Subject: #542: Activist Mom Wins Goldman Prize
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ACTIVIST MOM WINS GOLDMAN PRIZE
[People in the Ohio Valley have spent 15 years fighting one of
the world's largest toxic waste incinerators, known as WTI.[1]
One grass-roots community leader in the WTI fight, Terri
Swearingen, was honored this week by receiving the Goldman
Environmental Prize for North America --the environmental
equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
The WTI incinerator, in East Liverpool, Ohio, was initiated in
1982 by one of President Clinton's wealthy political backers in
Arkansas --Jackson Stephens of Stephens, Inc., in Little Rock.
President Clinton and Vice President Gore visited East Liverpool
while campaigning for election in 1992; at that time, Mr. Clinton
said that, if he were elected, WTI would never be allowed to
operate. Mr. Clinton was elected in 1992.
In 1992, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) admitted
during Congressional hearings that it had illegally issued an
operating permit to WTI. The huge incinerator began burning
hazardous waste in 1993, 1100 feet from an elementary school.
Mr. Clinton has not returned to East Liverpool since he became
President.
Here is Terri Swearingen's acceptance speech for the Goldman
Environmental Prize, given April 14, 1997.]
by Terri Swearingen
I am like the turtle on the fencepost. I did not get here alone.
In addition to the many caring and courageous people I work with
in the Ohio Valley, special recognition goes to Greenpeace, and
to Dr. Paul Connett and his wife, Ellen.[2] And all my love,
respect and deepest gratitude go to my husband, Lee, my daughter,
Jaime, and my family. I accept this award on their behalf, and
on behalf of all the environmental activists across the country
who are working just as hard, but whose work has not been
recognized in such a profound way. It is appropriate that the
work of grass-roots activists be recognized. I am excited about
this award, not just for personal reasons, but I believe it
vindicates the efforts of thousands and thousands of grass-roots
activists in this country, and around the world, who work on
environmental issues on a daily basis. To the Goldman family, my
most heartfelt thanks.
I am not a scientist or a Ph.D. I am a nurse and a housewife,
but my most important credential is that I am a mother. In 1982,
I was pregnant with our one and only child. That's when I first
learned of plans to build one of the world's largest toxic waste
incinerators in my community. When they began site preparation
to begin building the incinerator in 1990, my life changed
forever. I'd like to share with you some of the lessons I have
learned from my experiences over the past seven years.
One of the main lessons I have learned from the WTI experience is
that we are losing our democracy. How have I come to this sad
realization? Democracy is defined by Merriam Webster as
"government by the people, especially rule of the majority," and
"the common people constituting the source of political
authority." The definition of democracy no longer fits with the
reality of what is happening in East Liverpool, Ohio. For one
thing, it is on the record that the majority of people in the
Ohio Valley do not want the WTI hazardous waste incinerator in
their area, and they have been opposed to the project from its
inception. Some of our elected officials have tried to help us,
but the forces arrayed against us have been stronger than we or
they had imagined. Public concerns and protests have been
smothered with meaningless public hearings, voodoo risk
assessment and slick legal maneuvering. Government agencies that
were set up to protect public health and the environment only do
their job if it does not conflict with corporate interests. Our
current reality is that we live in a "wealthocracy"--big money
simply gets what it wants. In this wealthocracy, we see three
dynamics at play: corporations versus the planet, the government
versus the people, and corporate consultants or "experts" versus
common sense. In the case of WTI, we have seen all three.
The second lesson I have learned ties directly to the first, and
that is that corporations can control the highest office in the
land. When Bill Clinton and Al Gore came to the Ohio Valley,
they called the siting of the WTI hazardous waste incinerator
--next door to a 400 student elementary school, in the middle of
an impoverished Appalachian neighborhood, immediately on the bank
of the Ohio River in a flood plain--an "UNBELIEVABLE IDEA." They
said we ought to have control over where these things are
located. They even went so far as to say they would stop it.
But then they didn't! What has been revealed in all this is that
there are forces running this country that are far more powerful
than the President and the Vice President. This country trumpets
to the world how democratic it is, but it's funny that I come
from a community that our President dare not visit because he
cannot witness first hand the injustice which he has allowed in
the interest of a multinational corporation, Von Roll of
Switzerland. And the Union Bank of Switzerland. And Jackson
Stephens, a private investment banker from Arkansas. These
forces are far more relevant to our little town than the
President of the United States! And he is the one who made it
that way. He has chosen that path. We didn't choose it for him.
We begged him to come to East Liverpool, but he refused. We
begged the head of EPA to come, but she refused. She hides
behind the clever maneuvering of lawyers and consultants who
obscure the dangers of the reckless siting of this facility with
theoretical risk assessments.
