Our fourth day of the tour started in Earlimart, a small San Joaquin Valley agriculture town. We met Teresa De Anda, Central Valley Organizer at Californians for Pesticide Reform, and a group of passionate community members at an elementary school. We learned about the 1999 pesticide drift accident, where the wrong area of Earlimart was sprayed with pesticides and community members were contaminated and are still suffering residual health effects.

About 30 of us loaded onto the bus and Teresa took us on a tour of Earlimart. We drove past grape fields, almond and pistachio orchards, we stopped to talk to some workers packing grapes. They asked Jessie Marquez, Executive Director of Coalition for a Safe Environment, who we were and they wished us luck and gave us some grapes.

We continued on our way to 40 acres but not before looking at the schools on the fenceline of fields. We pulled into 40 acres at the UFW headquarters and held our town hall forum in a historic UFW building. Arturo Rodriguez, the head of the legendary union, welcomed us. Outside was Dolores Huerta and others leaving in a caravan to go from field to field to promote the collective bargaining campaign.

The forum provided information on Pesticides and the Safe Air for Everyone campaign that uses a drift catcher to do air monitoring of pesticide drift. The Comite for El Benestar de Ealimart and Californians for Pesticide Reform have been effective in passing legislation to deal with pesticide drift. The communities of the San Joaquin Valley were eloquent in their call for unity and more organizing efforts. As one speaker said, “Two of us cannot push this bus but a lot more of us can push this bus all the way to Sacramento.”

We were stunned to learn the local mega dairies are often built with lack of permits. The Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment filed a lawsuit against these dairies to address this issue. We saw the dirty brown tap water that comes out of the pipes and it is so bad that residents have to use the bottled water that is distributed by local authorities, prompting on advocate to say, “We pay for water, we are paying to be poisoned.”

-Martha Dina Arguello

It’s the third day of the tour and we are settling in as travelers. In the morning we bonded over our mosquito stories on the way to see Fort Ord. The voice in my head is still saying, “Why would anyone in their right mind burn land where there is unexploded ordinance?” It became clearer when talking to one of the young activits at last night’s Fort Ord forum who said, “It is faster than the safer alternatives and developers want this land so they can build.” And after our tour of Fort Ord, I can see why; it is spectacular land with great views and ocean breezes surrounded by beautiful Monterey pine and cypress trees draped with Spanish moss.

We toured the former military site, the old barracks long abandoned, the peeling paint setting off the lead detector in my mind. As I was about to ask about the lead, LeVonne Stone and Patrice, a student at California State Monterey Bay University, told us many of the barracks had already been burned, again setting off the lead detector in my mind. We visited a landfill that is now being graded in preparation for a high-end housing development. We laughed at the sign with a happy family playing together in their new luxury home. It showed a happy multi-ethnic family and, again, I wondered how happy these families would be if they knew their homes were on a Superfund site and if there are disclosure and right-to-know laws involved with the development.

When we rolled into Fresno we felt great to seeing the “Welcome EJ Tour” sign. We were greeted by our Fresno colleagues at a 4 panel Forum, which discussed Air Quality, Land Use & Transportation, Climate Change & Environmental Justice, and Waste Issues. They also highlighted their great victories against incinerators and industry. A presentation on renewable energy generated a lively discussion making it clear that when we deal with climate change we are not willing to compromise. We want climate justice with carbon emission reduction that also reduces other smog-forming substances. “When we talk about alternatives sometimes I get the feeling that regulators want us to pick your poison and this is something that I find insulting,” said Rosinda Mataka of Grayson Neighborhood Council.

We followed the Forum with a tour of West/Southeast Fresno. Ray Leon, the Central Valley Organizer for the Latino Issues Forum, guided us through Fresno explaining all the environmental injustice the community faces. We ended the night with a wonderful reception at Arte Americas Gallery, where Latino artists are featured.

-Martha Dina Arguello and Ashley Iwanaga

The past two days have been a whirlwind of activity, making connections with poeple, hearing inspiring stories, and getting insight into the many layers that contribute to environmental injustices and the ways people have fought against them and won.

