a surprise. After nine years at sea, company management acknowledged that the Deepwater drilling rig was in decline and presented a quote “intolerable risk” to safety, yet chose to do nothing. Halliburton also plead guilty to the destruction of key evidence related to the company’s shady cost-cutting practices like failing to inspect the well’s cement mixture, and using only six of the recommended 21 centralizers to secure the site.

Besides the massive damage that’s been done to the environment as a result of the BP disaster, the health impact on humans continues – largely because of the decision by BP and the EPA to spray nearly two million gallons of a dispersant called Corexit onto the water, making the oil 52 times more toxic, according to the Environmental Pollution Journal.

All this aside, BP’s contracts with the Defense Department have more than doubled in the years since the disaster.

Even though the media is fatigued with its coverage of this disaster, Breaking the Set went down to the Louisiana Gulf Coast to see how the region is faring nearly five years later and to investigate the spill’s lasting damages. We learned that hundreds of thousands of people are still sick, and that the oil industry has turned the once vibrant shore into a graveyard.

Abby

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BP’s Oil Spill: Criminal Negligence, Thousands Sick & Gulf Graveyard Left Behind

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Exclusive coverage includes interviews with Jorey Danos, a sick clean-up worker who was exposed to a toxic chemical dispersant known as Corexit, award winning toxicologist Wilma Subra, Gulf Restoration Network’s Jonathan Henderson and Clint Guidry, President of the Louisiana Shrimpers Association.

We also reached out to BP, which provided the following statements:

Q: Why were cleanup workers refused respirators and even threatened with termination if they requested them, according to multiple interviews with clean-up workers and the Louisiana Environmental Action Network?

A: We certainly do not and would not retaliate against workers. BP worked closely with OSHA, the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and other US government agencies to take extraordinary measures to safeguard the health and safety of responders.

Workers were provided safety training and appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE), and were monitored by federal agencies and BP to measure potential exposure levels and to help ensure compliance with established safety procedures.

Response workers applying dispersants received training on work procedures and PPE usage designed to minimize exposures, and were provided respirators and other PPE.

Workers who were not exposed to dispersants may have asked for a respirator, possibly in the mistaken belief that it would provide an extra level of protection and safety. This is not true. Perhaps the most important consideration in voluntary respirator usage is the potential physiological burden placed on the user. That was particularly true given the hot working conditions encountered during the response.

Due to the extensive controls in place, there was little potential for worker or public exposure to dispersants. More than 30,000 air monitoring samples were collected by the Coast Guard, OSHA, NIOSH, and BP as part of a comprehensive air monitoring program to evaluate the potential for human exposure to dispersant and oil compounds. The results showed that response worker and public exposures to dispersants were well below levels that could pose a health or safety concern.

Additional Background: OSHA advises that, “in workplaces with no hazardous exposures, but where workers choose to use respirators voluntarily, certain written program elements may be necessary to prevent potential hazards associated with respirator use. Employers must evaluate whether respirator use itself may actually harm employees. If so, employers must medically evaluate employees and, if necessary, restrict respirator use…”

For these reasons, respirators typically are not provided to people who do not need them, and who have not passed the required tests for fitness to wear the equipment. In consultation with NIOSH and OSHA, BP developed guidelines to help determine when PPE, including respirators, was to be used. Known as the “PPE Matrix,” this guideline was made available on several websites, including websites for BP and OSHA. Under the PPE Matrix, respirators were to be used in specifically- identified situations, including during the application of dispersants. There were times, however, when the potential risks associated with using a respirator outweighed the benefits since air monitoring data indicated that worker exposures to chemicals of concern generally were well below occupational exposure limits, and respirator use could place physiological stress on the body. In those cases, protection was provided by work practices and procedures and the use of other PPE.

A paper reviewing OSHA and NIOSH’s response to the accident can be found here.

Q: Why was the public told that Corexit was as harmless as Dawn, when five of the ingredients in it are linked to cancer, 33 are linked to skin irritation and 11 are respiratory toxins, according to expert toxicologists, Wilma Subra and Dr. Susan Shaw?

A: The Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for Corexit, where human exposure characterization is addressed notes, “Based on our recommended product application and personal protective equipment, the potential human exposure is: Low.” Also, Section 16 of the MSDS characterized Corexit’s general product risk- “The human risk is: Low. The environmental risk is: Low.”

The same ingredients contained in Corexit are also found in common consumer products such as household cleaners, food packaging, hand lotion and cosmetics. The product ingredients alone do not determine if a compound has created a public health concern; there must also be exposure to a compound at levels and for sufficient duration that could cause harm.

The results of extensive monitoring conducted by federal agencies and BP show that response workers and the public simply were not exposed to dispersant compounds at levels that might pose a health risk.

