Earth Day 1996 Messin' with Texas?

IVINS ON THE U.S. HOUSE OF FOOLS Page 12

A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES APRIL 19, 1996 :MHO'S EARTH DAY 1996 MESSIN' WITH TEXAS?

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. Concrete 1 Batch Plants )1 in Bulverde. PLUS Reviews of Greenbooks, and Scooter Cheatham's • Recipe for Baked Chihuahuan z Sotol Hearts DIALOGUE

SOLOMON UNWISE? will be smoother for dirtier gasoline from /- While I have concerns about the impact of various other countries to find its way into international trade agreements on U.S. en- gas pumps in the United States. vironmental laws and regulation, Norman (4) The implications of the WTO ruling Solomon's article, "Clean Air Fouled by go well beyond air quality. In the apt Free Market" (February 23), was not an words of Lori Wallach, director of Public accurate piece of reporting. Solomon's Citizen's Global Trade Watch: "Under the statement, "a global trade authority ordered WTO, countries and their democratically- VOLUME 88, No. 8 the United States to allow higher levels of elected representatives are very limited in what they can do to implement and en- A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES air pollution," outraged me. I learned more We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the from the actual text of the order (available force environmental objectives." truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are ded- on the internet at gopher://gopher.igc.apc.- icated to the whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights of human-kind as the foundation of org:70/00/orgs/gets/gets.library/21). FREE VOICES democracy: we will take orders from none but our own First, it should be noted that the order Since I have been subscribing to the conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater affects the regulation of about three per- unique Texas Observer (1955-present), I to the ignoble in the human spirit. cent of gasoline used in the United States. have introduced to Commerce audiences Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not themselves written, and in Second, it affects the method for calculat- such stimulating speakers as Ronnie Dug- publishing them we do not necessarily imply that we ing a baseline against which the clean air ger, Greg Olds, Willie Morris, Molly agree with them, because this is a journal of free voices. qualities of imported gasoline will be mea- Ivins, and, this year, your poetry editor, SINCE 1954 sured. The World Trade Organization Naomi Shihab Nye. She (in her own po- found that imported gasoline would be etry and her extraordinary knowledge of Founding Editor: Ronnie Dugger international poetry) also gives meaning to Publisher: Geoff Rips held to a higher standard than domestically Managing Publisher: Rebecca Melancon refined gasoline. Its order requires the the well-chosen words of your admirable Editor: Louis Dubose United States to hold imported gasoline to creed which appears in each issue of the Associate Editor: Michael King the same standard as domestic. It seems to Observer. Production: Harrison Saunders me that very little gasoline is affected in Jim Byrd Copy Editor: Mimi Bardagjy the first place, and that the difference in Commerce Poetry Editor: Naomi Shihab Nye regulation that is being required by the WTO Subscription and Office Manager: Amanda Toering does not seem that great in the second. HIP-.DEEP OBSERVATIONS Editorial Intern: Ayelet Hines Solomon needs to better explain why I just wanted to drop you a short note to Contributing Writers: Bill Adler, Barbara Belejack, his argument is not just an abstract com- say thanks for your story on the Merco Betty Brink, Brett Campbell, Jo Clifton, Carol Country- man, Lars Eighner, James Galbraith, Dagoberto Gilb, plaint with little relevance to the air we business ("Sued and Censored!" March James Harrington, Jim Hightower, Molly Ivins, Steven actually breathe. 22). Once again the Observer has covered Kellman, Tom McClellan, Bryce Milligan, Debbie John Wilson a very important story that has been virtu- Nathan, Brad Tyer, James McCarty Yeager. ally ignored by the rest of the press. I am Contributing Photographers: Vic Hinterlang, Alan Houston Pogue. grateful for [Lou Dubose's] personal work Contributing Artists: Michael Alexander, Eric Avery, Norman Solomon replies: and for the Observer in general. Tom Ballenger, Richard Bartholomew, Jeff Danziger, Beth The World Trade Organization's power is Keep up the great work. Epstein, Valerie Fowler, Kevin Kreneck, Michael Krone, Don Gardner Ben Sargent, Gail Woods. all too relevant to the air we'll actually Editorial Advisory Board: David Anderson, Austin; breathe. John Wilson has overlooked some Austin Elroy Bode, El Paso; Chandler Davidson, Houston; key factors: Dave Denison, Arlington, Mass.; Bob Eckhardt, Austin; (1) The imported gasoline at issue, from Thank you for going to Pecos and more Sissy Farenthold, Houston; John Kenneth Galbraith, importantly, thank you for writing about it. Cambridge, Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; Venezuela and elsewhere, is heavily laden George Hendrick, Urbana, Ill.; Molly Ivins, Austin; with smog-producing chemicals known as In many ways the outcome of the Pecos Larry L. King. Washington, D.C.; Maury Maverick, Jr., "aromatics." It is mostly destined for libel trial explains the baffling vacuum we San Antonio; Willie Morris, Jackson, Miss.; Kaye have witnessed for years in West Texas Northcott, Fort Worth; James Presley, Texarkana; urban areas of the Northeast, where the Susan Reid, Austin; A.R. (Babe) Schwartz, Galveston; health effects of heightened air pollution when it comes to issues of social responsi- Fred Schmidt, Fredericksburg. could be . appreciable. bility. When there is disdain for open de- Development Consultant: Frances Barton (2) As the Los Angeles Times noted bate and complacency in seeking knowl- Business Manager: Cliff Olofson, 1931-1995 on January 19, the U.S. government had edge, the muscles of knowledge atrophy SUBSCRIPTIONS: One year $32, two years $59, three years $84. Full-time students $18 per year. Back issues $3 prepaid. Airmail, foreign, group, and "established a baseline for determining the and wisdom itself becomes suspect. West bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available front University Micro- acceptable amount of contaminants. A Texas is in a sad and impossible situation. films Intl., 3(8) N. Z,ecb Road. Ann Arbor. MI 48106. Any current sub- scriber who finds the price a burden should say so at renewal time; no separate requirement was set up for those Linda Lynch one need forgo reading the Observer simply because of the cost. INDEXES: The Texas Observer is indexed in Access: The Supplementary countries, such as Venezuela, whose firms Chicago Index to Periodicals; Texas Index and, for the years 1954 through 198I,The Texas Observer Index. had not historically kept the records neces- THE TEXAS OBSERVER (ISSN 0040-4519/USPS 5413(X)), entire contents sary to meet the standards." copyrighted, 0 1996, is published biweekly except for a three-weelvinterval between issues in January and July (25 issues per year) by the Texas Democ- (3) The WTO's January 17 ruling racy Foundation. 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. Telephone: (512) Write Dialogue: 477-0746. E-mail: txobserver(e'igc.apc.org. promises to be just the beginning of multi- World Wide Web DownHome page: http://www.hyperweb.com/lxobserver The Texas Observer Second-class postage paid at Austin. Texas. national assaults on the U.S. Clean Air POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE TEXAS OBSERVER, Act. Now that the WTO has ruled that the 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. 307 West 7th St., Austin, TX 78701. Act poses an unfair trade barrier, the path

2 • APRIL 19, 1996 T1411 TEXAS, EDITORIALS bserver *When the Biosolids FEATURES Everybody's Backyard: Citizens Hit the Fan... Take on the Chemical Crisis By Carol Stall 6 The Verdict May Be In Against "TV Nation" Citizens' Group Beats TNRCC but There's Definitely More Sludge to Come Ruling in Concrete By Maria Eugenia Guerra 8 AST WEEK Federal District Judge during the next year and a half the judges alLucius Bunton signed off on the five- on the appeals bench in New Orleans will Whitewater's Headwaters: Are million-dollar libel judgment a Pecos jury look at Bunton's decision and also say "No Timber Companies Cutting Deals ordered Sony TriStar to pay New-York- kidding!" with Clinton? based sludge hauler Merco Joint Venture, LTHOUGH THE TRIAL has dimin- By Jeffrey St. Clair and for statements made about the company on Alexander Cockburn 10 an episode of Michael Moore's TV Nation. Ashed the space the constitution pro- The jury's five-hundred-thousand-dollar vides for free speech, it also represented a judgment against EPA whistleblower Hugh small victory (and opportunity) for the DEPARTMENTS public. It provided rare insights into how Kaufman—who during a nine-minute TV Dialogue Nation segment in 1994 described Merco's environmental policy decisions are made in Texas; and anyone who was paying atten- West Texas sewer-sludge ranch as "an ille- Editorials gal haul and dump operation"—was also tion can now cite depositions and sworn testimony confirming that government West Texas Sludge Case Keeps approved by the judge. (See "Sued and 3 Censored," March 22.) agencies charged with protecting the envi- Getting Deeper As expected, both defendants have ap- ronment and public health are exactly not Importing PCB Waste to Burn 5 pealed, and Kaufman filed a motion re- working in the public interest— • questing Judge Bunton to stop the plaintiffs unless the public is narrowly construed as Molly Ivins from collecting on the judgment until after the industry the agencies are commissioned U.S. House of Fools 12 the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New to regulate. Orleans hands down its decision. Merco, Consider the origin of Merco Joint Ven- Jim Hightower the company Kaufman ferociously pursued ture's sewer-sludge project on a one-hun- Downsizing Goobers; Gene in depositions (while he was acting as his dred-twenty-eight-thousand-acre ranch in Blues; and More Bad Newts 12 own attorney), has agreed to hold off on Sierra Blanca. Merco arrived in West Texas in 1992, after it had invested a year and a collection. All of this is fairly routine. Chemical World What is unusual is that Merco is refusing fortune in a failed effort to Diet and Prostate Cancer 13 to concede victory. The plaintiffs are ask- secure a land-application permit in Okla- homa. What the company had already in ing Bunton for a new trial—after the com- BOOKS AND THE pany has won 5.5 million dollars from the place was a one-hundred-sixty-eight-mil- CULTURE two defendants. A new trial? lion-dollar contract to dispose of New York The legal buzz is that the Fifth Circuit is City sewer sludge—or what the industry prefers to call "biosolids." But the clock on Discovery of Freedom unlikely to sign off on a jury decision that 15 found only one dollar per defendant in ac- the contract was running out, and if Merco Poetry by June White tual damages, then tacked on five and a half couldn't secure a permitted site, the agree- Future in Peril million dollars in punitives. Kaufman's ment with New York would be void. So in Book reviews by Neil J. Carman 16 attorney, Martha Evans, and Fulbright & Texas—twenty-three days in Texas—the company achieved what had eluded it for a Environmental Protection Sale Jaworski's Dan Davison (who directed Book review by Ayelet Hines 19 TriStar's defense team), have both been year in Oklahoma: a Water Commission citing a recent case remanded to Bunton's registration to dispose of "biosolids"—on Racially Mixed Up court, which establishes that in the absence the 'Mile High Ranch ninety miles east of El Film review by Steven G. Kellman 20 of actual damages, high punitives are im- Paso. Merco got its way by hiring former Lunch on the Wild Side permissible. legislator/water commissioner Cliff John- Book review by Ted Hughes 21 So it is a mystery why Bunton son as a lobbyist, promising Texas Tech approved the jury's decision when he had University a 1.5-million-dollar grant to • the opportunity to rectify it—although he study the beneficial use of sludge on range AFTERWORD did openly betray his sentiments in court, land, and threatening to sue individually after the jury had been finally dismissed. "I any member of the Hudspeth County Com- Stalking the Wild Sotol look at some of these pencil marks jurors missioners Court who would vote to oppose By Robert Bryce 22 make on these pages," Bunton said, flip- the project. The local title company owned Political Intelligence 24 ping through the jury's decision, "and I say by the county judge—whom some Sierra to myself, 'No kidding!' The defendants' Blancans now call "the sludge judge"—also Cover art by Sam Hurt appeal was mailed on April 9, and perhaps picked up twenty thousand dollars on the