We started Tuesday morning in my town of Albany, New York at the state Legislative Office Building. Nate Davis, Executive Director of the W. Haywood Burns Environmental Education Center (www.w-haywoodburns.org), led Tour bus riders, media representatives and local activists on a tour of Albany’s low-income and predominantly African-American neighborhoods of Arbor Hill and the South End. Albany’s event focused on the social injustices and political decisions that perpetuate violence, poverty and disconnection from the environment, contrasting highly groomed parks in the affluent center of downtown with Tivoli Preserve and Island City Park, which receive little to no maintenance. The contrast was startling. He showed us baseball diamonds that the community created and which , once taken over by City government, fell into disrepair.

After the quick-and-dirty tour, Nate was joined by Tour participants Dr. Mark Mitchell and Ted Carrington to talk with TV stations about the connections between work going on in Albany and around the country, and what Mark and Ted had already seen the previous two days in Buffalo, Syracuse and Endicott, NY.

I boarded the bus after our time in Albany and we headed off to Hartford, CT. At the Mark emceeing a press conference that addressed many of the key environmental justice concerns in Hartford, followed by a tour of specific neighborhoods. Brooke Suter from the Clean Air Taskforce joined the bus, and we headed off to New Haven.

The event in New Haven had a very different quality. Instead of focusing on the media, we started with a groundbreaking ceremony for a sound barrier to be constructed between a housing project and the highway, which was so close you could feel the wind from passing vehicles it seemed. I had never considered that not only would a sound barrier reduce the near-deafening volume (the running joke by speakers was that we in the audience could hardly hear their congratulations over the din of the highway) but also reduce diesel emissions from passing trucks. Many residents explained that their children had asthma and other health problems, and they hoped to get some relief from the new barrier.

A brief tour of the surrounding industrial area revealed numerous other polluters, some of which were standing dormant because of community action and pressure. All in all, it was a very moving and empowering leg of the Tour.

Today’s tour in Boston was a mosiac of many aspects of environmental injustice, and also the triumphs that have been achieved. With so many people taking the tour that ACE had to hire an additional Trolley, we traveled all around Boston, from Dudley Square to the South End, the East End to Chelsea. Community residents talked about the problems of violence at memorials for gang-related deaths; residential housing directly across a narrow, truck-filled street from diesel-fueled power plants and massive fuel storage tanks; illegal transfer stations that were shut down and legal transfer stations that were cleaned up; and former industrial properties along the Chelsea Creek returned to parkland. This event tied together what we’d seen throughout the tour: Environmental Justice is about addressing the underlying social issues that disempower people, ending the disproportionate burden on communities of color and low-income neighborhoods, ensuring the right of meaningful participation in decisionmaking, and ensuring equal access to environmental benefits.

On the bus, we reflect on what we’ve seen, talk about the personal stories, and how each stop is very different, but also the same.

Each stop offers another perspective on the pervasive underlying problems of inequaltiy. Each stop shines a spotlight on the people who live daily with the concrete outcome of such inequality and who are fighting it. Each stop reminds us that we can win, with patience, perseverence and by working together.

– Bobbi Chase Wilding

We are on the bus going to African American and Vietnamese American communities in southern Louisiana, communities that were struck by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as well as decades of toxic pollution. People in Mossville and New Orleans greet us with warm smiles and painted signs that read: “Gert Town Is Fighting DDT and Global Warming,” “Stop the Dioxin Poisoning of Mossville,” “Say No to Dirty Industries,” and “Environmental Justice Now!”

On our bus are Hilton Kelley, Community In-power Development Association, Marnie Rosen and Annie Ducmanis, Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health, Elizabeth Crowe, Coming Clean Network, Christine and Delma Bennett, Mosssville Environmental Action Now, Monique Harden and Nathalie Walker, Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, Dwana Makeba and Khalid Hafiz, Road Managers for the EJ Tour, William Sabourin and Royce Osbourne who are videotaping the tour.

Mossville, Louisiana

The community leaders we meet in Mossville talk to us about their battles to convince the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) to stop the permitting of the fourteen industrial facilities surrounding the community. These facilities release millions of tons of pollution. Edgar Mouton, President of Mossville Environmental Action Now (MEAN), complains that government agencies work as a cover for industrial companies by only blaming eating habits for the host of health problems plaguing his community. Mr. Mouton explains, “It’s not only what we eat, it’s what we breathe that is causing our health problems. And industrial companies are releasing the pollution that gets into our food and air.”

