People Before Profit blog

Flint water protest at “state of state” brands Snyder a “criminal”

Wed, 20 Jan 2016 13:40:00 +0000

LANSING, Mich. - A fresh layer of snow greeted residents of Flint on Tuesday as they stepped off their chartered buses in downtown Lansing. They were heading to the Capitol building where Governor Rick Snyder was T-minus two hours from delivering his state of the state address. They were determined to have their voices heard: The state of the state is not strong.

In 2012 Snyder signed Public Act 436, essentially removing Flint's democratically elected government and replacing it with a dictatorial state-controlled "emergency manager." Snyder's hand-picked dictator had the power to make life or death decisions, a power he would eventually use to come down on the side of death. (In addition to the lead poisoning of the city, at least a dozen deaths have been attributed to related bacteriological poisoning from the polluted Flint River water.)

Flint's "emergency manager" Darnell Earley had ruled that the people of Flint should drink the water of the polluted Flint River rather than continuing to drink the water of Lake Huron that had been pumped into their city by way of Detroit.

He forced the population to drink the poisoned water because, he said, it would save the city of Flint $5 million over two years. The mass lead poisoning of a city and the death that have followed are part of a story now known around the world.

Jessica Owens was born in Flint and she rode on a bus with hundreds of others from Flint to Lansing. She is a mother of an eight-year-old boy, one of the 8,000 children in the city of Flint whose futures are now uncertain. She showed me a baby bottle filled with frozen water from her tap. On the bottom was an aggregation of brown material.

"This came from my tap, and my water tested at an 11," she told me. That's eleven parts per billion. The EPA says that homes with lead levels at 15ppb are at "high risk" and anything above 5ppb is of concern.

"I'm too nervous to even bathe him," she said. "Is he going to have problems? I'm in the process of getting his blood re-tested. The last one came back at a 3."

The lead concentration in her son's blood, she said, was lower than some of the other tests she had seen.

Doctors have indicated, however, that test results today may not indicate anything about lead poisoning that may have occurred months ago, and that any lead in the blood, especially the blood of a child, is cause for concern. The half-life of the element lead causes it to dissipate quickly but the damage it does to human minds is permanent and irreversible.

Owens says the whole administration is to blame, from Snyder on down.

"With his pen stroke, with the emergency manager law, he poisoned 100,000 people. I hold all of them accountable. This is what happens when profits take precedence over people."

The trip from Flint to Lansing took an hour. The bus was filled with people desperate to have their voices heard. Some had taken time off from work, and many were retired. Even though there was a heavy union presence at the capitol building protest (The UAW's famous sit down strikes took place in Flint 80 years ago), the majority of people I spoke to on the bus were new to activism.

"We want water, shut it down"

The first stop after getting off the buses was a rally at a space across from the Capitol where several public figures spoke passionately about the crisis. Vice President of the UAW, Cindy Estrada, was on hand to call out the governor, saying:

"What I don't understand is how this governor can make a comment on Twitter saying that people are 'politicizing' this issue. Our kids are being poisoned because they're not paying attention; they only pay attention to cutting costs instead of looking out for our children and our elders. I say this is a political issue."

Former Congressman and Rick Snyder's 2014 Democratic challenger for the governorship, Mark Schauer, said, "Gov. Snyder, your administration owns this man-made disaster." Shouts from the crowd proclaimed verdicts of "guilty" and "criminal."

After Schauer's speech, order was politely set aside and those who had been gathered around to listen to speakers joined the rest of their brothers and sisters who had already staked out spots on the Capitol steps.

The people gathered at the foot of the Capitol and slowly, cautiously moved their way up the steps with the UAW, the Teamsters, and Black Lives Matter leading the way. Eventually, they got right up to the doors of the building and chanted. Police stood just on the other side behind windows, their eyes averted.

As the sun set and the governor's state of the state speech grew nearer, groups of protestors split off from the crowd at the front to attempt to find alternative ways into the building. At one point, every entrance to the Michigan Capitol had a group of at least 30 people singing and chanting, demanding to be let into the building where their elected leaders meet.

Once the Governor's speech began, those familiar with the layout of the Capitol led those who were not as familiar to spots they considered most likely to allow for their message to be heard inside the chamber. They did a good job. If you listen carefully to the televised speech you can hear the cry of the crowds.

Sorry, not sorry?