Due to the controls in place during dispersant application operations, there was little potential for public or worker exposure when dispersants were applied to the oil offshore. This was confirmed by the government findings as previously mentioned.

Q: Why has the active cleanup of Louisiana’s coast officially ended when thousands of tar balls continue to wash on shore?

A: The Coast Guard ended active cleanup after an extensive four-year effort. Even so, we remain committed and prepared to respond at the Coast Guard’s direction if potential residual Macondo material is identified through the National Response Center reporting process and requires removal. We have teams and equipment at staging areas in Grand Isle, LA and Gulf Shores, AL ready to rapidly respond as necessary.

Additionally numerous studies and reports have documented the presence of tar balls along the Gulf coast in the decades before the Deepwater Horizon accident, and during our cleanup efforts we continued to find tarballs that did not contain residual Macondo oil.

Q: Why have only 148 people received any medical claim whatsoever well over four years after the disaster and why is the average benefit only $1,600 dollars, when doctors such as Michael Robichaux has studied hundreds of patients and observed long term and possibly lifelong health effects in the process?

A: BP and the PSC consulted with medical experts to determine compensation amounts and formulate a list of the conditions that, according to scientific evidence, could be caused by exposure to oil or to the dispersants used in the cleanup. Compensation for these listed conditions is subject to the clear terms of the MSA. As is common in class action settlements, the settlement program did not begin processing and paying out claims until all appeals were exhausted, which occurred earlier this year. As to Dr. Robichaux, his allegations were considered and rejected over a year ago by a New Orleans federal court, which found that the doctor “wholly failed to provide any competent evidence in support of the assertions he makes.”

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Art by flickr user Hierry Ehrmann

Sadly, the deadly consequences of human overconsumption have turned the once densely albatross populated region into a mass graveyard. Like many fragile ecosystems on earth, plastic pollution in the ocean has greatly hindered this species’ survival.

One of the primary sources of albatross food is flying fish eggs, which lay in strings that attach to floating plastic in the ocean. Due to this consumption, it’s estimated that 98% of all Laysan albatrosses have varying degrees of plastic in their digestive systems.  Every year, four out of ten albatross chicks die from a variety of deadly health conditions including starvation, dehydration and obstructions of their digestive systems – all as a result of plastic ingestion. These regal seafaring birds are helpless victims, dying by the thousands every year as a result of this toxic pollution.

To get a sense of the magnitude of this tragic phenomenon, check out photographer Chris Jordan’s stunning report on the plight of Midway albatross:

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To even begin to take on this problem we must first be willing to understand the degree of damage plastic pollution does. This non-biodegradable substance makes up 90% of ocean debris, and comes in a multitude of forms including medical garbage, bottles, bags, toys, bottles caps and plastic micro particles. 20% of this waste comes from private and commercial ships, fishing equipment, oil platforms and spillage from shipping containers, while the remaining 80% originates on land.

Thousands of tons of plastic ends up in streams, rivers and reservoirs. Eventually, it finds its way to the oceans resulting in plastic flotillas piloted by ocean winds and currents. The remainder will either sink to the bottom of the ocean floor or end up in an ocean gyre, a vortex where the debris becomes trapped. So far, one of the biggest areas of accumulated garbage is in the Pacific Ocean, also known as the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ although there are five major ‘garbage patches’ in our oceans today.

The Laysan Albatross is certainly not the only marine species endangered as a result of human pollution, but it is one of the most uniquely affected by it. Obviously we as individuals don’t have the resources to clean up the oceans. But we can become active citizens by promoting a healthy and sustainable lifestyle, while demanding that policy makers and corporations mandate the same through their laws and products.

We can commit to purchasing reusable grocery bags, reusable water bottles, eliminating styrofoam and non biodegradable storage containers from our lives as well as support politicians and local legislation that enforces environmental protections. We may not be able to undo the damage we’ve already caused to our oceans, but with commitment and dedication to a cleaner planet we can make sure we do not cause further, irreversible destruction.

As a global community, we must learn to share the planet with all species to sustain ourselves and future generations. We can make a difference, for the albatross and for all the wondrous creatures that inhabit our planet. In fact, our survival depends on it. As Jacques-Yves Cousteau once said: “For most of history, man has had to fight nature to survive; in this century he is beginning to realize that in order to survive he must protect it.”

If you would like to learn more about Midway Laysan Albatrosses and show your support, please check in and follow Wisdom on her facebook page.  Wisdom is the oldest known Laysan Albatross, first banded in 1956 when she was estimated to be 5 years. Wisdom turned 62 this year and once again nested and raised a chick, Wonder, in February. 2013.

Written by Tommie Jones, edited by Abby, Sue Martin, Photo by USFWS Headquarters