wfn.org | NCCCUSA Toxic Tour of Louisiana

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Contact: Carol J. Fouke, NCC News, 212-870-2252
Internet: news@ncccusa.org

NCC3/20/98             FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AFRICAN AMERICAN DENOMINATIONAL LEADERS PLEDGE THEIR 
SUPPORT
TO THE STRUGGLE AGAINST ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM

NEW ORLEANS, La. -- "These people are in prison 
and there's poison loose."  The Rev. Dr. Willie T. 
Snead, Sr., was steaming mad.  He had just visited an 
African American community built on top of a toxic waste 
dump in New Orleans.

The more than 1,000 residents of the now 30-year-
old development were lured by the dream of affordable 
homes and the promise of a safe place to rear their 
children.  Then people began to sicken and die, and "the 
dream turned into a nightmare for us," said Corletta 
Smothers, a community leader.

Residents organized, investigated and discovered a 
horrifying truth that had been withheld from them - 150 
toxic chemicals are buried in the old Agriculture Street 
Landfill, which undergirds and surrounds their homes.  
The community wants to be relocated away from the site, 
now on the Superfund's National Priority List.  But so 
far, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is 
insisting on cleaning up the site - while residents 
remain in their homes.

Dr. Snead, of Los Angeles, President of the 2.5 
million member National Missionary Baptist Convention of 
America, was one of a dozen or so leaders of historic 
African American and "mainline" denominations who toured 
toxic Louisiana communities in March under the auspices 
of the Black Church Environmental Justice Program.  The 
program a joint project of the National Council of 
Churches' Eco-Justice Working Group and of the 
ecumenical Black Church Liaison Committee of the NCC and 
U.S. Conference of the World Council of Churches.   The 
group also visited the predominantly African American 
communities of:

  Convent, where a multi-racial residents group is 
seeking to block the Shintech Corporation from 
building a $700 million polyvinyl chloride (PVC) 
plant in their already heavily polluted community;
  Oakville, where a 150-year-old community is fighting 
to close and clean a private toxic dump established 
10 years ago, literally in their back yards; and
  New Sarpy/Norco, where residents want a fair price 
for their homes so they can move away from the fumes, 
explosions and fires from the parish's (county's) 27 
oil refineries.

Participants in the Louisiana tour pledged to 
promote the campaign in their denominations, and to 
support the specific demands of the communities they 
visited. 

ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM DEFINED

The Louisiana tour marked the latest in a series 
of ecumenical events designed to  mobilize African 
American churches in the campaign against environmental 
racism and injustice.  The Louisiana communities are 
among hundreds across the United States that are part of 
a consistent, well-documented pattern:  African American 
and other communities of color, along with economically 
depressed communities, are abused disproportionately as 
the dumping grounds for toxic wastes.  

"We need to get our hearts wrapped around this 
issue," said the Rev. Dr. William Watley, of Newark, 
N.J., an African Methodist Episcopal Church pastor.  He 
is Chair of the ecumenical Black Church Liaison 
Committee, which co-sponsored the tour.  The committee 
is a joint initiative of the NCC and the U.S. Conference 
of the World Council of Churches.

 On their site visits March 13 and 14 in Louisiana, 
the church leaders heard story after story of the 
effects of toxic exposure in the "Chemical Corridor" - 
called "Cancer Alley" by environmentalists - that 
stretches some 85 miles between New Orleans and Baton 
Rouge along the Mississippi River.

 Residents living among the petrochemical companies 
all up and down the heavily industrialized "Alley" 
talked of "kill zones" and cancers, immune disorders, 
miscarriages and birth defects.  "Preschoolers throw up 
their breakfasts because of the foul odors," said Rose 
Jackson of Oakville, La.  Respiratory problems leave 
children and adults gasping for breath.  Stress, 
depression and high blood pressure are rampant.

 "Black, white, young, old are dying before their 
time," said Patricia Melancon of Convent, La.  "There 
are other ways to develop economies than to ask people 
to give up the lives of their children."

The struggle against environmental racism is a 
significant element in today's civil rights movement.  A 
new generation of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, 
Jrs., are meeting in churches to pray and plan and then 
heading out to work for the health of their communities.

PRESSURE URGED TO BLOCK SHINTECH PLANT

 In Convent, La., just up river from New Orleans, 
the NCC group got a close-up look at the Shintech case, 
which has emerged as the most watched and significant 
civil rights case to date involving charges of 
environmental racism.

Convent residents have filed a formal suit asking 
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to block the 
Shintech Corporation from building what would be the 
world's largest polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant.  By-
products in the manufacture of PVC include Dioxins, 
known carcinogens linked to a host of ills including 
birth defects, neurological and immune disorders, and 
sterility.

"These PVC industries just can't hold onto their 
chemicals," a Convent community leader told the visiting 
African American clergy.  Already, 22 million pounds of 
toxic emissions are discharged each year by 
petrochemical companies operating in Convent and an 
adjoining community.  Shintech's new plant would add up 
to 600,000 pounds of additional toxic emissions each 
year.

Allowing Shintech to build, the Convent group 
says, would violate the principles of President 
Clinton's 1994 Environmental Justice Act.  That act 
instructs government agencies to strive for 
environmental justice by ensuring that poor communities 
and communities of color are not disproportionately 
overburdened by toxic pollution.  The EPA's ruling is 
expected in April or May.

CHURCH LEADERS SEEK APRIL MEETING WITH GORE

Before going to Louisiana, the church leaders 
assembled March 11-12 for orientation in Washington, 
D.C., as they expected a meeting with Vice President 
Gore.  He had addressed an NCC-sponsored Black Church 
Environmental Justice Summit, held in the Capital in 
December 1993, and the church leaders wanted to follow 
up.

The meeting fell through, but after visiting 
"Cancer Alley," the church leaders agreed to try to see 
Gore in April.  "I'm glad we didn't meet with the Vice 
President before we went to Louisiana," said the Rev. 
John Hunter, an African Methodist Episcopal pastor in 
Kansas City, Mo., representing the AME's Ecumenical 
Officer, Bishop McKinley Young.  "Now we can talk with 
him about the life and death struggles we have witnessed 
first hand."

 Besides the Revs. Snead, Watley and Hunter, 
church leaders who participated in the Louisiana tour 
included:  Bishop P.A. Brooks of Detroit, Mich., 
Presidium Secretary of the Church of God in Christ who 
was representing Presiding Bishop Chandler D. Owens; 
the Rev. Andrew Whitted, Administrative Assistant to 
Bishop Cecil Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal 
Zion Church; Bishop Arthur B. Williams, Jr., of 
Cleveland, Ohio, Suffragan of the Diocese of Ohio and 
Vice President of the House of Bishops of The Episcopal 
Church; the Revs. Wesley James of Mobile, Ala., and 
Ishmael Shaw of Washington, D.C., representing the 
American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A.; and the Rev. 
John Mendez, a Winston-Salem, N.C., pastor and 
Missions Board Chair, Progressive National Baptist 
Convention, who represented PNBC President Dr. Bennett 
W. Smith.  Dr. Robert Bullard, Director of the 
Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta 
University, accompanied the group.  Present in 
Washington, D.C., were the Rev. Bernice Powell 
Jackson, Director, and Charles Lee, Research Director, 
of the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial 
Justice. 
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