As for the speech itself, Gov. Snyder seemed to take a modicum of responsibility saying that he would release all his emails having to do with the water crisis in Flint. That being said, he managed to spread the blame around in a conspicuously ideological way.

"Government failed you - federal, state, and local leaders - by breaking the trust you put in us. I'm sorry most of all that I let you down."

Critics have called into question two-thirds of that statement saying that Snyder's emergency managers make local leaders powerless and that it took Snyder three months to seek federal assistance, only securing it a week before the speech.

The governor announced plans to release all emails having to do with the Flint water crisis from 2014 and 2015. No word about the emails from 2013, the year the emergency manager was installed, the year democracy was destroyed in Flint.

Nayyiraa Shariff, with the Flint Democracy Defense League and the Coalition for Clean Water was less than impressed with the governor's moves.

"How he's handling this emergency is piss-poor. He's rationing out water that people have to 'show their papers' for, people without state ID have to wait. Right now we have people who still need water, we have to replace our infrastructure, and we really have to repeal Public Act 436 because that created the Flint water crisis in the first place."

As she spoke the water in Flint is still not safe to drink.

Photo: Earchiel Johnson and Patrick J. Foote/PW | Follow @peoplesworld_action on Instagram for our on-the-ground coverage. And check out our Facebook page.

Keystone, NAFTA, and the TPP: What you need to know

Fri, 08 Jan 2016 10:28:00 +0000

Regardless of whether you support or oppose building the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline from the Canada-Montana border to the oil refineries of the U.S. Gulf Coast, the latest moves in the seven-year brouhaha over the project are a perfect illustration of why workers must oppose - and Congress must defeat - legislation to implement the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership "free trade" pact.

To recap: In November, President Obama rejected a permit for Keystone construction, supposedly killing it - and the project labor agreement jobs that would have seen unionists build Keystone's northern leg, just as they already have built its southern section.

On Jan. 6, Keystone's sponsor, TransCanada, sued in federal court in Houston to overturn Obama's ruling. It also filed a NAFTA claim with U.S. officials for lost future profits, totaling $15 billion, from Keystone. That claim goes to relevant U.S. government agencies.

And that's where NAFTA, the equally controversial and jobs-destroying 22-year-old U.S.-Canada-Mexico "trade pact," and the TPP come into the picture.

Both NAFTA and the TPP have mechanisms that firms can use to reclaim profits they say they are losing or would lose under federal, state and local laws and rules.

Investor-State Dispute System

TransCanada used NAFTA's rules - let's call them the Investor-State Dispute System (ISDS) - to seek its $15 billion in future Keystone profits. (TransCanada added that due to Obama's ruling, it's writing off $1.8 billion-$2 billion in Keystone investment losses for 2015).

Under NAFTA's ISDS, U.S. agencies must rule on TransCanada's claim and the company must prove its case. If it loses, it can try to overturn those decisions in U.S. courts, and again must prove its case. Keystone foes get a chance to challenge TransCanada's math and its arguments. Everything is out in the open, relatively. But if TransCanada loses in federal forums and the federal courts here, that's it. No money.

Suppose the TPP was in effect?

But suppose the TPP was in effect? It has an ISDS, too, after all. And Canada is one of the 11 other nations, along with the U.S., that signed the TPP. Now let's look at what TransCanada could do under the Trans-Pacific Partnership's ISDS. It's very different.

First, TransCanada wouldn't have to take its case for the $15 billion to U.S. agencies. It could take one of two routes (a) go to U.S. courts and, if it loses, go to the TPP's dispute system or (b) bypass our courts and go straight to the TPP's investor-state dispute system.

And the TPP's system is very different from the NAFTA dispute system.

The TPP system is secret, for starters. Keystone foes can file challenges, but can't question witnesses in an open court. TPP system "judges" are trade-oriented lawyers, many of whom handle similar cases for other corporations. Their mandate is strictly to decide if a law, rule or decision impedes present or future profits. And their final rulings can't be appealed.

As Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said, that system is rigged. It would be rigged for TransCanada. Rigged for its $15 billion -- $15 billion that U.S. taxpayers would pay.

"So what?" you may ask. "It's just one company, and just one pipeline." Well, no.

The TPP's secret trade courts - its Investor-State Dispute System - cover any trade case and any and every federal, state and local law or rule that could harm present or future profits. Enact TPP and it wouldn't just help TransCanada get Keystone money, none of which would go to construction workers who lost business because they couldn't build Keystone.

