EBP-DA | in the Shadow of a Town Is Poisoned
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EBP-DA | www.eastbaypunkda.com In The Shadow Of A Town Is Poisoned: It's common enough in rural northern California. Some strangers liquid chlorine stored on the Samoa peninsula, more than enough, show up, buy a piece ofland, build some kind of structure, and go into should it ever escape, to kill every living thing in Eureka . business. What newcomers to Eureka find both amazing and baffling is Nobody's sure exactly what their business .is. There are rumors that local people put up with such wholesale abuse. While there have and suspicions, and new people in town with shiny cars and lots of been movements aimed at either shutting down the mills or at least money in their pockets. forcing them to comply with state and federal regulations on toxic There's talk that the strangers are running some sort of illegal lab discharges, none of them have gotten anywhere. Both mills have been up there in the hills. An increasing number of kids seem to be turning in violation of the law since the day they opened, and aside from afew up with drug problems, and there are stories about gun-toting thugs token fines, nothing has ever happened to them. For years the roughing up anyone who gets too curious. Humboldt County Air Pollution Control District logged an average of Still, the local economy is doing better than it has in years, and 50 to lOOcomplaints every month about the odors emanating from the shopkeepers and businessmen are reluctant to wonder too much about pulp mills. Again nothing happened, except for vague promises 'that the source of the new cash flowing into their tills. there would be further"testing for pulp mill odors ." Testing? As more People downstream notice that their water tastes a little funny, than one aggrieved resident put it, "Have they ever heard of noses?" and there are unpleasant smells coming from that mysterious building, All but the hopelessly naive have given up hope that local But money changes hands, a few threats get passed around, and they government will ever move against the mills for the simple reason that decide to keep their complaints to themselves. local government is awholly owned subsidiary of pulp-producing Eventually, things get out of hand. A gun fight erupts, some kid corporate interests. So, too, is nearby Humboldt State University, overdoses, or maybe the lab blows up. The feds swoop down on the whose forestry, business, and economics departments have been site and confirm what everyone suspected: that the strangers were especially willing, in exchange for cold hard cash, to produce "studies" producing vast quantities of amphetamine or some other less than giving the pulp industry a glowingly clean bill of health. desirable chemical. If they haven't gotten away, they're hauled off to One of the most egregious of these was the ingenuously titled jail, and the public is left footing the bill for cleaning up a dangerous "Contributions of the Pulp Industry to HumboldtCounty"by Professor toxic waste site. John Grobey, in which he cites the amount of wages paid by L-P and That's the way it works when illegal business is involved, but Simpson, and therippleeffectofthose wages on other local businesses what if the mysterious strangers are producing a commodity that's as sufficient justification for permitting the mills to go on with their completely legal? And if the money generated is in quantities large dirty business . enough to buy off or intimidate an entire town? And if when you call Because a significant number of people are benefitting financially the police or the district attorney or tl1e health or environmental from the mills, he contends, the rest of the citizenry should be willing, protection authorities, they just shrug and say there's nothing they can even happy, to allow their environmental degradation and destruction do? to continue. But is Eureka really getting a good bargain out of this? Then you'd be talking about Eureka, a town of 25,000 on the Let's look a little more closely. isolated north coast of California, which for the past 27 years has One of Grobey 's arguments in favorof the pulp mills is that their functioned as a labor pool and toxic dump for two out-of-state timber wages are far higher than those offered by any other local industries. corporations. Ever since its founding in 1850, Eureka has been the This is true; some pulp mill workers earn in excess of $50,000, center of the north coast logging and lumber milling industry, but in extraordinarily good pay for relatively unskilled manufacturing work. 1965, a new kind of mill came to town. Georgia-Pacific and Crown But it's worth noting that the pulp mills have never employed more Simpson both erected immense pulp producing facilities on the than 1300 workers between them. That may sound like a lot in a town Samoa peninsula, a narrow sand spit that juts out into Humboldt Bay of25,000, but bear in mind that only about half of them live in Eureka. just across the' water from central Eureka. So what you've got is a situation where the entire population of a city Various corporate acquisitions and divestitures have left_the is expected to endure systematic poisoning so that about700 people mills in the hands of Louisiana-Pacific and Simpson, but the product can earn an above-average wage. remains the same: a constant stream of air and water borne effluent :Using the same logic, we should welcome methamphetamine that has turned the picturesque and historic town of Eureka into a foul labs into our midst because they produce a great deal of wealth, wealth smelling, health-endangering sinkhole of pollution and corruption. which could be expected to trickle down to other local businesses and Eureka should be famous for its waterfront, for its wonderfully workers. But we don't, because we as a society have determined that preserved Old Town, for its wealth of ornate Victorian architecture, the damage done by such enterprises outweighs the benefits they for its spectacular setting between mountains and sea shore, but produce. Any dispassionate study of the pulp mills, i.e., one not instead it evokes one image above all others: the towering clouds of funded by the pulp mills, should reach a similar conclusion. noxious fumes that rise from twin sets of smokestacks, frequently The fact is that while the pulp industry has generated a great deal blocking out the sun and turning the simple act of breathing into an of wealth in Humboldt County, the preponderance of it has immediately unpleasant and dangerous chore. left Humboldt County. Neither or he pulp-producing corporations is Spectacular as they are, the toxic clouds that billow skyward locally owned. Furthermore, the prosperity enjoyed by a relatively twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, small number of pulp mill workers has not spread itself around very represent only the tip of the iceberg. Even more damaging may be the well; Humboldt County as a whole has a standardofliving considerab!y 25 million gallons of untreated waste water dumped every day into the below the national average. Pacific Ocean and which have virtually destroyed one of California'.s Why this might be so becomes clear .when we examine what richest fisheries . Perhaps most frightening of all are the 1600 tons of EBP-DA | www.eastbaypunkda.com The Pulp Mills Who Profits and Who Pays? Humboldt County has given up in exchange for the largely illusory the electric wiring required by new industrial development are largely prosperity of the pulp industry. Clean air and clean water are subsidized by taxpayers as well. Take, for example, the notorious themselves resources upon which no exact price can be put, but we Professor Grobey's 1973 recommendation that Humboldt County know from experience that their absence devalues every aspectoflife spend $39,000,000 (nearly $100,000,000 in today· s dollars) to improve in a community, not just esthetically, but materially as well. As one local roads for the benefit of timber haulers. EPA study put it: In sum, Eureka and Noxious odors can ruin personal and Humboldt County residents are not community pride, interfere with human only being poisoned, they are being relations, discourage capital improvements, asked, or more accurately, told to pay lower socio-economic status, and damage a for the privilege. The fact that community's reputation. Economically, they can stifle growth and development of a Humboldt County suffers a cancer rate community . Both industry and labor prefer 27% higher than California as a whole to locate in a desirable area ... and 16% above the national rate is not Tourists also shun such areas. The resulting merely a depressing statistic, it also decline in property values, tax revenues, payrolls, and sales can be disastrous to a represents an enormous expense that community. must be be met by insurance customers Although this particular study was and taxpayers, even though there is not made in Eureka, I have seldom seen a little doubt of the source of those excess better analysis of what has happened to that cancer cases. When it comes to specific town. One need only look at the shoddy, respiratory ailments , the figures are tasteless sprawl of recent development for even grimmer: California Health examples of ruined personal and Services report that deaths from asthma, community pride. Eureka's foul-smelling emphysema, and lung cancer are all air and its legendarily corrupt politics have about 60% above normal. lowered its socio-economic reputation to Whether we speak of the the point where it is the butt of jokes up and most visible forms of pollution like the down the north coast.