I always thought of the President of the United States as an
all-powerful person, who could even, if necessary, launch a war
to protect his nation's people. But in the case of WTI, we have
this peculiar situation where the President dare not come to East
Liverpool, Ohio. It may be the one place in the whole of this
country, maybe even the world, where he cannot go. He cannot go
to East Liverpool to see for himself what he has allowed. He
cannot go to East Liverpool to see with his own eyes where this
incinerator is operating. We know that if he came to East
Liverpool to see it for himself, he would not be able to say that
it is okay. We know that he would never have allowed his own
daughter, Chelsea, to go to school in the shadow of this toxic
waste incinerator. And that's precisely why he dare not come to
East Liverpool. He knows that it is wrong. He knows that it is
unacceptable. The decision to build the incinerator there was
political, and the decision to allow it to operate, despite the
stupidity of its location, is political. The buck stops with
President Clinton. No child should have to go to school 1000
feet from a hazardous waste facility, and no president should
allow it. He cannot shove off the responsibility to a
bureaucracy. I believe you cannot have power without
responsibility.
The third thing that I have learned from this situation, which
ties in with the first two, is that we have to reappraise what
expertise is and who qualifies as an expert. There are two kinds
of experts. There are the experts who are working in the
corporate interest, who often serve to obscure the obvious and
challenge common sense; and there are experts and non-experts who
are working in the public interest. From my experience, I am
distrusting more and more the professional experts, not because
they are not clever, but because they do not ask the right
questions. And that's the difference between being clever and
being wise. Einstein said, "A clever person solves a problem; a
wise person avoids it." This lesson is extremely relevant to the
nation, and to other countries as well, especially in developing
economies. We have learned that the difference between being
clever and being wise is the difference between working at the
front end of the problem or working at the back end. Government
that truly represents the best interest of its people must not be
seduced by corporations that work at the back end of the problem
--with chemicals, pesticides, incinerators, air pollution control
equipment, etc. The corporate value system is threatening our
health, our planet and our very existence. As my good friend,
Dr. Paul Connett, says "WE ARE LIVING ON THIS PLANET AS IF WE HAD
ANOTHER ONE TO GO TO." We have to change the way we look at the
world. We must change our thinking and our attitude. This is so
important. We MUST change the value system. We have to live on
this planet assuming that we do not have another one to go to!
We must get to the front end of problems so that we avoid the
mistakes of the past. Thinking about our planet in this way puts
a whole new perspective on what we do and how we act. For
example, if we are dealing with issues of agriculture, we need to
be thinking about sustainable agriculture with low chemical
input. If we are looking at energy, we need to look at solar
energy, energy that is sustainable. If we are discussing
transportation, we should be looking at ways of designing cities
to avoid the use of cars. And when it comes to hazardous waste,
we should [be] talking about clean production, not siting new
incinerators. We should be trying to get ahead of the curve.
People at the grass-roots level get taught this lesson the hard
way --they get poisoned by back-end thinking. They learn that we
have to shift to front-end solutions if we are to save our
communities and our planet. Citizens who are working in this
arena --people who are battling to stop new dump sites or
incinerator proposals, people who are risking their lives to
prevent the destruction of rainforests or working to ban the
industrial uses of chlorine and PVC plastics --are often labeled
obstructionists and anti-progress. But we actually represent
progress --not technological progress, but social progress. We
have become the real experts, not because of our title or the
university we attended, but because we have been threatened and
we have a different way of seeing the world. We know what is at
stake. We have been forced to educate ourselves, and the final
exam represents our children's future. We know we have to ace the
test because when it comes to our children, we cannot afford to
fail. Because of this, we approach the problem with common sense
and with passion. We don't buy into the notion that all it takes
is better regulations and standards, better air pollution control
devices and more bells and whistles. We don't believe that
technology will solve all of our problems. We know that we must
get to the front end of the problems, and that prevention is what
is needed. We are leading the way to survival in the 21st
century. Our planet cannot sustain a "throw-away society." In
order to survive, we have to be wise, not just clever. This is
why, ultimately, it is so disastrous that there are people who
think that they've solved the WTI problem with more technology.
You cannot patch up an injustice --an unjust situation --with
technology. The developers behind WTI made a fundamental mistake
in the beginning by building the incinerator next door to an
elementary school and in the middle of a neighborhood. This is a
violation of human rights and common decency. As Martin Luther
King said, "INJUSTICE ANYWHERE IS INJUSTICE EVERYWHERE."
Even after seeing so much abuse of the system that I have
believed in, I still hold on to the slender hope that my
government could once again return to representing citizens like
me rather than rapacious corporate interests. If they do, then
perhaps there is a future for our species; if they don't, we are
doomed.
===============
[1] See RACHEL'S #255, #287, #288, #298, #315, #320, #325, #326,
#328, #341.
[2] Ellen and Paul Connett publish the weekly WASTE NOT, 82
Hudson Street, Canton, NY 13617; phone: (315) 379-9200; fax:
(315) 379-0448; E-mail: wastenot@northnet.org. $48/year for
individuals and well worth the price.
Descriptor terms: hazardous waste incineration; wti; citizen
activism; terri swearingen; goldman envirommental prize; paul
connett; ellen connett; waste not; jackson stephens; bill
clinton; carol browner; epa; speeches;
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