- Enact the TPP and McDonald's could take New York State to that secret trade court to challenge a state commission ruling saying fast food workers must be paid $15 hourly and have the right to organize. A $15 wage, you see, cuts into McDonald's profits.

- Enact the TPP and Massey Energy - or what's left of it - could take the Mine Safety and Health Administration to that secret trade court and challenge MSHA's future rulings closing Massey coal mines due to dangerous conditions. Closing coal mines cuts profits, which of course was Massey's goal: Profits before people. Get ready for another Upper Big Branch.

- Enact the TPP and companies could challenge the federal minimum wage law, state minimum wage laws, local pro-worker laws, Buy America rules, job safety standards, or you name it, all because those laws and rules could cut into present or future profits.

The TPP route wasn't open to TransCanada on the Keystone case, even though it filed a claim for the $15 billion. It would have been if TPP was enacted. It would be open for those other examples if legislation enabling the TPP to take effect becomes law of the land.

Now do you see why workers and their allies call the TPP "NAFTA on steroids?"

There are tons of other problems with the TPP, but this system alone is enough to sink it. Now, get out there and convince your lawmakers of that.

Photo: TPP rally, Leesburg, Virginia, Global TradeWatch, Flickr, CC BY ND 2.0

Too late to apologize for poisoning Flint’s water supply

Wed, 06 Jan 2016 14:09:00 +0000

After several months of denials and finger-pointing, Republican Governor Rick Snyder finally apologized Dec. 29, 2015 to Flint, Michigan, residents for poisonous levels of lead in their water supply. Still, he refused to accept responsibility and blamed the head of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) despite clear evidence of collusion between his office and the MDEQ in attempting to cover up the problem since at least last spring.

To be sure, blatant disregard for human life in a majority African American city, by the Snyder administration, by his hand-picked "emergency manager," and by "smirking" public health officials, is at the center of this story.

On January 5, 2016, Gov. Snyder finally declared a state of emergency on the same day that the Environmental Protection Agency launched its own investigation and that an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Attorney's office was revealed. Snyder's decision came more than two weeks after newly elected Flint Mayor Karen W. Weaver announced her own state of emergency for the city.

Snyder's declaration also comes nearly a full year after a February 2015 test conducted by EPA scientist Miguel Del Toral revealed that the level of lead "was 104 μg/dL and the level of iron in the water exceeded the capability of the instrument to measure."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the presence of lead at levels greater 10 μg/dL can cause severe chronic diseases and neurological impairment in children. It also recommended prompt communication between authorities and families and frequent follow-up testing for victims of lead poisoning.

Many physical and neurological impairments caused by lead poisoning are believed to be irreversible.

Instead of open and immediate communication, the Snyder administration chose to suppress or deny mounting evidence of lead poisoning. According to an NPR story last October, MDEQ spokesperson Brad Wurfel (now forced to resign) called Del Toral's report the work of a "rogue employee." One Detroit Free Press article described Snyder administration statements about lead poisoning in Flint through the summer and fall of 2015 as full of "inconsistency and obfuscation."

While Snyder, through his hand-picked Flint Water Task Force, seems intent on blaming everyone else for the problem, his decision to set aside that city's elections and create an emergency manager for Flint played a central role in the events. As part of an ongoing Republican campaign to eviscerate public sector labor unions, weaken environmental protections and enforcement, and disfranchise African American voters in the state, Snyder signed the controversial Emergency Manager Law. According to one analyst, since the law went into effect in 2012 some 80 percent of Michigan's African American population has lived under a non-elected emergency manager.

Republican-authored tax cuts, white flight, and deindustrialization have hit Michigan cities hard, but as is typical of suburban and rural Republican lawmakers in Michigan (like Snyder himself), they have blamed African American voters and political leaders unfairly for municipal deficits or dwindling public school numbers. The law gave emergency managers full authority to set aside city laws, undercut the authority of elected officials, ignore labor union contracts, dismantle pensions and retirement savings, and make unilateral decisions about city services like water, public safety, garbage, and schools.

Once the emergency managers took power, privatization of public services, including water, were top agenda items. In Flint, Snyder appointee Darnell Finley, who Snyder considered to be so successful that by October 2015 he was tapped to take over Detroit Public Schools, ordered the city to stop taking its water from the Detroit Water and Sewer Department and to draw its water from the polluted Flint River.