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 3 sale of the ranch. (The jury in Pecos ac- Texas Tech grant, weren't [sic] you?" it ought to be the taxpayers. I don't believe cepted the plaintiffs' argument that TV Na- Davison asked. Herrin replied that that was it's proper or ethical under any circum- tion's line "I followed the smell of money his understanding. stances, in my opinion." to the county courthouse, where I met Judge Louis Herrin is a bureaucrat, hired to fol- For Buck Wynne III, ethics must be sit- Billy Love," implied corruption, and was low the instructions of his superiors. One uational. In January of 1993, Wynne left therefore malicious.) Not only did Merco putative public servant, who was Governor the EPA, "to get another job." But before retain the services of a former water com- Bill Clements' appointed chair of the Texas he signed on with Vinson & Elkins iii missioner, but Bill Colbert, who for fifteen Water Commission and President George March, he did some freelance work in years had served as the commission's pub- Bush's appointed director of the U.S. Envi- Mexico for an old friend—Merco Joint lic information officer, went to work for the ronmental Protection Agency's Region 6, Venture, whose biosolids project he had public relations firm hired by Merco, also took the stand. Buck Wynne III testified defended as a water commissioner and "Sierra Blancans," the New York Times re- that Merco's operation was just fine, and EPA regional director. ported, "hardly knew what hit them." read from a letter he wrote in 1992 when he was regional director of the EPA: "There is ID THE SIX HUNDRED residents of AS THE PERMITTING PROCESS no significant possibility that public health D/Sierra Blanca get a fair shake in 1992? Whandled properly? Testimony in the or the environment will suffer adverse ef- A letter written by John Hall, who in 1994 Pecos libel trial suggests left the Texas Natural Re- that it wasn't. The Merco sources Conservation Com- application was moved When Herrin was cross-examined by mission and is now lobby- ahead of fifty-seven previ- ing for the industry Ann ously filed active applica- defense counsel Dan Davison, it became Richards once appointed tions. "Was priority given to clear the 1.5-million-dollar grant Merco him to regulate, answers Merco' s application?" that question in brief: plaintiffs' attorney Robert offered to Texas Tech—if Merco's appli- "Quite frankly," Hall wrote Birne asked Texas Natural to the Governor on October Resource Conservation cation were approved—was a factor in 13, 1992, "in hindsight it Commission examiner the permit application process. appears that the decision to Louis Herrin who, as a grant the Merco registration member of the defunct was made too quickly. The Water Commission, had handled the permit. fects from toxic pollutants which may be decision to grant the registration was made "Yes it was," Herrin said from the wit- present in sludge as a result of Merco's six- by the commission's executive director ness stand. year land application project, if Merco com- fourteen days after he joined the commis- "Why?" Birne continued. plies with the requirements composed by the sion and twenty-five days after the applicall "We were asked by our executive direc- Texas Water Commission." tion was filed." tor to review the application for Merco," Later, in an attempt to impeach the char- "The proof is in the pudding," as Merco's Herrin responded. acter of Kaufman—who until Congress former public relations agent Kelly Sarber "And who would that be?" Birne asked. passed a law against it had accepted hono- told TV Nation. And the "At the time," Herrin said, "it was Jestis raria to speak—a plaintiffs' attorney asked pudding in Sierra Garza." Wynne if he had ever received fees for the Blanca, like the When Herrin was cross-examined by de- speeches he made. "I would never ac- permitting pro- fense counsel Dan Davison, it became clear cept an honorarium at either the state cess described in the 1.5-million-dollar grant Merco offered or the federal level," Wynne said. the five-day to Texas Tech—if Merco's application "I think if you are a public em- libel trial in were approved—was a factor in the permit ployee, and you don't feel the tax- March, application process. "You understood that payers pay you enough money, really the reason the Merco application was then you ought to get another job. stinks. jumped ahead was because of this possible You can only serve one master, and —L.D.

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4 • APRIL 19, 1996 Poisoned Welcome EPA and Texas Waste Firms Roll Out the Red Carpet for PCBs

Li EN YOUR ANSWER is 'the rently available technologies, incineration the EPA of its approval (not received at lAlesser of two evils,' you're asking is the most efficient. There's a limited sup- press time). That means, however, that as the wrong question." ply of this stuff [PCBs], and once it's in- early as June, the ChemWaste facility at That was not a resigned shrug in the di- cinerated, it's gone." Port Arthur could be permitted to devote as rection of the fall presidential election, but Connett, a professor of chemistry at St. much as seventy percent of its PCB storage the response of environmental scientist Lawrence University and an expert on haz- capacity to imported PCB wastes, and— Paul Connett to the Environmental Protec- ardous waste matters, acknowledges that according to environmentalists—the toxic tion Agency's recent decision to allow the large-scale alternative methods of dispos- byproducts of PCB combustion will be dis- import of PCB-contaminated wastes to the ing of PCBs are still in development, but he persed into the surrounding air and neigh- United States, for disposal by incineration, also insists that the industry's and the borhoods. after a ban of nearly twenty years. In re- EPA's belief in the adequacy of incinera- Greenpeace staff scientist Pat Costner sponse to requests from the U.S. hazardous tion—"as getting rid of something once points out that even the best incinerators waste industry and its supporters in and for all"—is completely wrong, even have acknowledged the escape of signifi- Congress, on March 18 the EPA issued "bordering on the mythological." In fact, cant amounts of dioxin-contaminated pol- new regulations allowing the import of Connett says, properly contained, PCBs lution, and the Sierra Club's Neil Carman highly toxic polychlorinated biphenyls "cause little damage." But once inciner- adds that the average person already carries (PCBs), to be shipped for disposal at per- ated, "they are dispersed into the air and a dangerous body-burden (fifteen to twenty mitted hazardous waste incinerator facili- the food chain, and their incineration parts per trillion) of dioxin. ties (see "Choose Your Poi- Sierra Club attorney Susan son," Observer, March 8). Jordan says that it may be late The new regulations have The industry's and Nye EPA's belief summer before the Court of not gone uncontested. On Appeals acts on the Sierra March 27, the Sierra Club in the adequacy of incineration—"as Club's challenge to the new filed suit against the EPA and getting rid of something once and EPA rule. She argues that the .ts director, Carol M. EPA, in acting on its own "en- Browner, petitioning for a re- for all"—is completely wrong, even forcement discretion," had no view of the new rules by the "bordering on the mythological.• authority to allow the imports U.S. Court of Appeals for the under the 1976 Toxic Sub- Ninth Circuit. The Sierra stances Control Act, and was Club was joined by Greenpeace and other byproducts are more poisonous than the in effect protecting not the public health but environmental groups, who charge that in- PCBs themselves." "the short-term profits of toxic waste traf- cineration of imported PCBs will in- Since U.S. manufacture and import of fickers and the incineration industry." evitably result in the dispersal of even PCBs were prohibited by federal law in The environmentalists remain uncon- more poisonous dioxins and dioxin-like 1977, five incinerators have been permitted vinced by the EPA's and the hazardous chemicals, known to cause severe health to burn PCB waste. Two are in Texas: the waste industry's contentions that re-impor- effects even in very small amounts. Ac- Rollins Environmental Services facility in tation and incineration is the "lesser evil" cording to Neil Carman, Clean Air Pro- Deer Park, and the Chemical Waste Man- solution to PCB pollution and that oppo- gram Director for the Lone Star Chapter of agement facility in Port Arthur. Both com- nents only want to keep toxic chemicals the Sierra Club (Austin), "burning more panies have indicated they are eager to take "out of their own backyards." "This is not a PCBs simply means putting more dioxin advantage of the expanded market in PCB `NIMBY' issue," responded Carman. into our nation's air, water, food supply, waste (partly because the domestic sources "This is a health and-safety issue." Charlie and finally our bodies, including our chil- have been decreasing in recent years). A Cray of Greenpeace pointed out that when dren and babies. It's at least double the Rollins spokesman told the Observer that it comes to pollution, there are no borders. dioxin at half the price." the company is "getting prepared aggres- "Burning PCBs is dangerous and unneces- The EPA insists that returning the PCBs sively" for the imported waste, but it ap- sary no matter where you do it," said Cray. to the U.S. (all PCBs were originally man- pears that rival ChemWaste is first in line. "There is no justice in polluting communi- ufactured here) for incineration is the best On March 28, ChemWaste notified the ties and the global environment with available solution to an otherwise in- EPA that it intends to begin importing dioxin." —M.K. tractable problem. Tony Baney, head of the PCBs (from Mexico) beginning in May, in EPA study group responsible for the new quantities that may amount to as much six rules, said that neighboring countries (par- thousand metric tons a year (originating Send a Friend the ticularly Mexico) do not have adequate fa- from waste storage centers in Nuevo Leon cilities for disposing of high-level PCB- and Tijuana), and in concentrations rang- Texas Observer contaminated waste, and must resort either ing from fifty parts per million to one hun- Contact us at 477-0746, to more dangerous and expensive methods dred percent PCBs. (transport to Europe) or dumping. "The en- The EPA's Tony Baney says that ship- or write 307 West 7th St., vironmental groups are opposed to all in- ments cannot actually begin until forty-five cineration," Baney said, "but of all the cur- days after the Mexican government notifies Austin, TX 78701.

