Refusing to be Forgotten in Environmental Sacrifice Zones

Chris Albright: Hi, I’m Chris Albright. I am a resident of East Palestine, Ohio. I’ve lived here for about 11 years now. I actually live less than half a mile away from where we had a toxic train derailment on February 3, and it has completely altered our lives. 

Mike Balonek: My name is Mike Balonek. I’m from Toledo, Ohio. I’m a filmmaker here. I’ve been working on a documentary on the Toledo water crisis that happened just about 10 years ago, and also on the train derailment in East Palestine, which is how I met Chris. 

Maximilian Alvarez: All right, welcome everyone to another episode of Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams and struggles of the working class today, brought to you in partnership with In These Times magazine and The Real News Network. Produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like you. Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. 

My name is Maximilian Alvarez, and today, we’ve got another important installment of our ongoing series where we’ve been going into the heart of America’s many sacrifice zones and talking to the people who are living, working and fighting there — from East Palestine, Ohio, to South Baltimore and beyond. We’ve been connecting you with residents living in the toxic wastelands left by private and government-run industry, ordinary working people like you and me who have been thrust into the extraordinary fight for their lives.

A sacrifice zone can look just like any other zip code. You’ve probably stood in the middle of one without even knowing it. You and your family might even be living in one right now. Your health may have already been forfeited by some suits in a boardroom in another state, your lives written off as collateral damage during some routine legislative session years ago. For instance, there’s a near statistical certainty that you and I have forever chemicals swimming in your blood right now. And if you happen to live in the direct path of the life-threatening effects of the climate emergency, then you already know that our society has resigned itself to abandoning you, sacrificing you and your neighbors to the elements. Unless we band together and fight back, the problem is only going to get worse. That is why it is so important that folks from different sacrifice zones, concerned citizens, unions, environmental justice groups and community organizations are connecting with each other and fighting to save our communities from the corporate monsters, corporate politicians and Wall Street vampires who are poisoning us and our planet. And this Saturday, August 3, the Justice for East Palestine Residents & Workers Coalition will be hosting a conference in Toledo, Ohio. It will focus on the Toledo water crisis of 2014; the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine and the need for better railroad safety; and the radioactive poisoning of residents living near the Portsmouth gaseous diffusion plant in Pike County, Ohio. 

Well, Brother Chris, Brother Mike, it is so great to be back in conversation with you guys. We’ve spoken with Chris and his family numerous times on this podcast. You know the horrific story of what they, their family and their community have been going through since that catastrophic — and catastrophically avoidable—train derailment by Norfolk Southern happened in their backyard less than two years ago. And I’ve been working with Mike a lot this year. We were running around filming pieces and talking to residents like Chris from East Palestine and the surrounding area.

Even though the conditions that create sacrifice zones around this country are always unique and different, in many ways the playbook is the same. The struggles working people go through in these sacrifice zones are the same — the hoops and impossible barriers they face when dealing with the government, when trying to find legal recourse, when trying to get media attention and financial assistance for their plight. So many folks in sacrifice zones have told us different versions of the same sad story, and that is why it is incumbent upon all of us to join this fight. If we working people don’t band together, then places like East Palestine are not going to be these horrific outliers; in fact, they are a window into the future that lies in store for many of us.

So guys, I wanted to turn things over to y’all. Chris, I know our listeners are always curious to know how you and folks in East Palestine are doing. I was wondering if we could start with you giving a little update on how things are going over there. And then, Mike, if you could pick it up from there and tell us about this conference and what folks need to know.

Albright: Well, for us here in East Palestine, a lot has happened since March. Norfolk Southern offered us a $600 million settlement, which sounds like a lot of money. It’s also being widened out to a 20-mile radius. But you also have to pay back what you used for relocation. We stayed at a hotel, where we ran up a $35,000 bill. They want us to pay that back. This is nothing for the future. If you sign up for it, then you’re losing rights for later on — not a lot of good things about it. We’re still trying to fight it and see what happens. 

They’re saying everything’s safe, yet you can still walk down to the creeks, poke a stick in the silt underneath the water, and bring up an oily sheet. Vinyl chloride is a forever chemical. It is not going to go away. The EPA has lied to us, tried to sweep everything underneath the rug to make everybody here feel good and safe, and it’s not true. I’ll turn it over to Mike to let him talk about the conference. 

