What do residents of the Gulf Coast and Appalachia have in frequent? So much, in response to the members of an artwork collective, particularly relating to the buildout of the petrochemical trade and its influence on public well being.
So in November, they introduced collectively about 25 individuals in Pittsburgh, together with native residents residing alongside trade and activists preventing the fossil gasoline trade from the Gulf Coast and different areas. The aim was to kick off a multi-city marketing campaign in opposition to air pollution known as “We Refuse to Die.”
As an example shared values and join the dots throughout experiences, the activists took what organizers known as a “poisonous tour” of fracking websites in Washington County, an concept that got here out of activism in Texas.
It was the ultimate occasion in a collection that happened over a number of days, together with different poisonous excursions and an artwork set up and ceremony. “We Refuse to Die” can also be a part of the “Unsettling Matter, Gaining Floor” exhibition on the Carnegie Museum of Artwork.
Why they gathered
Tammy Murphy, advocacy director for Physicians for Social DutyPennsylvania, which helped manage the tour, mentioned they need individuals to see with their very own eyes the environmental and well being impacts of the oil and fuel trade, as lots of the corporations function in a number of communities.
“The way in which that we see it’s the industries work as a community,” Murphy mentioned. “And for us, that is our manner of strengthening our personal community.”
On the small, black bus, contributors advised their tales and chanted, “We refuse to die! We refuse to die!”
Beka Economopoulos is the director of the Pure Historical past Museum, described as a museum for the motion, who organized the gathering. She defined why the marketing campaign known as “We Refuse to Die.”
“The thought is that if the fossil gasoline and petrochemical trade is writing off our communities as sacrifice zones,” Economopoulos mentioned. “With ‘we refuse to die,’ the residing lifeless converse again, forging a coalition between the residing and the lifeless wherein these we have now misplaced usually are not merely victims, however allies and brokers of change.”
Activists from the Gulf Coast area and Appalachia seen fracking websites in Western Pennsylvania and requested questions of the native host. Photograph: Kara Holsopple / The Allegheny Entrance.
Barbara Irvin from Mississippi says she worries a couple of lack of transparency in reporting air pollution to impacted communities. Photograph: Kara Holsopple / The Allegheny Entrance.
Travis London of Louisiana led the mantra, “We Refuse to Die!” on the tour bus. Photograph: Kara Holsopple / The Allegheny Entrance.
Scenes from the tour
The primary cease on the tour was a parking zone throughout from the MarkWest Houston plant that processes pure fuel for transport. There, the group met up with Lois Bower-Bjornson, an organizer with the Clear Air Council and a resident of Washington County.
A microphone in hand, she addressed the group and mentioned the plant has been expanded past its authentic dimension and residents fear about fires and the well being impacts of fuel flaring there.
“That is normalized,” Bower-Bjornson mentioned. “Folks that dwell in Washington County and right down to our county commissioners will let you know how a lot cash this trade has made and the way a lot it’s introduced into the communities.”
From the small crowd, Barbara Irvin from Mississippi requested Bower-Bjornson about her characterization of the priorities of elected officers within the county relating to fracking.
“So nothing about human life?” Irvin requested. “The identical human life that’s paying your wage, the identical human life that’s getting, you realize, you into workplace. And that is what you must say, which is completely nothing?”
“It’s unlucky,” Bower-Bjornson answered.
Irvin mentioned that at dwelling in Mississippi, she feels nobody is held accountable for diseases attributable to air pollution in her neighborhood.
“We’ve acquired to maintain preventing to make it cease,” Irvin mentioned. “And, you realize, don’t simply shove it below the rug as a result of you may’t shove your life below the rug.”
Alongside the route to a different web site, the bus handed a black and white billboard paid for by the marketing campaign that reads, “Children residing close to fracking wells are 2-3 instances extra doubtless on common to get childhood leukemia,” a discovering from a Yale College of Public Well being examine.
Throughout a cease at a park in North Strabane Township, the place a Vary Sources fracking pad could be seen from the soccer area, Travis London took the mic to share his story. He’s from Donaldsonville, Louisiana, a city between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, in an space referred to as Most cancers Alley.
“It’s sort of like a bittersweet second proper now,” London mentioned. “As a result of as a lot as I recognize y’all going by the identical stuff that we undergo in our hometown, it’s unhappy that y’all undergo that.”
London mentioned in his neighborhood, a soccer area, a Head Begin program, and an elementary college are all close to a serious ammonia manufacturing plant owned by CF Industries. He mentioned that in his space, activists are nonetheless preventing permits to construct extra industrial vegetation. Now, they’re additionally pushing again in opposition to what he calls the greenwashing and misinformation round carbon seize expertise and hydrogen vegetation.
Classes realized
Bower-Bjornson mentioned she appreciated assembly these activists from different areas, a few of whom have seen success of their struggle in opposition to trade. She mentioned it looks like a wierd membership to be a part of.
“But it surely it makes you are feeling that, you realize, you’re not alone on this,” Bower-Bjornson mentioned. “And then you definately’re capable of collaborate and say, you realize, what are you doing? How are you engaged on this?”
Through the tour stops, individuals within the group provided each other recommendation and promised to remain in contact.
For Melanie Meade, the week of actions was an emotional rollercoaster. Meade is an activist in Clairton, south of Pittsburgh, the place the most important coke plant within the US is positioned.
“This tour has helped me to see and understand that all of us have a function on this,” mentioned Meade, who can also be a fellow for the Black Appalachian Coalition. “And the place we really feel like we’re inadequate or not sufficient, there are others who’re down the street or down the river who will help us understand that we’re sufficient collectively.
The marketing campaign’s subsequent motion will probably be putting in an artwork piece in East Palestine, Ohio, overlooking the Norfolk Southern practice derailment web site on the catastrophe’s one-year anniversary on February 3.