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 5 Everybody's Backyard Citizens' Dioxin Conference Takes on Global Chemical Crisis

BY CAROL S. STALL HOULD PEOPLE DIE to keep tele- similar chemicals, also served as a spring- we have to stop the production of these phone poles clear of dandelions? So board for related issues, such as organizing dioxins." Goldtooth described one goal of Sdisposable diapers can be whiter than and assisting "poisoned" communities, get- the conference as "merging the environ- white? For Barbie and Ken? ting scientists involved in ecological is- mental movement with the environmental Those were just some of the questions sues, and addressing environmental racism. justice movement." He saw in the meeting asked by participants in the Third Citizens' One workshop, for example, sought meth- the beginnings of a real national campaign, Conference on Dioxin and Other Synthetic ods to involve more scientists in environ- and emphasized the wider cultural poten- Hormone Disrupters, held March 16-17 in mental health studies. Peter Montague, a tial of the environmental perspective. Baton Rouge. The resounding answer re- conference presenter and editor of Rachel's "What's changing is that some people are turned by the conference was "No!" Environment and Health Weekly (Annapo- starting to question their whole relationship Nearly six hundred scientists, lawyers, lis, Maryland), discussed the pressures sci- to the earth." veterans, environmentalists and grassroots entists face in tackling environmental re- Another conference participant, Chester activists—only two hundred and fifty had search. "It takes personal integrity and Williams, is a member of a Texarkana orga- been expected—converged personal courage for scientists to work on nization, Friends United for a Safe Environ- on the most notoriously ment (FUSE). Williams polluted region of one of said he became acquainted the most polluted U.S. Denial of research money from with dioxin and environ- states, to confront the prob- mental justice issues when a lem of dioxin. corporate polluters can translate into local creosote wood-treat- Conference attendees ruthless punishing of scientists. ment plant—situated near spanned the racial and eth- the mostly black Carver nic spectrum, and included Terrace community—was a smattering of international participants. politically important issues," said Mon- designated a Superfund site. "People are "It's terrific that so many people from dif- tague. He cited lack of funding as a key still dying from it....If I'd been black, that's ferent backgrounds came together," said problem for public health research. Mon- where I'd have lived," said Williams. Con- Stephen Lester, a conference coordinator tague added that denial of research money sidering the outcome of the conference, he and science director for the Citizens Clear- from corporate polluters can translate into added, "It's heartening to see other people inghouse on Toxic Waste, headquartered in "a ruthless punishing of scientists working learning what we found out a long time Falls Church, Virginia. "This was a major in the public interest." ago—it shows the movement is growing." step towards building a diverse strategic While some participants focused on sci- planning group on dioxin issues." entific research and involvement, most ANY OF THE GRASSROOTS The pressure to do something about in- came with activism in mind. Tom Gold- activists said they had initially creasingly widespread dioxin pollution has tooth, National Director of the In- M become active out of self-de- been building for some time, but was accel- digenous Environmental Net- fense—as victims of local toxic incursions. erated by the fall 1994 release of the EPA's work, came with a group of People brought their own backyard issues latest (of three) dioxin health assessments. fourteen delegates from various and experiences to share. As a location The EPA study acknowledged, for the first indigenous American grassroots for dangerous toxic incidents, Texas time, what had already become the scien- communities. The group is especially was painfully well-represented. tific consensus: that "dioxin and related concerned about dioxin and other "per- compounds may cause adverse effects at sistent organic pollutants" (POPs), espe- current levels of exposure for the general cially in the Great Lakes region, Alaska population." The EPA report added that and the Northwest Territories—where dioxin, even at very low doses, may cause a cooling air appears to be dropping large wide array of adverse effects, ranging from amounts of these particulates from indus- cancer to attention deficit disorder (see trial areas. box, "Dioxin and Its Effects," page 6). "Our womenfolk," said Goldtooth, "are being contaminated with PCB and dioxins HE BATON ROUGE conference, or- in their breast milk, and they're passing it ganized to develop strategies for re- on to their babies. So Tducing the production of dioxins and we are very concerned about these things for Carol Stall is a free-lance writer and a future genera- correspondent for Women's International tions. Our News Gathering Service. Travel funds for women are our first this article were provided by The Founda- environment....It's tion for a Compassionate Society. common sense that

6 • APRIL 19, 1996 Phyllis Glazer, of Winona, has spent the past few years and her own inheritance fighting a waste-injection well facility in her community. In 1992, she and neighbors formed MOSES (Mothers Organized gio Stop Environmental Sins). The group elieves that dioxin is of one of many chemicals residents of the community have been breathing, and that the source of those chemicals is the American Ecology Environmental Services Corporation (AEESC) facility (formerly run by Gibral- tar Chemical Resources Inc.). "The plant handles and stores over seven hundred chemicals in different combinations," said Glazer. She adds that the community usually doesn't know which chemicals are being dispersed into the local environment, partly due to the lack of consistent oversight or testing for dioxin by the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commis- sion. Gibraltar had been cited for numerous TNRCC violations, including handling PCBs beyond the plant's licensed capacity (according to Glazer, twenty-four times the permitted amount), even while management claimed they weren't handling PCBs at all. During that period several years ago, after what was called an "upset" (an explosion or release of toxins, possibly resulting from an incompatible mix of issued a controversial report on the Mid- chemicals) at the plant, reports of injuries lothian area, and concluded that the ce- Texas today: a state full of Sunbelt ment-kiln incineration and related indus- 101ncluded a woman who began lactating— boosters, strident anti-unionists, oil at the age of sixty-six. That was before the tries posed no ongoing risk to area and gas companies, nuclear Winona community had heard about the residents. The Sierra Club and other envi- weapons and power plants, political hormone-mimicking effects of dioxin. ronmentalist organizations have charged hucksters, underpaid- workers and Glazer says her own nasal septum "dis- that the report is superficial and mislead- toxic wastes, to mention a few. integrated" as she drove past the plant during, especially because it is not derived ing a release, and she suffered throat from human or animal studies. BUT DO NOT DESPAIR! burns. She described additional damaged SUBSCRIBE TO: septum cases, cancers, numerous rare ge- ONFERENCE COORDINATOR Lester described the meeting as an netic birth defects, and immune-system r,„,,, •LfIll TIXAS depression in Winona-area people and C important stage of anti-dioxin orga- livestock. For her, the Baton Rouge con- nization. "What I see coming out of the 41111) ference was inspiring. "To see so many conference is a coordinated group, keep- server people who refused to be victimized—it ing in touch with each other. This is not a empowers us to do something." final step, but a long-term strategic plan- Midlothian, Texas, roughly a hundred ning group with a very diverse member- miles southwest of Winona, is not down- ship." Lester said a "cookbook" of conclu- wind of the AEESC injection well, but res- sions from the strategic planning Name idents there have reason to believe they are workshops will be compiled and dis- tributed to conference-goers. breathing the identical chemicals. One of Address the three cement companies in Midlothian The conference also addressed alterna- (owned by TXI) receives and incinerates tives to dioxin-creating industries. Wayne wastes originating from the Winona Roberts, a Toronto-based economist, dis- City AEESC plant. "What's not injected [at cussed corporate welfare for the chlorine industry. "We are literally paying to kill Winona] will come to Midlothian to be State Zip burned," said Sue Pope, founder of the ourselves," he said, "[yet] we have economic answers to chlorine and its deriva- Midlothian-area organization, Down- $32 enclosed for a one-year subscription. ' winders at Risk. She notes that the area tives. We can replace it." It was Roberts ❑ who suggested we may be "dying for Bar- supports four or five dairies and is a beef- ❑ Bill me for $32. raising area, yet "neither the milk nor the bie and Ken" (citing the material used to beef is tested for dioxin." Pope says she make the toy, polyvinyl chloride, as a The Texas Observer became a full-time activist out of neces- source of dioxin). He added wryly that the 307 West 7th Street sity. "It's not the dairies' fault, but not one dolls also exemplify the dangers of Austin,TX 78701 living being has been tested by the dioxin's hormonal effects. "If you want to TNRCC for dioxin." The TNRCC recently see what dioxin does—check out Ken." ❑

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 7 Grassroots Victory Bulverde Citizens' Group Defeats Pollution and TNRCC with Pluck, Organizing, and Science

BY MARIA EUGENIA GUERRA CIENCE-SUSTAINED and sup- resident of Bulverde, was formerly a career Ingram plant operated on that 4.22-acre ported by tireless community orga- scientist with the Southwest Research In- site, it would exceed the TNRCC's allow- Snizing—derailed the fast-track plan stitute in San Angelo. "Air-quality science able—of four hundred micrograms per of Ingram Readymix, Inc. and the Texas was always a component of what we cubic meter of air—within an hour, at the Natural Resource Conservation Commis- wanted to prove to the TNRCC," Mathis adjacent residence of Luke and Louise sion to build a concrete batch-mixing plant said, "but when we got Bob Barton, we got Lindsey." In February of 1995, Louise in Bulverde, twenty miles north of San An- someone who really understood science. Lindsey, a twenty-five-year resident of tonio, on a rural 4.22-acre site at the inter- Barton had time and know-how, and what Bulverde whose health requires her to use section of U.S. Hwy. 281 and FM 1863. he didn't know, he learned as he went....I bottled oxygen, had requested the original "Science shredded the TNRCC's study prayed for help, and he was an answered hearing concerning the plant. of how cement particulate matter moves in prayer of dogged intelligence." Once they had their air-model evidence, the air and settles out," said Bulverde resi- Barton says he became interested in the CLEAN had to fight to get it considered by dent and environmentalist Kate batch-plant controversy because the TNRCC. "The attorney for Ingram, Mathis, president of the town's of his own grandchildren, as John Hohn, and TNRCC counsel, Scott Citizens League for Environ- well as the five hundred other Humphrey, tried desperately to keep our air mental Action Now, Inc. model from being admitted as evidence at (CLEAN). CLEAN, a group of the TNRCC hearings on September 7," eight hundred Hill Country resi- Barton said. The administrative judge, Bill dents, combined science with grass- Ehert, initially sustained the applicant's ob- roots determination and gumption. On jections, Barton said, but after extensive ar- February 7, CLEAN's persistence and ex- guments by CLEAN's attorney, Stuart pertise resulted in a surprise two-to-one Henry, Ehert reversed himself. "The model vote of the TNRCC commissioners, became evidence," Barton concluded. denying Ingram Readymix a standard "Compelling evidence." exemption from air pollution regula- Barton also reviewed TNRCC's own tions. (Chairman Barry McBee and files and noted many discrepancies. Commissioner Ralph Marquez voted to Staffers at first weren't certain whether deny the exemption, Commissioner comparable air-sampling measurements John Baker voted to grant it.) The prece- from other concrete batch plants were dent-setting vote rejected the recommen- available, and when Barton eventually re- dations of TNRCC staff attorneys and viewed the results, he found numerous er- overruled an administrative law judge who rors. "The reported results were useless," had presided over a hearing on the matter Barton said. The air-sampling results, he in September, 1995. noted, were not correlated with rates of ce- "We were organized," said Mathis, "and ment production, and the hauling records we had the signatures of one thousand six were also contradictory. "They said there hundred residents who did not want the Bulverde schoolchildren who travel daily were fewer emissions at the times more ce- plant. The proposed plant site [is] adjacent through the intersection where the plant was ment was produced. According to their re- to the property of a Bulverde resident with scheduled to be built. The TNRCC staff and port, the maximum emissions occurred compromised respiratory and cardiovascu- its hearing officer were unpersuaded by traf- when cement production was the lowest," lar functions. Yet we knew we were up fic and health concerns. "The safety of five Barton continued. He said the responsible against what seemed to be a 'done deal,' hundred school children was not a great TNRCC staff were unaware the studies had and a TNRCC climate of 'hands-off indus- enough consideration for the TNRCC to even been made, and the work had appar- try,'" added Mathis, a veteran of the envi- even slow down the permitting process," ently been done quickly and without proper ronmental fight to stop the LaFarge cement said Barton. "We knew we had to find an- supervision. Barton also discovered in plant burning hazardous wastes in New other approach to this problem. The TNRCC files applications for Bulverde that Braunfels. TNRCC was very clear that it had no juris- had in fact been drafted for other locations; Mathis particularly credits the work and diction over traffic or water issues, only over the names had simply been crossed-out or tenacity of Bob Barton. Barton, a retired air quality, and that is what we looked at." whited-out and then changed, without ad- engineer and physicist, and twenty-year CLEAN also hired Bruce Wiland, a for- dressing local circumstances. "They had no mer TNRCC employee and now a consult- credibility," Barton said, and could not be ing professional engineer, to create a com- applied to other situations, like the pro- Maria Eugenia Guerra is the editor of puter-generated mathematical model for posed Ingram plant. LareDos, a monthly newspaper published particle dispersion in air. "The model According to Barton, the Ingram site is in Laredo. showed," summarized Barton, "that if the located in a valley, at an elevation of one