Balonek: So on Saturday, we’re going to have a new conference here in Toledo, where we’re coming up on the 10-year anniversary of our water crisis. Algal blooms were infecting our drinking water and making it completely unusable. We would like to highlight what Chris is going through and the other struggles that East Palestinians are going through to showcase that these aren’t isolated things. There’s a pattern going on with the response, specifically from the EPA, and also with the way these companies are regulated. A lot of them are allowed to do whatever they want in terms of safety and health for their communities. So we feel like this is really important to keep fighting for and to bring to people’s attention. We’re also fighting to get the people of East Palestine healthcare, either via the Stafford Act or any other measure we can.

Alvarez: Just to underline that in red pen for everyone listening: East Palestinians still need help. They still need healthcare. They are still suffering the effects of this catastrophic industrial accident that Norfolk Southern is responsible for. They have been dealing with the fallout for the past year and a half while so much of the country has forgotten about them. I urge you all: Don’t stop talking about East Palestine. Don’t stop talking about Flint, Mich. Don’t stop talking about Toledo and its water crisis. Don’t stop talking about the communities in South Baltimore that continue to be poisoned by CSX railroad, among many industrial polluters.

It is in the shadow of our own collective forgetfulness that communities like East Palestine get swallowed into this darkness. It’s going to take all of us refusing to let these companies get away with what they have done, and it’s going to be from us demanding that our government do something to help these people, that anything is actually going to change. And Mike, I wanted to follow up with you on that, because I think when folks hear that Toledo is a sacrifice zone, their ears kind of perk up, but they may not have heard about the water crisis that your documentary is really exploring. So I was wondering if you could give us some background on the Toledo water crisis itself and the process of putting this documentary together that you’re going to premiere at the conference in Toledo.

Balonek: This is a long-running issue, and it’s not exclusive to Toledo. In fact, in freshwater and saltwater sources all over the world, climate change is exacerbating the issue of algal blooms. Here in Toledo, we’re like the canary in the coal mine. Western Lake Erie is the shallowest part of all of the Great Lakes, and because of that, it’s more prone to the effects of climate change. The issue of these algal blooms has been ongoing for decades. It started to clear up through the ​’90s because of good regulation. And then over time, new issues cropped up — particularly factory farming in the area — that caused the problem to get out of control. So on August 2, 2014, we had the Toledo water crisis. It lasted for three days. You couldn’t use the water at all: You couldn’t bathe in it, you couldn’t drink it, you couldn’t brush your teeth. People had skin irritations if they came into contact with it, and you could potentially get sick and have liver damage if you drank too much of it. There was a concerted effort throughout the community to let people know, especially elderly people and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities who may not have heard about it and had no way to know about it. 

An important part of this is that the algae produces these toxins, which can’t be boiled from the water. In fact, when you boil the water, it actually increases the concentration because it just evaporates the water. And so the toxins actually got into our water intake, and flooded into our water system. 

At this point, the city was scrambling, because they had been bugging the state for years for any kind of safety standards on how to deal with the toxins from this algae. They had no process put in place by the state or otherwise to deal with this, so they had to shut everything down and figure out how to clean it up. And this isn’t the fault of the people who deal with the water here: the Toledo water department was screaming about this all along, trying to get help and not getting anything from the state.

After three days, we finally got some sort of resolution. But there was obviously a lot of distrust in the community for a long time — rightfully so, I would say. A lot of people still drink bottled water, and this is an issue I know Chris deals with every day. He doesn’t drink the tap water in East Palestine, and I don’t blame him at all. I’ve never drank it when I’ve been there, either. This is something ongoing for 10 years here in Toledo: you have people who will not drink the tap water. Now, according to our mayor and the city as a whole, the tap water is safe. We put half a billion dollars into our water treatment plant in order to be able to process these toxins. As I understand it, the issue has been solved on the processing side. 