Through the spring and early summer of 2015, Del Toral and Flint resident Lee-Anne Walters struggled with a disinterested MDEQ to get the state agency to address the lead-poisoning crisis. The two collected numerous water samples and repeatedly contacted MDEQ officials. The MDEQ responded by denying a systemic problem with Flint water and falsely claimed that Flint properly followed federal mandates on corrosion control. Flint residents reported that MDEQ spokesperson Brad Wurfel simply smirked and laughed at their demands for action.

After this series of events was finally made public in July 2015, Snyder's office attempted to blame Detroit for the problem. On an ACLU video posted in October, Snyder spokesperson Sara Wurfel claimed that the Detroit Water and Sewer Department had cut off Flint from its system. On the video, a person can be heard accusing Wurfel of lying. The ACLU obtained and publicized a March 2014 letter from Detroit Water inviting Flint to renew its use of their services.

That the governor's spokesperson Sara Wurfel and the MDEQ spokesperson Brad Wurfel are married to each other intimates a deeper problem in this story. The close connection between the spokespersons of the MDEQ and the governor's office suggests that, at a minimum, the messaging to the public about the Flint water crisis, especially the blame game, was closely coordinated in both offices.

It was Emergency Manager Finley's decision (under the auspices of the governor's office) to refuse Detroit Water services in March 2014. It was his decision to tap into a water source widely known to be dangerously polluted. Once this decision went into effect, the Snyder appointees at MDEQ refused to enforce mandated water treatment procedures. After the poisoning of Flint residents became public, the governor and his appointees chose to try to hide.

Only a persistent campaign by the ACLU, residents of Flint, and honestly concerned public health experts prevented this disaster from being swept under the rug. While state law protects the governor's office from having to reveal its role in covering up this crisis, Common Cause, a political watchdog group, is campaigning for full disclosure. Melanie McElroy, executive director the group's Michigan chapter, told the media that Snyder should "drop his executive privilege and submit all documents and correspondence in the executive office on all matters dealing with the Flint water crisis to Freedom of Information Act requests."

The full story about the administration's true role in this disaster may have to wait for the outcome of federal-level investigations.

Some important lessons should be learned from this episode. First, anti-democratic emergency managers who have the goal of saving money first above all else will never solve any city's problems.

Second, pollution in the Flint River and in that city's water supply was ignored by the state for many years. Serious investment has long been needed to clean up the river and to build up-to-date water treatment facilities. Evidence is mounting that similar problems are gripping several water systems across the state.

Third, the Michigan Republican Party's disregard for African Americans, its decades-long effort to push the most regressive flat tax in the country, and its disdain for public services and the professional people who deliver them drove this water crisis and generally the political and economic crisis of just about every public service in this state, from the inability to fund new roads to the steep cuts in an otherwise strong public university system. The Republicans as a party and their ideology of privatization simply cannot be trusted to govern anywhere

Photo: Flint, Michigan resident Lemott Thomas picking up bottled water after residents learned the city's water supply was tainted. | Paul Sancya/AP

Prospective settlement in fiery Quebec oil train crash

Wed, 06 Jan 2016 13:09:00 +0000

LAC-MÉGANTIC, Quebec (PAI) - A settlement with actual and economic victims of a fiery oil train crash in downtown Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, two and a half years ago still leaves the train's engineer and dispatcher, both Steelworkers, facing trial.

That's because several of the higher-up entities responsible for the conditions that led to the crash have escaped prosecution, for one reason or another, their supporters point out.

The settlement, announced Dec. 22 by Robert Keach, the bankruptcy trustee for the now-defunct Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, will give $460 million (Canadian) to families of 41 of the dead and to economic victims of the crash. The families get one-fourth of the total, and $460 million Canadian is $330 million in U.S. dollars.

The disaster occurred when, while engineer Tom Harding was off the parked train, it broke loose, headed downhill, jumped the tracks, crashed, exploded, burned and virtually destroyed downtown Lac-Mégantic. The disaster killed 47 and ruined businesses in downtown.

The Lac-Mégantic oil train crash and explosion brought public prominence to the danger of heavily loaded oil trains passing through cities and towns around North America, and led to anti-oil train protests by Railway Workers United and allied environmental groups http://www.peoplesworld.org/environmentalists-railroad-workers-protest-oil-trains/ . RWU is a coalition of rank-and-file union train workers, including Teamsters and Smart-UTU members.