8 • APRIL 19, 1996 thousand fifty feet, and surrounded by hills vated by those who showed their support hours, on rigged, meaningless hearings, of an elevation of one thousand three hun- and who made contributions to our effort." just for the chance to be formally dred feet. Contour lines show major Mathis, a retired veterinarian who now heard....The TNRCC [staff] considers the drainage from several peaks running di- teaches at a San Antonio college, had de- public to be the real nuisance, incapable of rectly to the site, where flooding has al- livered an impassioned address at the contributing anything worthy in the hear- ready occurred. The entire four-acre site, February 7 TNRCC proceedings in Austin. ings process. We have been treated like un- .ocated within a on62hundred-year flood She indicated the large group of Bulverde wanted, ignorant stepchildren throughout plain, is also only eight hundred fifty feet residents who had travelled to the hearing, this ordeal by the staff at TNRCC. We are from the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone. and noted, "It doesn't take a hearing or an sick and tired of their condescending arro- Barton says it was only the community's expensive lawyer to figure out that this gance," Mathis said. determination that blocked the plant, de- many people are upset, because this plant at "The problem seems to be that this gov- spite "a state agency that was biased this site will be a nuisance in more ways ernmental agency has aligned itself with in- against the protestants and aligned with the than one. But the rules say we have to dustry against the public, to such an extent applicant.... We educated ourselves. We prove our case at a hearing. And so we that it precludes any chance of citizens got a good attorney. We had a model. We played by the rules, naively trusting in the winning in the hearings process. Citizens' made every hearing, and we made open system." Mathis complained that neither groups like ours are fighting to preserve records requests of the TNRCC in San An- the TNRCC staff nor the hearing judge had clean air, clean water, and community and tonio and in Austin. It wasn't until we edu- been seriously interested in the residents' neighborhood integrity all over the state. cated our elected officials that they came concerns, and that the community had to You alone have the power to help us," she along to help us. And we educated the expend large amounts of money and energy concluded. TNRCC commissioners—two of them even to get its case heard by the commis- This time at least, the TNRCC commis- anyhow," Barton said, and he ranked this sioners. Mathis was particularly angry at sioners responded to CLEAN' s appeal— environmental victory with his earlier suc- the TNRCC's staff counsel's assertions, in supported as it was by convincing air-qual- cesses in science. hearing documents, that the legislature had ity research and the visible commitment of "You can beat the TNRCC," echoed wanted only more opportunity for "com- the Bulverde citizens. Mathis was surprised Kate Mathis, reminiscing over the commu- ment" by citizens, without substantive ef- and jubilant at the unexpected TNRCC de- nity effort to raise over twenty thousand fect on health and safety issues. cision, but saw in Bulverde's experience a dollars to pay engineer Wiland and attorney "It is absurd and appalling to even sug- crucial lesson for other grassroots groups. Henry, and to cover operating expenses like gest that the Legislature intended to waste "We are wary, cautious, and peaceful," she fundraising activities, postage, and printing. thousands of tax dollars and require citi- said. "We want other little environmental "We had continuous community support zens to waste twenty thousand to forty groups to take heart and to know that the and several key leaders who were moti- thousand dollars, and literally thousands of right thing can happen." ❑ REMEMBER THE PEOPLE'S SENATOR Senator Ralph Yarborough built a legacy that progressives everywhere can hold dear, and the Texas Observer gathered a group of memories to honor the past and challenge the future. Contributors: Sarge Carleton, Molly Ivins, Ronnie Dugger, Judge William Wayne Justice, Jim Hightower, Larry Goodwyn, David Richards, Bernard Rapoport, Dave Shapiro and Lars Eighner. Now you can collect the Texas Observer's commemorative issue remembering Ralph Yarborough. Get a copy for yourself; give copies to friends. Send one to Lloyd Bentsen. 1 copy $3.00 50 copies $112.50 10 copies $27.50 100 copies $200.00 25 copies $62.50 Please send me copies of the Texas Observer's February 23, 1996 issue remembering Ralph Yarborough. on Satan, in Iowa, Debbie Nathan Name PLUS: Willy LOIllarion 'Borneo, James Galbraith onRand Address DagobertoGreenspan's Cronies: 'Keating, Helms, & Ay A City State Zip Send check with this ad to: Texas Observer, 307 W. 7th Street, Austin, TX 78701

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 9 -... ■-••••■••■•••■-

Whitewater's Headwaters Were Timber Corporation Land Deals the Source of the Scanckil?

BY JEFFREY ST. CLAIR AND ALEXANDER COCKBURN F THE THOUSANDS of stories How long the local partners held the commitment was pallid from the start; his written about the Whitewater scan- land, or the terms on which it passed from two predecessors as governor, Dale Odal over the past four years, some IP to them to 101 River Development to the Bumpers and David Pryor, had both tangled ninety percent have concerned themselves Clintons and McDougals, is unclear. But it with the timber companies with far more with the cover-up question: if or how the is evident that the Whitewater sale came at vigor on the issue of clearcutting. When the Clinton White House suppressed evidence a time when the timber giant was holding a newly elected governor formed a task force in the wake of Vince Foster's suicide. Al- keen ear to the pronouncements of candi- on clearcutting and stocked it with conser- most all the remaining stories deal with the date Clinton. The young attorney general vationists, the panel quickly took heat from efforts of Governor Bill and the First Lady loggers and from the boardrooms of Wey- of Arkansas to keep their friend James Mc- erhaeuser and Georgia-Pacific. A startled Dougal's Madison Guaranty Savings & Clinton kicked off the conservationists, Loan afloat. Meanwhile, one of the great installed industry hacks in their place, and untold stories of Whitewater is the chummy recommended voluntary compliance with nexus of the Clintons and big timber, which soft regulations. might have played a role in the original The Arkansas voters turned Clinton out Whitewater Estates deal and certainly was at the end of his two-year term in 1980. evidenced in a subsequent transaction de- He left the governor's mansion and went signed to save the Whitewater Develop- to work at the Little Rock law firm of ment Corporation from bankruptcy. Wright, Lindsey and Jennings. His office The WDC began its ventures with a land was in the Worthen Bank, controlled by deal designed to channel fast money to Bill the state's powerful Stevens family. and Hillary. In 1978, state Attorney Gen- Hillary was at the Rose law firm. Both eral Clinton was in the midst of his first firms represented the timber giants of$ campaign for the governorship when he Arkansas before state regulatory bodies and Hillary, along with Jim and Susan Mc- such as the Pollution Control Board and Dougal, bought two hundred thirty acres of the Department of Ecology. Meanwhile, riverfront land in the Ozark Mountains of Clinton was refashioning himself as a northern Arkansas. Though title to the land New Democrat, sensitive to the concerns was in the Clintons' name, the couple put of business and zealous to purge himself down no money. McDougal, who had not of any "progressive" taint. Clinton yet acquired his savings and loan, was a fi- recaptured the governor's office nancial fixer and property dealer. He in 1982, the same year that fronted the money for the down payment McDougal bought Madison on the loan. Guaranty Saving & Loan. Among And where did the land come from? Its those contributing to candidate Clin- previous owner-of-record was a partner- ton's campaign treasury were Interna- ship, 101 River Development, whose role tional Paper, Georgia Pacific, and Tyson appears to be strictly that of a conduit. 101 Foods. Their investment was swiftly re- River Development held the property for warded. Clinton redux was now equipped only three days, and folded its tent within a with a philosophical approach to regula- couple of weeks of the sale. The previous vowed that as governor he would restrict tion highly congenial to the resource indus- owner had been a group of local business- clearcutting on land held by companies tries and to the poultry factories. men. And prior to them, the last owner had such as International Paper, Georgia-Pa- Tyson in particular became a key ally of been International Paper, Arkansas' largest cific, and Weyerhaeuser. These paper and Clinton. Tyson planes ferried the First landholder—a sixteen-billion-dollar-a- timber companies had gone on a logging Family on its travels and Tyson funds year timber giant with seven million acres binge in the mid-1970s, clearcutting thou- poured into Clinton's campaign coffers. In of land across the United States—and eight sand-acre chunks of forest at a time. Clin- return, the poultry magnate received hundred thousand acres in Arkansas. It had ton promised to introduce legislation ban- roughly twelve million dollars worth of tax logged off the best timber on the site and ning the practice as soon as he entered the breaks during Clinton's tenure. Nor was then sold the riverfront acres cheap to the governor's office. Clinton diligent in monitoring the environ- local partnership of Arkansas bankers and Clinton won the governorship in Novem- mental record of Tyson Foods or of the businessmen. ber of 1979. Environmentalists eagerly poultry industry in general. The disastrous awaited for the new governor to move to impact of Tyson's chicken farms on the stop clearcutting and stem the flow of in- Arkansas River is fairly well known, but Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn dustrial poisons that suffused the state's the pulp plants of International Paper, write a regular column on politics and the water and air. But the promises of the cam- Georgia Pacific, and James River were far environment for City Pages in Minneapolis. paign trail soon lost their fire. Clinton's more toxic. International Paper's mill at