Dorothy Felix, Vice-President of MEAN, holds up the report, Industrial Sources of Dioxin Poisoning in Mossville: A Report on the Facts that Government Agencies Have Hidden. This report was co-authored by MEAN, environmental scientist Wilma Subra, and the public interest law firm Advocates for Environmental Human Rights. “Our report is based on the data that agencies have kept under lock and key for years. It was like pulling teeth to get this data from ATSDR. We had to do what ATSDR wouldn’t do, which is show that Georgia Gulf, Conoco Phillips, Entergy, Sasol, and Lyondell are all responsible for the high levels of dioxins that are in our blood and our environment,” says Ms. Felix. “I’m concerned about our health, but our government is only concerned about keeping industries happy,” she said.

Wilma Subra and I explain that the report presents information held by ATSDR and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that show the direct matches between the specific dioxin compounds found in the blood of Mossville residents, the fish they eat, and their environment and the dioxin compounds that facilities operating in and near Mossville release into the environment.

We all get on the bus to tour Mossville and deliver the report along with a black and gold coffin adorned with a picture of an industrial smokestack spewing a toxic cloud (created by Hilton Kelley, a man of many talents) to the Lake Area Industry Alliance (LAIA), whose members include all of the companies that operate 14 toxic facilities in Mossville. We observe these facilities in operation next to homes in Mossville. There is a noticeable odor in the air. There is also the loss of an entire section of the Mossville community, where the massive Georgia Gulf vinyl production facility, Conoco Phillips oil refinery, and Sasol chemical facility continue to operate. Mr. Mouton tells us that this section, known ironically as Bel Air, was once inhabited several hundred families who had to move as a result of a class-action lawsuit settlement involving several years of underground toxic spills by the facility now owned by Georgia Gulf. The homes and people of Bel Air have been replaced with trees and tall weeds. Industrial companies have set up barricades blocking entry to several streets. This is the fate that remaining Mossville residents want to avoid. “If we do nothing, we are guaranteeing that industry runs us off, takes our land, and grows even bigger. We are holding on to defend our community and health,” said Mr. Mouton. We drive over the Interstate 210 Loop which passes over a broad section of the Calcasieu Estuary, where PPG Industries dominates the water with a massive vinyl production facility. The estuary is clogged with several other petrochemical facilities and casinos.

Local news reporters meet us in the parking lot of the LAIA office that is tucked behind the front Safety Training office on 1201 Ryan Street in the city of Lake Charles. We march up to the LAIA office carrying EJ Tour banners and signs, but the office is locked. We look through the windows and see people inside the office walking quickly away from the door. Soon Larry Durrel, who represents the LAIA opens the door. He smiles at us as we tell him that LAIA companies are poisoning the people of Mossville. He accepts the report and responds that he has a report from ATSDR showing that dioxin levels are low. We leave the coffin at the door of the LAIA building. On the bus, we look at LAIA’s report and see that it is based on ATSDR’s study of dioxin levels in people who do not live in Mossville.

New Orleans, Louisiana: Gert Town and Agriculture Street

We ride along Interstate 10 from Mossville to New Orleans, where we pass over the Mississippi River and see the enormous Exxon oil refinery belching smoke behind the Louisiana State Capitol. Over 130 oil refineries and petrochemical facilities operate in predominantly African American communities located along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. This area is known as Cancer Alley.

Our bus arrives in the New Orleans neighborhood of Gert Town. We meet Rev. Lois Dejean, Director of the Gert Town Revival Initiative, and community residents at the corner of Earhart Blvd. and Burdette Street, where the shuttered Thompson Hayward facility mixed and blended pesticides and herbicides that included DDT. The facility property takes up an entire square block that is surrounded by modest homes of Gert Town’s African American residents. Rev. Dejean tells us of GRI’s work to move the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality from inaction that allowed 9 million pounds of contaminated waste to remain underground at the facility for nearly 20 years.

Environmental scientist Wilma Subra provides fact sheets that show the areas where the pesticides and herbicides remain underground. She also provides results of tests that show these chemicals and other toxins have moved off the site into the community after the hurricane. The levels of arsenic in the neighborhood soil are seven times higher than the clean up level that EPA established for an industrial site in Slidell, Louisiana. Subra explains that the arsenic came from the surge of water and sediment that flooded the community.

