What an Environmental Disaster Taught Me About Justice
This post is written by Dominique of Let’s Be Fair.
Disaster
This past Fall a massive natural gas storage facility in my community started leaking gas. A lot of gas. And it didn't stop. In the beginning residents complained about the rotten egg smell caused by mercaptan, a chemical that is added to gas to alert people that, well, gas is leaking. The smell got worse and residents started to complain of headaches, nausea, breathing problems and nose bleeds. The gas company assured everyone that these symptoms were merely side effects of the bad smell.
People started to move,
the well continued to leak.
A local school was shut down and all the children were relocated,
the well continued to leak.
Thousands of people moved. Hotels and pet boarding facilities within 25 miles were completely packed,
the well continued to leak.
Finally three months into the leak and after welcoming foster children into our home we were relocated.
We packed our bags, locked our doors and lived in a hotel 50 miles away for two months.
And the well continued to leak.
Then one day, after five months of leaking, the well stopped leaking.
But the damage remained.
Parks were shut down. There were reports of plants dying. Families went home to find "black oily spots" on their homes and vehicles. Previously healthy kids now had asthma. Noses were still bleeding.
We reluctantly moved back home.
Tonight I sit in my home on the eve of Earth Day and recognizing this is the first year I've actually cared about Earth Day. I'm not a journalist or a scientist so it's hard for me to discuss this experience concisely with all the facts in a row. But I did learn some things about justice during and it feels important right now to share it.
Propaganda Works
It still amazes how cleverly the gas company handled the initial complaints. They made it ALL about the smell. They said things like "people who are sensitive" to describe people having symptoms, as if those people were weak, it was their fault for getting sick. They assured everyone that it was the mercaptan, the smelly rotten egg substance that was causing problems. But when is the last time you heard of someone smelling something so bad that their nose bled? Mercaptan is added to gas as a warning...it is merely alerting you that there is a big big problem. But the gas company made it all about 'the sensitive people that can't handle bad smells' rather than 'the tons of toxic chemicals being dumped into your community'. And shockingly it worked.
Truth seekers are easily dismissed
There were several thousand people who weren't fooled by the mercaptan propaganda. They up and moved their families. And for most people, that was the end of that.
But there was another group of people who moved. People who dared to ask questions like "WHY are our noses bleeding?" "What chemicals were released into the air?" "Why is the house I haven't lived in for two months getting enormous gas bills?" These questions weren't being answered. So they got louder. They wrote their local representatives, they made signs and stood on corners, they protested and started Facebook groups. They were heard...And almost instantaneously they were dismissed. "Conspiracy theorists". "Opportunists". It kind of got ugly fast. Even we were made fun of by some people about our 'vacation'. Now that we are home I can laugh about it, however at the time it wasn't funny to me at all. I was scared, confused and completely overwhelmed trying to do what I thought was the best thing for my family and the children entrusted into our care and no one was giving us any information.
If you can't see it, It's easier to believe that it doesn't exist
And isn't that the problem with so many issues related to injustice? If we saw with our own eyes, resumes getting ripped up because someones first name was "telling" of their gender or ethnicity, it would be easy to believe that Equal Opportunity still isn't equal. If gas had a color and it turned the sky black, HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people would have fled and never come back. But you can't see gas just like you can't see injustice. Sure, you can see the effects but we can always conveniently blame that on something else can't we? And it's easier to believe that it doesn't exist. The people who didn't move weren't uninformed, they just had the luxury of choosing to not acknowledge what was happening because they didn't feel sick.
The system is broken, but sometimes it works
It took many months and hundreds of phone calls for local officials to get angry. However once they did, it actually became quite helpful. The Department of Health was SUPER shady and downplayed everything but local officials, city councilmen, chambers of commerce, neighborhood councils really started to defend the community. They made demands of the gas company that we as citizens were powerless to do on our own. For the first time the voices of the people were being represented. Our political and justice systems are really messed up, but when we can rally together and use the system, sometimes it can actually work well.
Exposed corruption exposes corruption
Once the gas company finally got called out on the leak and was forced to admit that it was 100% their negligence that led to the disaster (there was no emergency shut of in place...not joking), it lead to more and more corruption from the gas company being exposed. There are literally hundreds of other leaks, rate hikes intended to 'do maintenance' that was clearly never done, enormous gas bills due to faulty billing technology and the list goes on. The internet can be a crazy place and a breeding ground for confusion and hysteria but in this situation I think it helped rally neighbors together to fight for their community and call out the utility company and corrupt officials publicly.
Justice is the work of long suffering
The hype is dying down, people are returning back to their lives and the legal process is slow. Last week I read that the CEO of SoCal Gas just got a three million dollar bonus...and yet we haven't been reimbursed for expense incurred. But I'm tired. Almost too tired to fight (although my credit cards will not allow me to be done just get) but definitely too tired to fight long term. The utility company is a monopoly. They can get away with this chaos simply because we don't have another choice. If we want gas we need them, plain and simple. So fighting them feels exhausting and futile and long.
This disaster is far from over. If you read this blog I would ask for your solidarity by keeping up with this and other disasters happening in our country. There are so many. Remind yourself that just because you aren't hearing about it doesn't mean it's not happening. Environmental disasters eventually affect all of us, we need to learn from it and support one another through it.
If you are interested in learning more about the Aliso Canyon gas leak here are some things worth reading:
Gas Company Threatens blackouts during hottest days of the Summer due to Gas Leak
For Orphans and My Future Children
WARNING: this post is not about shoes, makeup, hair, food or pinterest. If this is not okay please turn back now. You have been warned.
In the last two months due to drastic changes in a few countries many adoption agencies have closed their doors. In the last five years international adoption has been on a strong and steady decline. But before the policies, politics and problems one thing was certain; there were and still are millions of children around the world who are suffering and desperately waiting for someone to love them. As a society we fight for so many things and if we're honest, a lot of those things don't actually matter at the end of the day. This blog, as silly as it is with all its talk of shoes and makeup, is ultimately founded on a belief that people matter. If we believe people matter then it is our business to make sure that the most vulnerable people in our world are being protected. This is why, regardless of whether or not you have any intention of adopting, the plight of orphans around the world is a responsibility that we should all take seriously.
If you fall in the camp of people that are vehemently against International Adoption because "there are so many kids here without families" then I humbly ask two questions. First, have you adopted children out of foster care? If your answer is "no" then, and I say this in love, please don't be a hypocrite. If you have adopted children out of foster care and still feel that international adoption is wrong then I would ask what it is about your child that you feel makes them more deserving of love? Should someones right to life and love be based on a zip code, skin color or language? Yes, this is a crazy over simplification of a massive and complex problem and this is only one reason a lot of folks get all kinds of upset when discussing international adoption. However it is the reason I hear the most so I thought since I'm already going rogue and talking about non-shopping related things I'd address it.
I imagine if you're still reading this post it means you aren't horribly offended and are interested in what you can do. Well first, If you live in the greater Los Angeles area you can join us Thursday March 28th to support STUCK, a documentary about the struggle of orphans across the globe and their families fight to bring them home. If you don't live in L.A you can visit the STUCK website to see when the film will be in your town.
If you can't make it to the movie you can still participate in speaking up for Orphans. There is a simple petition on change.org asking for our government to begin taking the plight of global orphans seriously by removing the unnecessary barriers that prevent children from being united with loving families. It honestly takes less than one minute.
Thank you for reading and for being a voice for the voiceless. See you back here thursday!