10 • APRIL 19, 1996

Pine Bluff is one of the most virulent in the Forest Management Act. Bumpers was campaign chest. nation, venting nearly two million tons of also, as already noted, a spirited critic of Yet another Clinton/timber thread: al- chemicals a year into the air and water. the clearcutting and pesticide practices of though Hillary's incredible success in com- From 1982 forward, Clinton argued that the big timber companies in Arkansas. But modities trading has been widely advertised compliance with environmental standards Clinton was then contemplating a run for as an exercise in cattle futures, in fact, part could best be achieved on a voluntary basis, the White House. And so the timber com- of her conversion of one thousand dollars Sather than by the imposition of exigent panies, along with other corporate inter- into ninety-eight thousand dollars came in (and politically perilous) rules and regula- ests, funded the Democratic Leadership trades on timber futures. The Clintons never tions. To this end Governor Clinton stacked Council—Clinton's launching pad. so much as visited Whitewater Estates or the his pollution control board with members The kindly deeds President Clinton has International Paper land. But the only per- friendly to industry. In 1985 he promoted performed for the timber giants are well son who appears to have made any money in and then signed into law a huge tax break known. But for International Paper, in par- any of the Whitewater real estate deals for industrial corporations of his state, in- ticular, Clinton wrought two spectacular (aside from the sellers) was Hillary. She cluding the big timber companies. This eas- favors. First, he refused to take any action "bought"—there's no evidence she put any ing of the corporate fiscal burden was offset to stem the flow of raw log exports from the of her own money down—a model home on by a regressive sales tax on the citizenry. Pacific Northwest, where International a lot that promptly sold, netting her thirty Clinton's big offering to the timber Paper holds about a half million acres. Sec- thousand dollars. The linkages between the companies was the Manufacturers' Invest- ond, the generous Habitat Conservation Clintons and the paper companies actually ment Sales and Use Tax Credit, known by Plans tirelessly promoted by Interior Secre- do not end there. When the Whitewater critics as the "IP bailout law" in honor of tary and Clinton's fellow DLC member scandal finally exploded, Attorney General International Paper. Under this program, Bruce Babbitt allowed International Paper Janet Reno hired as special prosecutor state tax breaks were approved for more and Georgia-Pacific to continue to cut trees Robert Fiske of Davis, Polk and Ward- than four hundred million well—the New York law firm dollars in projects by In- that also represented Interna- ternational Paper and three State officials fried to keep tional Paper. other paper mills that then- The timber companies are state Senator Ben Allen of International Paper and two Georgia not the most familiar pillars of Little Rock called "the worst Pacific mills off a toxic waterways the Arkansas power struc- corporate citizens in ture—that, status falls to Arkansas"—all this in a state list, despite evidence they were Tyson, Wal-Mart, and the with one of the lowest per contaminating rivers with dioxin. Stephens family—but they are capita incomes in the nation probably the most potent of the and where twenty-nine per- lot. All told, International cent of the children and half the state's on land occupied by endangered species, Paper, Weyerhaeuser, Georgia-Pacific, and black residents lived in poverty. A few such as the red-cockaded woodpecker. Potlatch control more than two and a half years later, state officials tried to keep In- But the funds that helped to establish the million acres of land in Arkansas and oper- ternational Paper and two Georgia Pacific DLC might not have been IP' s only big ate more than thirty mills. It is scarcely sur- mills off a toxic waterways list, despite ev- favor to Clinton. In the mid-1980s, when prising that it crossed the corporate mind of idence they were contaminating rivers the Whitewater Development Corporation International Paper that a pleasant offering with dioxin. Meanwhile, International was foundering on the verge of bankruptcy, of real estate to the Clintons, via McDou- Paper, while taking repeated advantage of it was International Paper that sold five gal, would not be such a bad idea. ❑ the manufacturers' sales tax credit, was hundred acres to McDougal and Clinton at • .0.11016■116 A L-■ " % %di ■_ ladling out money to candidate Clinton. the generous price of one thousand dollars ` e a It was around this time that Clinton su- an acre. WDC put little money down and 14.1,0 Horse pervised another land deal highly favorable later defaulted on the loan. Finally, when •ofo to the timber giants. In later years, when he the McDougal/Clinton partnership de- • Inn was confronted with the fact that his state faulted on its land purchase from Interna- • ranked forty-eighth in environmental qual- tional Paper in 1987, the timber company IIr KILLIICHCIIC•• ( , INIC I \ I I C , I I C k I r t “ .1 I ity, Clinton would make much of the fact kept the Clintons off the ensuing lawsuit. ;41T that as governor he had acquired thousands Incidentally, the five-hundred-acre parcel, V bc \ idc ///, ( , it /I I/ 11( ■ H ■ , of acres for state-owned forests. He used known as Lowrance Heights, was located ()I) Ilit ■ hiw,' 1\1,111,7 two types of land deals to do so. In one, near the Castle Grande development to \\ IC I/ 1 1)11\ 1),1111C• which Hillary devoted the notorious "miss- Clinton swapped state-owned lands man- Oath 1 111,111( I 111(v)( (III ( buil', tled with valuable trees for corporate ing" sixty hours of billed time on behalf of A \iiii,, \ 1)11 ( 1 parcels that had been recently cut over. In Madison Guaranty. And therein lies yet an- 1111 00, other possible accommodation between the \I I ( )I\ I ) \ I; II I\ \II ti the other type, the state simply acquired at I A,.... inflated prices land that the timber compa- Clintons and the paper companies: accord- l'ets NVelc()Iric /-te nies had recently logged. Nourished by ing to Arkansas press accounts, when the these benefices, the timber companies, Castle Grande deal began to fall apart and 1423 llth Street .1110 threaten Madison's financial health, Mc- • along with Tyson, began to urge Governor .•ii" Port Aransas, TX 78373 'S Clinton—now nearing the end of his third Dougal and Clinton pressured timber exec- cill (5 12) 749-5221 1 term—to consider challenging Dale utive Dean Paul into taking out an eight- r S 1(11. k c.,(7- i -,0 1( )1) ,, „„f Bumpers for the Senate seat he had held hundred-twenty-five-thousand-dollar loan since the early 1970s. The companies had to rescue Castle Grande. Nearly one hun- oraw no love for Bumpers. He had led the charge dred thousand dollars of that "loan" ended to reform forest policies on federal lands, up in Whitewater accounts, and some of it culminating in the passage of the National may also have found its way into Clinton's

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 11 MOLLY IVINS

HOUSE OF FOOLS And of course we haven't even begun to twenty to twenty-four weeks. According Extreme dumbness is becoming the hall- estimate the wear and tear on their fellow Dr. Allen Rosenfeld, dean of the Columbia mark of the House of Representatives. On citizens, who will have their property School of Public Health and a professor of March 20, the House adopted part of Cali- ripped off and otherwise suffer from the obstetrics and gynecology, fewer than 1.5 fornia's infamously stupid Proposition deliberate creation of an under-underclass percent of all abortions take place after 187, by voting to let states deny public ed- with little hope of ever getting a piece of twenty weeks. Dilation and extraction is ucation to illegal immigrant children. the American Dream. rarely performed, since it is used only to Please follow this carefully. California "There is no question that offering free save the life or health of the mother or in has an estimated three hundred fifty-five taxpayer goods to illegals attracts more il- cases of fetal abnormality "incompatible thousand illegal immigrant children in its legals," said Speaker Gingrich. "It is wrong with life," as Rosenfeld put it in the New public schools, and Governor Pete Wilson for us to become the welfare capital of the York Times. That means a fetus with no estimates that this will cost the state be- world." Well, thanks, Mr. Speaker, but ac- brain or with the brain outside the skull. As tween 1.9 billion dollars and two billion cording to an article in the November 1994 the few women who have been through the dollars next year. Ain't that terrible, ain't edition of Reason magazine, illegal immi- procedure testified, the last people they that awful, great gravy, we've got to do grants are not eligible in California for wel- wished to consult with during these terrible something! So California, backed by Newt fare, food stamps, etc. Their estimated use decisions are politicians. Gingrich and the Newtzis, proposes to give of medical services is pretty low—a frac- The House's action is an insult to all them no education, thus saving that excru- tion of one percent of California's fifty- women. Do they think that some of us ciating two billion dollars a year. Excuse seven billion dollar budget. So their only might happen to waddle past an abortion me, but did anyone ever stop to ask how significant cost to the state is education. clinic when six months pregnant, snap our much it will cost to NOT educate these And as we have seen, the cost of not edu- fingers and say, "Oh, darn, I knew there children? cating children is considerably higher than was something I'd been meaning to get Let's see if we can figure it out. Let's put the cost of educating them. around to"? three hundred fifty-five thousand children No one has an abortion at six months un- out on the streets with no education—can't CTILL ON THE STUPIDITY KICK, the less it means her life, or that she will never write their names, can't get a job, can't Ii/House also decided to play doctor last recover her health, or that the child will be even join the Army anymore without a month, outlawing a safe surgical procedure hopelessly deformed and then die. Hoy,' high school diploma. Knowing, as we do, for late-term abortions. Is there a doctor in dare the politicians in the House intrude that Hispanics have a strong family struc- the House? No, just Sonny Bono. into a decision like that? What do they ture and a strong work ethic, we can still The American College of Obstetricians know about the complications of preg- count on the great majority of these illiter- and Gynecologists opposed the bill, be- nancy for those with severe diabetes, or ate citizens to go out and find work mow- cause dilation and extraction is the safest any number of other conditions, that make ing lawns, doing dishes and cleaning out method for abortions performed between such decisions necessary? ❑ septic tanks—when they could have become teachers, physicists or dry cleaners making big bucks and paying lots of taxes. But we must admit that some percentage of them, unable to find any work at all, will JIM HIGHTOWER inevitably turn to crime. Let's say that fifteen percent of this illiterate pool will become criminals; that's KING OF GOOBERS promptly reached over to help himself to a fifty-three thousand two hundred and fifty Time once again to present my "Goober- big, fat, gooey slab of executive cake. more bad guys on the streets. It costs Cali- head-of-the-Month" Award. How fat was it? Allen had been making fornia an estimated forty thousand dollars There is always strong competition for 6.7 million dollars, but as part of his com- (food, guards and capital costs) a year to "The Goober," which is awarded to those pensation for offing the forty thousand keep a convict in prison, so that's 2.13 bil- in the news who walk around wearing ten- AT&T workers below him, he will add an- lion dollars a year. The length of sentences gallon hats on half-pint heads. While politi- other ten million dollars to his personal pay- will vary according to the seriousness of cians are our most-frequent awardees, this check this year—about two hundred fifty the crimes committed, but with three- month's award goes to the top guy at dollars per worker. It's terrific—the more he strikes-and-you're-out (another piece of AT&T, Mr. Robert E. Allen. cuts back on other people, the fatter he gets. extreme dumbness), more and more people This chap punted forty thousand AT&T This is why so many people are learning that will be doing life for minor crimes. Some employees out the door early this year, say- "Boss" spelled backwards is double-S.O.B. of these illiterate criminals will have pro- ing the phone giant had to slim down to Allen is so testy about getting so much crit- duced children before being sent to the compete in the lean and mean world of icism for chopping so many AT&T employ- slammer, so you have to count in welfare global telecommunications. Then he ees while taking so much for himself...that he costs as well. So now we're looking at put out an internal memo claiming that his pay some truly impressive numbers. is "in line with CEOs of comparable compa- Jim Hightower is a former Observer editor nies." What a gooberhead. and Texas Agriculture Commissioner. His It's not how much you make that defines Molly Ivins is a former Observer editor daily radio commentaries are broadcast na- you, but how well you do, not only for and a columnist for the Fort Worth Star- tionwide, as he continues to preach the pop- stockholders, but also for the people who Telegram. ulist gospel. work with you, for the communities you