"We are very pleased we will be able to fund the trust before the holidays, and that distributions will reach the families as soon as possible next year," Keach said. Some 24 companies, including the MM&A, oil companies and other railroads, will fund the payments.

But that still leaves Harding facing 47 counts of criminal endangerment causing death. If convicted, he faces life in prison. Also facing trial, set for April, on the same counts are dispatcher Richard Labrie and former MM&A manager of train operations Jean DeMaitre. Harding and Labrie are members of Steelworkers Canada. All three have pleaded not guilty.

Four other former MM&A employees pleaded not guilty in November to violating Canada's Railway Safety Act and the Fisheries Act. If convicted, they face a $50,000 fine, six months in jail, or both. Former MM&A President Robert Grindrod is one of the four.

Higher-up officials, responsible for the policy that left only Harding working the train, were omitted. That drew the ire of supporters of the workers, and of his union, Steelworkers Local 1976.

Métallo (Steelworker), the magazine for USW District 5, which includes Harding's local, said the Canadian federal government bears responsibility for the Lac-Mégantic disaster by letting freight trains run with 1-person crews and not enforcing safety laws and measures.

"Adding insult to injury," its article said, the government is trying to lay the blame on "two ordinary workers, members of USW Local 1976, who face serious criminal charges."

Photo: Police helicopter view of Lac-Mégantic, the day of the derailment. Sûreté du Québec, CC1.0

After leak, methane plagues Porter Ranch, California

Tue, 05 Jan 2016 15:48:00 +0000

It's being called the biggest disaster since the 2010 BP oil spill. Since Oct. 23, in California's Porter Ranch neighborhood, just outside of LA, massive amounts of methane have been leaking into the atmosphere, sickening and displacing residents. With over 150 million pounds emitted so far, experts estimate that it could take three to four months to stop the breach.

The source of the leak is the Aliso Canyon Storage Field, which is the largest underground methane storage facility in the western U.S., and which is owned by Southern California Gas Co. Experts believe the accident occurred because the well from which it came lacked a working safety valve; while one was supposed to be implemented back in 1979, the company failed to do this. As such, there was nothing to prevent the methane from leaking through a hole in a seven-inch diameter pipe, located about 500 feet underground.

Renowned American legal clerk and environmental activist Erin Brockovich is now working to seek justice for the victims of the leak - and, ultimately, of the natural gas company's negligence. She is working for a law firm that is suing on behalf of residents. She remarked, "It's like the BP spill on land. The scope of this is enormous." Having seen thermal imaging of the emissions, she said, "It looks like a volcano that's just erupting, that won't stop. And the idea that Southern Cal Gas" never replaced the safety valve "is mind-blowing. So all of this methane, day in and day out, is just billowing out of this site, that's affecting a very large landmass, and it's an ongoing, constant assault to the community."

The methane output could be responsible for a quarter of all California's methane emissions this year, and could prove to be the worst such leak in the Golden State's history. And it also doesn't bode well for climate change, coming as an especially painful blow to hopeful environmentalists after the dangers of methane emissions were underscored at COP 21 in Paris. That's because methane that enters the atmosphere takes roughly 12 years to fully break down. Furthermore, there is actually more of a risk in the short term from methane output than from carbon emissions. Already, sources say it's released the greenhouse gas equivalent of seven million cars.

Methane is also highly flammable, and dangerous to inhale. Accordingly, hundreds of Porter Ranch residents have already been evacuated and placed in temporary housing. But for some, the damage has already been done. Resident Christine Soderlund said, "I've been nauseous, I've felt lethargic. My kids have had nosebleeds, they've had headaches. It's surreal. It feels like we are a living science experiment."

Some residents have formed the environmental advocacy group Save Porter Ranch, whose members foresee a long and difficult battle ahead. The group's president, Matt Pakucko, said that Southern California Gas Co. is insisting there will be no long-term health effects on the community, but that residents shouldn't buy that. "Their lives have been turned upside down, and it seems to be getting worse," he said. "People are sick, their kids are sick. We're not their guinea pigs."

Photo: Save Porter Ranch demonstrates against the negligence of Southern California Gas Co. | Brian Melley/AP