We’ve literally had no help whatsoever on the actual environmental side. The simple story is that we have these factory farms called concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), and they produce massive amounts of waste. There was a time when there was no regulation as to how these farms would deal with it, and a lot of it ended up straight into rivers. More recently, the state came up with a program where farmers are paid $60 an acre to spread this waste on their fields. There is no limit, though, so you can spread unlimited quantities on a field, any time of year. These extra nutrients feed algal blooms and cause them to grow out of hand, to massive sizes that would never naturally occur without these farms in our area. There are many different ideas on how you could regulate this. The current idea that the state’s pushing is called H2Ohio to promote rebuilding wetlands in areas that were naturally wetlands and had been turned into farmland later on. Restoring these wetlands will act as a buffer zone and help absorb these nutrients before any of them get to Lake Erie. However, the issue is that these CAFOs produce so much manure and waste going into the water system that you would basically have to replace the whole shoreline with wetlands in order to make it work. So it’s unmanageable as it stands, and the issue continues to get worse every year: These algal blooms form earlier and they last longer. This year has been one of the most toxic years we’ve had in a long time, both because it started off as a really warm and wet spring, and also persisted in being warm throughout the year.

So a year ago, I started working on this documentary called ​“The Big Problem in the Great Lakes.” They’re already starting to have this algae issue in Saginaw Bay and Green Bay — not to the extent that we have, but it could get there one day. It’s really important to have this conversation, because not everybody’s talking about CAFOs, which have a massive influence in this state. Agriculture is huge in Ohio: They have a lot of lobbyists and they fund their candidates well, and that shows when you look at the Statehouse’s response to this issue, and the fact that the Ohio EPA has been completely captured by the agricultural industry.

Alvarez: It’s such important work, man. We’re talking about living somewhere where you can’t drink the goddamn water coming out of your faucet. You can’t step into the water that’s washing up on your shores. And Chris, I wanted to bring you in here and ask about what that’s like as someone who is living through this. I don’t think people out there fully grasp all the happiness and security that are lost and stolen from people when they can no longer trust the air they’re breathing or the water coming out of their faucets. What has that been like for you and your family after the derailment? And also, what connections are you seeing between what your community’s going through and what Toledo’s going through?

Albright: It’s a whole new, different way of living. Like Mike previously said, we don’t drink the water here. I’m looking at two purifiers right here in my dining room that we run constantly, 24 hours a day, trying to keep the air clean. We’ve experienced the nosebleeds and the rashes. When we came back after staying in the hotel for four months, we ripped up flooring, got rid of carpeting, bedding, clothes — got rid of anything that the chemical could have possibly permeated. And we still don’t feel safe here. It’s still not right; it still isn’t how I want to live. I worry when people come here because I don’t want them getting sick. It’s taken a toll on us in a number of ways. Financially, it has been devastating. Emotionally, spiritually — everything has been completely altered. If I could go back to February 2 of last year — if I knew it was coming — I would get out in a heartbeat. 

Our hands are tied, like, what do we do? How do we handle this? How do we go up against these corporate giants? The EPA has blatantly lied to us, and up there in Toledo, they’re doing the same thing. This is a country where nobody should have to feel like that. We have the resources and the means to correct this problem, in all these different sacrifice towns and cities all across the nation. But too often, corporations are throwing money at different government officials, and they’re not doing anything about it. That is why they’re called sacrifice zones: they’re literally sacrificing us so they can make a profit. It still completely baffles me.

Alvarez: I thought that was beautifully and powerfully put, brother. Even if it’s not directly happening to you, that does not mean it is not a crime against humanity that we as fellow human beings have a moral duty to oppose.

I wanted to just round out by asking if you could tell our listeners any other key details about the conference in Toledo and any other final wrap-up messages you wanted to get in.

Albright: This is going to happen to you in your town. There’s nothing stopping these corporations from overlooking the safety of the people. You guys need to hear about this and be proactive, not retroactive. Be proactive to avoid what’s happened to us.

Balonek: Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. To add to that: Chris and I are just regular guys. I worked retail and factories before I started doing this, and Chris worked at Miller Pipeline, laying pipelines. We’re not special in what we’re doing. I think it’s important to recognize that anybody can do what we’re doing. You can organize your own conference and your own community. I’m willing to bet that pretty much every community in this country is a sacrifice zone because of a century’s worth of industry, where nobody cared and basically dumped stuff everywhere. Investigate that, because then we know better what we’re fighting against and we can hold corporations accountable.

The conference will be a great time, hopefully educational and heartwarming, as well as something that will piss you off.

Alvarez: All right gang, that’s gonna wrap things up for us this week. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Solidarity forever.