12 • APRIL 19, 1996 work in and for America. Allen doesn't 227 in the Capitol, occupied by something a sound economy, maybe this outfit speaks score too well on any of this. Indeed, one called "The Thursday Group": Eight advisors, for me." Sure, Bucko, like Colonel Sanders Wall Street analyst points out he isn't that hand-picked by Newt, who literally help write speaks for chickens. These "citizens" are hot of a honcho, saying: "He's an average his legislative agenda, and then provide the Citibank, Chevron, Philip Morris, General performer... not even a face card, he's a lobbying muscle to shove it through the Motors and dozens of other major corpora- _ seven in the deck." House. It meets at least weekly, often daily, tions, including such foreign "citizens" as Don't you think it's time we brought with the Republican leadership team—in- Toyota, Sony, British Petroleum and BMW. back "the stocks" as public punishment— deed, the Thursday Group is a member of the Not only does this select group of very spe- not for those who steal food so they can leadership team, wielding unique, unbeliev- cial interests write anti-consumer, anti-envi- feed their families, but for those profiteers able power over national policy. ronmental, anti-worker laws that put profits like Robert Allen who steal from forty Who are they?—The U.S. Chamber of in their pockets at our expense, but they thousand families to fatten themselves. Commerce, the National Association of also are political fund-raisers for Newt and Wholesalers and the National Restaurant his Republican majority. SCIENCE OF ARROGANCE Association. Oh, and here's one called Newt Gingrich doesn't represent busi- Have you ever been strapped in a dentist's "Citizens for a Sound Economy." ness as usual...he represents Business chair numb with Novocaine, with sharp "Hey," you say, "I'm a citizen and I'm for more than usual. ❑ drills screaming all around you, the dentist elbow deep in your mouth and you thinking, "It can't get any worse than this"...only to hear your dentist suddenly say: "Oops!" Well, buckle up neighbors, because the A CHEMICAL WORLD world's biotech industry, which has been elbow deep in the mouth of Mother Nature, During a recent "Tonight Show," Jay Leno tomatoes showed only a slightly lower risk, has just said "Oops!" These are the people joked that a new study shows that men who and tomato juice was not linked to lower who mess with our natural word's genetic eat ten pizzas a week are less likely to de- risk at all, probably because not much ly- make-up, claiming that they can "improve" velop prostate problems but more likely to copene is absorbed from the juice. Tomato on nature by taking a couple of genes from require size 54 pants. What is the scoop sauce had the strongest association with re- this plant, one from that one, put 'em all in about diet and prostate cancer? ducing prostate cancer risk. this one and—presto change-o—a new The authors of the study even had a plau- bionic wonder plant. Cancer cells are pretty much inevitable in sible explanation why the tomatoes in For example, bio-engineers in Denmark seventy- to eighty-year-old men. In fact, spaghetti or pizza sauce are the way to go. It recently scrambled some new genes into clusters of cancer cells in the prostate have seems that a little bit of oil is needed to re- the plant that makes canola oil so it can ab- been seen in young men in their thirties. lease the lycopenes in tomatoes. Unlike sorb more weed-killers without dying. The In the U.S. and Europe, as compared to tomato juice, spaghetti sauce contains the idea was that fields could be soaked in Asia, these cancer cells can progress to clin- oil needed to release the lycopenes in the weed killers without killing the canola-oil ical cancer. Some studies conducted years tomatoes. On average, lycopene is the high- plant. This is bassackward thinking to start ago suggested that low saturated-fat diets, est of all the carotenoids in the blood and in with—better to engineer plants that are high in carotene, might keep these prostrate prostate tissues, and it may have twice the weed-tolerant, rather than poison-tolerant, cancer cells from growing. Jay Leno, how- antioxidant potency of beta carotene. thereby lessening the amount of poisons ever, was probably referring to a more re- we spray on earth. However, this would of- cent study which focused on the possible IN A PAST ARTICLE, we discussed the fend the chemical companies. cancer-preventing properties of five major dangers associated with olestra, the artifi- But, oops! It turns out this poison-tolerant carotenoids (carotene gives some fruits and cial fat substitute that will be used in a vari- gene did not stay in the genetically-engi- vegetables their orange or green color). ety of foods, including potato chips. One of neered canola-oil plant—it migrated almost Four of the carotenoids were found to have the major concerns regarding the wide- immediately into the weeds in the field. That's no effect. The fifth carotene, lycopene, spread use of this artificial fat substitute is right, now the very weeds they were trying to however, did show some effect. The risk of that it reduces the amount of all types of kill are poison-tolerant, making the whole ex- prostate cancer was one-third lower in men carotene in the blood. The authors of the ercise moot... not to mention stupid. in the forty- to seventy-five-year-old age tomato study cautioned that if someone is The Denmark case is a giant warning sig- group who ate tomato-based products more eating tomatoes and consuming olestra nal for us. Bio-engineering companies have than ten times a week, than in men who ate potato chips, lycopene may not be absorbed. arrogantly dismissed public concern about tomato-based products less than twice a So Jay Leno was right on. We fatties now what they are doing, claiming that their lit- week. Even those who ate tomato sauce have an excellent excuse to gorge ourselves tle laboratory creations could not possibly once a week had a twenty-three percent on pizza and spaghetti, while skinny char- escape in the fields and screw up our ecol- lower risk of developing prostrate cancer acters, drinking tomato juice and eating raw ogy. But there they are, loose in Denmark. than those who never ate tomato sauce. Raw carrots and the soon-to-be-available fat-free Dentists usually can fix their mistakes, but potato chips, are in big trouble. a bio-engineering "oops" can echo forever. In our outreach program Web site home- Marvin S. Legator is a professor and di- page, you will find our past columns, in- C NEWT'S BACKROOM BOYS rector of the Division of Environmental cluding the spirited attack on New York Remember when Newt Gingrich took Toxicology at the University of Texas Med- Bagels. Hopefully you will also find "food charge last year—Rootie Toot, Here Came ical Branch at Galveston. Amanda M. for thought" on a variety of serious issues the Newt—promising to make Washington Howells-Daniel is with the Toxics Assis- dealing with survival in a chemical world. change its corrupt ways and stop its back- tance Program at the University of Texas Our Internet address is: http://www.- room dealings. Where did that guy go? Medical Branch. The views expressed in utmb.edu/toxics. Into the backrooms, that's where. One par- this column do not necessarily reflect those —Marvin S. Legator and ticular backroom favored by Newt is number of UTMB Galveston. Amanda M. Howells-Daniel

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 13

rotect• A rica's ment r Families, . .. ur Future.

Proposals advanced by polluting and nature. Let your leaders know how Texans have a right to a safe and healthy industries are putting our health important clean air, safe drinking water and environment. and heritage at risk.. an enduring natural heritage are to you. Mail Dirty air and dirty water. Polluters are trying to weaken the laws these two coupons today. that protect our health, safety, and natural It's enough to make you sick. Call for more information or to find resources. If they are successful our commu- Over 3 million children and elderly per- out how you can help with this special nities would lose the ability to protect their sons get sick from breathing Texas' dirty air. public education project of the Sierra Club: citizens. Many become ill from drinking Texas tap 1-800-795-0438. water, often contaminated with potentially Conserve and protect • deadly bacteria and known carcinogens. Texas for our children. Birth defects, cancer and damage to Future generations have the right to fish in the brain, nervous and respiratory clean streams, and enjoy bountiful wildlife systems have all been linked to air and water pollution.

r =NM I■1 'NNW =IR MEIN 1 r - INN NMI III= NEM ■I ENE III•11 Dear President Clinton: Dear Governor Bush,

We're counting on you to protect America's environment — for our families A Clean air to breathe and healthy water to drink are important to me and for our future. Please direct all federal officials to implement the following principles: and my family. Please fight all attempts to weaken laws or cut funding to agen- I. PROTECT OUR FAMILIES FROM POLLUTION. Our families deserve clean water, clean air, and healthy food and neighborhoods that are safe cies that protect our health, and safety. from toxic chemicals. Protect Texans from those who put our health and natural heritage at risk for their own gain, requiring us to pay to clean up after H. PROTECT OUR HERITAGE. Defend our national parks, wilderness areas, forests, wetlands, and wildlife from those who want to sacrifice our them. heritage for short-term profit. Don't let anyone take away the ability of local communities to protect their citizens. III. GET THE POLLUTERS' BIG MONEY OUT OF POLITICS. Stop the big corporate campaign contributors from buying special deals that endan- Conserve and protect our wildlife and natural resources for all ger our health and our environment. End taxpayer funding of logging, min- Texans, for our families, for our future. ing and other activities that damage the environment.

Name: Please send to: Name: Please send to: President Bill Clinton The Honorable Address: The White House Address: George W. Bush 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW c/o Sierra Club City/State/Zip: Washington, DC 20500 PO BOX 1931 City/State/Zip: Austin TX 78767-1931 L L This ad is part of a special education project of the Sierra Club. As Earth Day approaches, thousands of volunteers from the Sierra Club and other environmental groups will be joining in a public information campaign to let our citizens know the importance of protecting our natural heritage and keeping our environment clean and safe.

14 • APRIL 19, 1996 BOOKS & THE CULTURE

Polarized (after reading Ruth Stone) I started out on Furnace Hill, Where the town ground its trash together Into one lump, left to smolder Or to rot. But not to be. We lived Through the Sieve of a Storm In shacks with back porches perched' When it sleets on Dismal Creek, the snow On stilts and tilted toward the dump Pours on Brown Ridge, and it's then I go Like compasses. Polarized. True-fixed qualities. To sift myself, like mill-ground powdered My daddy's pride died with his daughter Flour, through the sieve of a storm. Shaking Who ought to've had a doctor. How? Rids me of middlings. Separates Back bowed, he buried her in a box What it takes for the breadth of my life. Sticks He made—in a grave he dug. And prayed. To my ribs in complacent times. Abides. My whole life has been spent running The truck shuttles in high gear up The rutted road that circles the hill. Dismal, and behind, rear treads unwind 'Round and around. Still, I've found no As threads from a spool. Entwine in slush. Way out. I'm bound to stick to it Evanesce. Prove my life tells nothing. Because, no doubt, it sticks to me. Half-way up Brown, it's four-wheel drive And revelation. Glancing back, now I see tracks I've made down the mountain. Vexed with Living From exactly where I am, I crunch Vexed with living, she fretted Up this packed, plummeting ground. Listen From head to foot. Spectrumed For taciturn Appalachian sounds. Herself from cerebral blues Inch by lonely inch, I plow snow To terrestrial reds. Detecting To escape the crowd below and to know Her intellect grounded My own way on unbroken roads. Into house circuits, she found, —June White The next time she stepped Her feet on measured floors She swept, her mind rocketing Through the roof. Climbing. Cometing The universe. Connecting.