“The DEQ would have had this mess cleaned up years ago if our community was wealthy and white. Heck, DEQ would not have allowed this company to make DDT in the first place in Gert Town if it wasn’t an African American community. This is environmental racism,” she said. Rev. Dejean says it’s a victory for the community to force the department to direct the owners of the Thompson Hayward to begin excavating the contamination in accordance with the community’s demands for safeguards. Today is the first day of the excavation work. Contract workers are at the facility surveying the property. Gert Town Revival Initiative will be getting training to monitor the air and inspect the work to make sure that all safeguards are met during the excavation work. “We are thankful for the support of Advocates for Environmental Human Rights and Wilma Subra for helping us in our battle with DEQ and the company,” said Rev. Dejean.

Rev. Dejean also informs us that the challenges for protecting Gert Town have increased following Hurricane Katrina. Only a small fraction of residents have been able to return to their homes, but many more cannot come home because they do not have the money to rebuild their homes. Since Katrina, Rev. Dejean had to move from the home she rented for nearly 30 years because the rent was increased. At 70 years old, she has had to find employment to afford the rent of another home in Gert Town. Gert Town Revival Initiative has garnered the support of Advocates for Environmental, Green Belt Movement International, and Bridges to Community to rebuild two of the homes that are owned by elderly residents. The group is also using funds granted by the Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health to support other residents in returning home. “This is about our human rights. Our government caused four to five feet of flood waters to destroy our homes because they did not build effective levees,” said Rev. Dejean. “We have to not only fight to get our government to clean up the toxins at this facility, we also have to fight for our rights to return home, to have an effective flood control system, and housing,” she said. The homes in Gert Town still bear the dark flood lines and, through the windows of some homes, you can see that walls have been torn down to the studs. “We say Gert Town is a community of great possibilities, and our goal is to make those possibilities a reality,” said Dejean.

Our next stop is the Agriculture Street neighborhood, a subdivision of brick single family homes and rental town homes that were built on top of landfill where huge amounts of debris from Hurricane Betsy were deposited. Dr. Beverly Wright, Executive Director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice at Dillard University, explains that people who moved into the subdivision did not find out that they were living on a toxic landfill until they began suffering from cancers, miscarriages, and birth defects. The subdivision was built with an assortment of federal, state, and local housing funds. “Agriculture Street residents have the highest incidence of breast cancer for women and men in the state, and children have died from leukemia” she says. EPA found over 100 toxic chemicals and heavy metals as far as 17 feet below ground, but the agency only removed 1 to 2 feet of soil. “I want you to imagine what it looked like in Agriculture Street when EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers began excavating toxic soil in this neighborhood while people remained in the neighborhood. Underground pipes were broken causing streets to flood and toilets to backup. The dust from the toxic soil entered homes and covered everything,” she explained. The homes are all vacant and damaged from the flood waters that were as high as 9 feet when the levees breached. We see three FEMA trailers outside of homes. “EPA says that this area is a toxic hotspot after Katrina. They said that they would not have to clean up the area immediately because no one had returned to this community, but you can see that a few people have returned,” said Dr. Wright.

Wilma Subra explains that the sediment that remained in the neighborhood after the toxic floodwaters were drained are contaminated with bacteria, arsenic, and a host of toxic chemicals. The levels of arsenic in the neighborhood soil are more than four times higher than the clean up level that EPA established for an industrial site in Slidell, Louisiana. The levels of polynuclear hydrocarbons are three times higher than the clean up level EPA established for the site.

We are standing in front of the Moton Elementary School that was built on the subdivision and was closed for years after EPA found dangerous levels of toxins below ground. The school reopened after EPA announced the area was “clean.” After Katrina, the school was closed again.

The African American communities in Mossville, Gert Town, and Agriculture Street are all victims of environmental racism that have been caused by governmental decisions. Each community has sections that are overgrown with vegetation, where homes either no longer exist or are vacant. Each community also has residents who are passionate and unwavering in their demands for restoration and renewal, as well as the reform of our government to value the health and lives of people of color and the poor.