Blog

I felt the meeting in Berea was fairly sucessful. It was a shame there wern’t more students. It would have been better if there had been an evening forum so more students could be present since we are, after all, the next generation to be affected by toxic waste.

It was unclear to me at first whether the intention of the touring group was to shut down the companies creating the waste or to clean them up. My concern was for the workers and their families, for if the plants were to shut down they would be unemployed, so I asked what their goal was. They clarified that they were mostly trying to get the companies to clean up their waste products or find less wasteful means of going about their business, but there are some in such disarray that they woud need to be shut down.

This discussion also revealed that resistance comes not only from corporation owners, but from state and local governments as well. They resist because they depend on the money made in fines whenever corporations break set protocols. This is a huge problem! It’s like unraveling a thread to solve a problem, but the more we pull on the thread the bigger the hole gets and the more problems arise that also need to be addressed.

However, it would be cowardly and unacceptable to give up. We have to find an afordable means to clean up the waste created by these corporations so the employees can keep their jobs. Also, we may have to raise our taxes to satisfy state and local governments. Finally, we need to convince the majority of the moneyholders in this nation that once clean air is gone, not even all the money in the world will buy it back.

-Rebecca Ogburn, Berea College Student