UNE WHITE LIVES and teaches high school English in the A recent series of poems, including "Vexed with Living," T coal fields of southwestern Virginia—an area where the explores a woman's discovery of freedom from traditionally Appalachian culture still exists. She describes it as "waning, but prescribed roles. Her poems employ a great interior music, a rich still here." Also she comments that "most of the Anglos who died sense of the texture of language, assonance and resonance. They at the Alamo were Appalachians." are a pleasure to "hear" internally, as well as to read. —Naomi Shihab Nye

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 15 Battling Hormone Havoc A Call to Arms Against Toxins in the Global Commons

BY NEIL J. CARMAN OUR STOLEN FUTURE. these synthetic chemicals, constantly re- dioxin-like chemicals, as briefly summa- By Theo Colburn, Dianne Dumanoski, leased into the environment by conven- rized: cancers, male and female reproduc- and John Peterson Myers. tional industrial processes and careless use tive toxicity, effects on fetal development, Dutton, 1996. of chemicals. This toxic chemical soup ac- skin disorders, metabolic and hormonal 306 pages. $24.95. cumulates and persists in our water, air, changes, nervous system damage, liver soil, wildlife, food, and bodies, where the damage, immune system damage, lung ail- DYING FROM DIOXIN. biological hormone systems can be tricked ments, heart damage, and gastrointestinal By Lois Marie Gibbs and the Citizens into self-destructive consequences. problems. Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste. Colborn notes that the discovery of man- South End Press, 1995. HESE THREE BOOKS, each of made chemicals mimicking hormones is 361 pages. $20.00 (paper). which is based upon a compelling not really a new one. In 1962, Rachel Car- T"weight-of-evidence," emerge from son's Silent Spring warned of an unprece- THE MAKING OF A CONSERVATIVE the divergent angles of scientists, politi- dented threat from potent man-made chem- ENVIRONMENTALIST. cians and citizens; yet each concludes that icals, such as the "miracle" pesticides like by Gordon K. Durnil. our global future is in peril from the hor- DDT. But Carson only hinted at the theory Indiana University Press, 1995. mone havoc of dioxin and dioxin-like sub- of synthetic pesticides somehow interfer- 200 pages. $19.95. stances. Lois Gibbs' Dying From Dioxin is ing with hormone levels, and possibly lead- revolutionary, in its grassroots style and ing to cancers due to "abnormally high es- ORMONE HAVOC. What in the practical suggestions, like the launching of trogen levels." Medical research has since heck is hormone havoc? a "Stop Dioxin Exposure Campaign." Gor- proven her correct, reinforced by the tell- H In recent years, biological scien- don Durnil's The Making of a Conservative tale findings of DDT, DDE, PCBs and re- tists have determined that certain synthetic Environmentalist is an enlightened politi- lated toxins in breast tumors. Carson fo- chemicals can mimic the actions of human cal statement, rare in these times, on the cused on the premature endpoint of cancer* and natural hormones, and researchers now compatibility of conservative and environ- and did not explore clues about non-can- express serious concerns about the hazards mental values. The most recent book, the cerous health effects, including reproduc- of these modern chemicals, which appear grimly titled Our Stolen Future is in effect tion impaired by hormone disruption after to be impairing sensitive biological hor- a sequel to Rachel Carson's environmental DDT exposure. DDT residues have lin- mone systems throughout the global com- classic, Silent Spring. Environmental sci- gered for years after use ended in the mons. What's at stake? Fetal and infant de- entists Theo Colburn and John Myers and U.S.—a major reason why persistent velopment. Fertility and reproductive award-winning environmental writer Di- chemicals pose a special global hazard un- health. Immune response to microbes like anne Dumanoski have gathered the evi- recognized by industry for decades. the HIV virus. Endocrine gland functions. dence of the damage wreaked by synthetic Corporate accountability for persistent Intelligence and behavior. Family happi- chemicals: fifty percent worldwide decline organic pollutants ("POPs") is still grossly ness and social stability. Biodiversity. That in sperm counts, rising numbers of birth lacking. A whole new round of warning is to say, virtually everything we value in defects, and an alarming montage of simi- signs has since confirmed that dozens of life. lar evidence, developing over four decades. novel synthetic substances, like dioxin and As a result of these scientific findings, a Our Stolen Future reads like a real-life sci- PCBs, act as powerful hormone impos- global call to anns has begun resonating in fi thriller, tracing how quickly dioxin may tors—disrupting the innate hormones in the public consciousness, in response to the be speeding us toward the edge of an eco- humans and wildlife, and occurring on a conviction that some type of toxic pollution logical Armageddon. global scale previously unimaginable. is breaking down the fragile threads of life Gibbs provides a basic definition of Omens of hormone havoc are found every- on earth. The chief suspects are "hormone dioxin: "Dioxin is the common name for a where. Human beings, whales, dolphins, mimickers," like dioxin, PCBs, and the family of chemicals with similar properties polar bears, panthers, seals, otters, bald ea- original nemesis, DDT. These toxins are es- and toxicity. Seventy-five different forms gles, gulls, fish, frogs, alligators, and un- pecially dangerous in themselves, and also of dioxin exist, the most toxic being told other species show both obvious and because they are extremely stable chemi- 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, or subtle symptoms of toxic chemical over- cals; once present in nature, they do not TCDD." Dioxins are accidental byproducts load. The potential human impacts alone break down for decades, thereby represent- of industrial processes that use chlorine, or are staggering: millions with cancer, en- ing potential harm to future generations. As processes that burn chlorine with organic dometriosis, immune system breakdown— a consequence, earth's fragile life-support matter. TCDD is more toxic than such perhaps even contributing to the auto-im- systems are being bathed in thousands of well-known poisons as PCBs, DDT, or mune disruption that allows the mercury, and now occurs ubiquitously in development of AIDS. The new evidence Neil J. Carman is a former Air Quality our polluted world. Gibbs highlights the re-echoes Carson's clarion call: that a del- Regional Field Investigator for the Texas U.S. sources of dioxin with informative uge of synthetic chemicals may be opening Air Control Board, and the Clean Air maps, tables and figure. The most disturb- up a global Pandora's box of disharmony, Director of the Lone Star Chapter of the ing is table 9-2, listing the fifty-two known disintegration, disease, death and species Sierra Club in Austin. health effects associated with dioxin and destruction.

16 • APRIL 19, 1996 CCORDING TO COLBORN'S re- Colburn concludes with a laundry list of how corporations influence government view of several thousand biological helpful suggestions for at least reducing actions and how this collusion affects the njury studies, wildlife experts chemical exposure: drink clean or filtered public." To take just a single example, the have been puzzled by the deadly omens in water; raise or buy organically grown Vietnam-era herbicide, Agent Orange, was nature for about four decades. In 1987, the foods to avoid pesticides; heed warnings of known to be contaminated with dioxin, and World Wildlife Fund had hired her as a sci- fish and meat contamination; minimize yet that vital information was either dis- wentific sleuth, to investigate the strangely consumption of animal fat; know your cu- missed or literally covered up for years. disparate warning signs in animal popula- mulative exposure; shift the burden of Few toxic chemical coverup campaigns tions in the Great Lakes. Beginning in the proof to chemical manufacturers; set stan- have been more intense than that provided early 1950s, suspicious abnormalities dards to protect children and the unborn; for dioxin; as recently as 1995, the New began to occur in animal populations in amend trade secrets laws; require compa- York Times' Keith Schneider attempted to widely separated parts of the world, includ- nies selling any products (especially food) debunk dioxin's toxicity. Yet in a court ing the Great Lakes, Europe, California, to monitor for contamination; reform the document dating from 1979, the Environ- Florida and elsewhere. Biologists began to EPA's Toxic Release Inventory; and many mental Protection Agency admitted that publish disturbing reports of populations in others, "dioxin [TCDD] is the most acutely toxic the wild with grotesque deformities, defec- Lois Gibbs of CCHW brainstormed with substance yet synthesized by man," con- tive sex organs, impaired fertility, bizarre grassroots activists and scientists in April firmed to cause cancer in lab animals at a behaviors, clusters of inexplicable ill- of 1995, compiling their own empowering level of only five parts per trillion. nesses, the loss of young, even the sudden account of getting out of harm's way. Her Gibbs' masterful book is efficiently or- death of entire animal populations. By the grassroots primer, Dying from Dioxin, is a ganized into small sections, and far better early 1990s, scientists finally illustrated than Colburn's began putting together the or Durnil' s, with many fig- pieces of this complex global ures, tables, appendices puzzle. Their simple but ele- and sources. For example, gant theory is that synthetic an introductory chronol- chemicals like dioxin, PCBs, ogy, "The History of DDT and dozens more are Dioxin Exposure" is a con- disrupting the delicate hor- cise overview of 1949- mone symphony within 1995; chapter seventeen, human beings and wildlife. "What To Expect From In- In July 1991, at the dustry," covers six myths ,Wingspread retreat in promoted by the chemical • Racine, Wisconsin, Colburn industry and their public and Myers gathered twenty- relations spinoff, the Chlo- one scientists from fifteen rine Chemistry Council, disciplines, hoping to pool through which they are their specialized knowledge spreading millions of dol- on hormone disruption. lars to convince the public Their conclusion was the that dioxin is not a serious Wingspread Consensus problem. Statement, "Chemically-In- From Toxic Sludge is Good for You One hallowed myth is duced Alterations in Sexual "We'd like to stop making Development: The Wildlife/Human Con- handbook for prescribing citizen action dioxin, but it's just too expensive." Gibbs nection," describing the prevalence and both to rebuild our democracy and recover notes that to calculate this "expense," alarming biological effects of endocrine- our health, as well as a systematic inquiry dioxin's defenders inevitably overestimate disrupting chemicals in the environment. into the biology, chemistry, ecology and the actual costs of conversion, and simply Colburn conveniently illustrates the as- politics of dioxin. Citizens fighting pollu- ignore the real costs to the whole commu- tronomical powers of bio-magnification of tion and confronting the public relations nity of continuing dioxin exposure. Her PCBs, a close kin of dioxin. As they move tactics of corporate dioxin spin-doctors useful appendices include a "Sample up the food chain, PCBs can increase in will benefit from this easy-to-read guide. Dioxin Resolution" (borrowed from the concentration twenty-five million times The politics of dioxin reaches into the ex- Midway, Texas PTA) and the "Principles above the lowest level, moving from water, ecutive suites of corporations like Mon- of Environmental Justice," adopted in 1991 to plankton, to small fish, to large fish, to santo and Dow Chemical, and the highest by the First National People of Color Envi- birds or other predators. Polar bears, for ex- echelons of government. In her introduc- ronmental Leadership Summit. Gibbs of- ample, can accumulate PCBs to a level tion, Gibbs summarizes bluntly: "The fers a useful recipe of organizing tools to three billion times their initial occurrence dioxin story is the story of how science has help communities confront the toxic legacy in the food chain! Such bio-accumulation failed to provide us with answers, how cor- of our industrial age, and gives the average is a law of nature, making incredibly tiny porations control policymaking and deci- citizen precise models for taking action amounts of highly potent, persistent chem- sions in our society, and how government against incinerators and other sources, for icals devastating to larger creatures (like is silenced. The dioxin story includes which government policymakers and regu- people), since we (especially newborns) coverups, lies, and deception; data manipu- lators have failed in their duty to communi- are exposed to the highest concentrations lation by corporations and government as ties. in the food chain. Trace levels of chemicals well as fraudulent claims and faked studies. can accrue in dangerous concentrations, For the public, it's a story of pain, suffer- T FIRST GLANCE, a partnership and toxicology has barely scratched the ing, anger, betrayal, and rage; of birth de- of conservative Republicans and surface of the dangers posed by this toxic fects, cancer, and many other health prob- environmentalism looks doomed to soup. lems. It's a story of money and power; of be much shorter-lived than persistent

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 17 chemicals. But consider the environmental problems, of which an obvious contempo- elusion that, as these books amply docu- odyssey of prominent Indiana Republican rary one is environmental pollution. ment, has been apparent to concerned sci- Gordon Durnil, a close friend of fellow Durnil, not surprisingly, arrived at the entists and environmental activists for a Hoosier and former Vice President Dan commission with no green credentials or very long time. Quayle (remarkably, both Quayle and interests. But from 1989 to 1994, he lis- Durnil's conservative judgment is un- Greenpeace have praised Durnil's book). tened, probed, learned, and pondered the compromising. He writes, "When a child - Attorney Durnil served as a National Re- apparent Great Lakes hormone contamina- molester molests again, we ask 'Why was publican Committee member, and as Indi- tion and chaos, and used his legal training he out on the street? Why didn't people ana Republican State Chairman (1981-89), to judge the prevailing weight of the evi- keep him away from our kids?' But when and says he has been deeply rooted in con- dence. In his book, he shares an excep- executives of some large conglomerate vi- servative philosophy for four decades. Yet tional personal journey from darkness to olate the laws by discharging some noxious Durnil has created a one-of-a-kind book light, demonstrating that even the most substance into the water, or air, or onto the that every Republican, Democrat, and en- skeptical but honest "conservatives" (re- ground, we pay little attention. We don't vironmentalist should read, in he which calling the long-neglected root meaning of ask why he wasn't kept away from chemi- demonstrates that his assumed title of the term) may be changed into environ- cals. We don't ask why he wasn't required "Conservative Environmentalist" is not mentally-sensitive, earth-caring persons. to keep those unmanageable substances necessarily an oxymoron. In 1992, following Durnil's personal away from our kids. Science tells us of bad Durnil's reflections conjure deep politi- transformation and the commission's effects that certain kinds of discharges can cal paradoxes, as they describe in detail his painstaking research, the previously ob- have on our children, born and unborn, but Greenpeace-like- transformation from scure IJC boiled into international contro- we don't seem to see the analogy between a good-old-boy Republican into conserva- versy—especially among chemical indus- perverted individual sexually molesting a tive environmentalist, during a time when try representatives—after its simple and child and an industrial discharge affecting the rest of Newt's party was taking turns rational conclusion that toxic chemicals, the basic sexuality of a child. I wonder trashing Mother Nature and the EPA. In including the ubiquitous, dioxin-generating why." 1989, President George Bush appointed chlorine, are endangering the environment, (Editor's note: The Texas Greenpeace Durnil to the U.S. Chairmanship of the In- us, and our future, and should be subject to office is asking individuals to help stock ternational Joint Commission, a U.S.-Ca- a planned phaseout. Largely because of in- public and university libraries with copies nadian effort overseeing environmental dustry opposition, the commission's rec- of Our Stolen Future and Dying from quality in the Great Lakes. The IJC had ommendations have not yet been enacted; Dioxin. Readers can send copies or dona- been established in 1909 by Canada and the yet they represent only the most re- tions to Greenpeace, 1403 Rio Grande, U.S. Congress to address transboundary spectable, governmental version of a con- Austin, 7X 78701.) ❑

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18 • APRIL 19, 1996 In Search of Deep Pockets *Trying to Save the Environment on the Installment Plan

BY AYELET NINES SAVING THE BEST OF TEXAS: tographs, Bartlett's appeals to the "conser- ronmental affairs could be much greater. A Partnership Approach to Conservation. vation ethic" should succeed well, espe- But to dismiss public efforts to dictate By Richard C. Bartlett, with cially with Lone Star readers. where these governmental groups spend photographs by Leroy Williamson. But his insistence upon buying our way what is in fact public money, and to neglect University of Texas Press. 1995. out of the environmental crisis is another the possibility of public interest groups 221 pages, $19.95 (paper). matter altogether. Bartlett consistently lauds raising both funds and political pressure to private landowner initiatives, including reinforce their voices, is simply selling ICHARD BARTLETT S Saving the massive expenditures by major industrial common folks short. Best of Texas is a somewhat snooty companies and private conservation groups, Bartlett fails to address another critical Rcombination of good intentions, such as Ducks Unlimited and the Audubon issue: the glaring contradiction inherent crippling caution, and inarguable pragma- Society. But he dismisses any progress within the Nature Conservancy's approach tism. Bartlett begins by weaving an accu- made by less officially respectable groups, to land acquisition. The Texas organiza- rate tale of environmental woe, describing like those he refers to as "Earth First mon- tion, as a subsidiary of the national Nature the distressed situation of the Texas wilder- key wrenchers" and "Greenpeace guerril- Conservancy, acquires some land through ness and the general ineffectiveness of the las." He seems unwilling to acknowledge donation, but primarily raises funds to pur- governmental agencies in place presum- any conservation gains at the grass-roots chase the tracts it hopes to protect. In re- ably to protect it. Bartlett's own response level, and a reader will be hard-pressed to cent years, while the Conservancy's loyal to the crisis is that of the or- troops have been scrounging for ganization of which he is capital to acquire relatively small chairman—The Texas Na- In Bartlett's vision of corporate private tracts, the federal govern- ture Conservancy. This ment has been holding bargain- group, a right-of-center con- Pollyanna-ism, the primary des- basement extravaganzas, unloading Opervation organization, ad- poilers of the common environment huge areas of public lands to pri- dresses the need for protect- vate commercial interests which ing the Texas environment are now to be entrusted with the have little or no interest in "preser- essentially by directly ac- task of cleaning up a mess for vation." Bartlett doesn't seem to quiring parcels of the endan- have noticed. gered environment. The which they are largely responsible. In his defense, Bartlett does sup- TNC identifies wilderness in port what he calls "win-win" legisla- trouble or species at risk, waits for desired find any encouragement to use his or her tion, so that it would no longer be a property to come up for sale, buys it with voice in the name of public interest. landowner's liability to own -property which donated money as well as revenue from its Certainly it is true that those in the hunt- provides habitat for endangered species. In- own land sales to governmental organiza- ing and fishing industries have paid for stead, landowners would be offered compen- tions, and then manages that land. The their considerable access to the U.S. Fish sation (presumably out of public funds) for TNC and Bartlett (who describes himself and Wildlife Service and the Texas Parks their responsible stewardship of those as a sportsman, hunter, bird watcher, con- and Wildlife Department, through the pur- species. Bartlett recognizes that, as a society, servationist and landowner), advocate chase of permits and licenses. But a major we need to learn to respond not only to envi- "partnerships" between landowners, gov- gap in Bartlett's analysis of how the Texas ronmental emergencies, but to slow, long- ernment agencies, and the private sector as wilderness can be preserved is his neglect term degradation of the earth, and he clearly the only way to resolve conservation prob- of the role of wider, less amply funded advocates that each person conserve more lems within Texas. public influence. For Bartlett, "The real and consume less. Bartlett does an excellent job of describ- heroes saving the best of Texas are private Though his argument in favor of biodi- ing the beauty of Texas and the intrinsic and corporate landowners with a conserva- versity and preservation is sound, his ap- worth of our environment, usually without tion ethic," citing for example those ster- preciation of the Texas wilderness con- assigning a value according to how much ling representatives of the public and envi- vincing, and his noble good-ol'-boy heart money there is to be made off the land. His ronmental trust, Dow Chemical, Mobil and occasionally persuasive, Bartlett doesn't description of the wilderness is compre- Conoco. In Bartlett's vision of corporate realize that the environmental revolution hensive and poignant, depicting Texas pollyanna-ism, the primary despoilers of will be won by all kinds of people—not deserts, wetlands, coasts, forests, and the common environment are now to be en- just by wealthy landowners—and that • plains, and making an excellent case for trusted with the task of cleaning up a mess every faction of activists meets the needs preserving biodiversity. Accompanied by for which they are largely responsible. of its members, involving people of all in- Leroy Williamson's magnificent pho- Despite Bartlett's corporate perspective, terests and economic status. Bartlett's ex- how government agencies spend their clusive extolling of wealthy privatism is fi- money is not immune to public input. It nally alienating. It will take people from all With this article, Ayelet Hines leaves her may be true that if the public could raise walks of life—a real public effort—to save internship with the Observer for the joys of the kind of capital that sportsmen's groups the best of Texas. ❑ the open road. have done, then the public voice in envi-

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 19 Shall We Overcome? 10 BY STEVEN G. KELLMAN

A FAMILY THING. Lions about ancestry. It reveals that Earl is veteran, street-smart Chicago cop with his Directed by Richard Pearce. not really her son but rather the progeny of half-white half-brother from down home. rape, committed by her husband, Earl, Sr., Though wary and resentful, each recog- N MARCH 22, 1996, one week be- against an adolescent black woman. The nizes that the other completes his fate. En- fore A Family Thing opened nation- redneck younger Earl must now adjust to gaging performances redeem the protago- Oally, Whitney Elaine Johnson, age the fact that black is also mixed into his nists from being simply illustrations for a nineteen hours, was buried in Thomasville, homily on brotherhood. Paired with and pit- Georgia. The baby was born to a white whatnape—that he calls staring "a white at nigger."him from He the abruptly mirror is ted against Duvall, Jones is a more vibrant mother and a black father, and her inter- packs his bags and, without explanation to ofpresence Alan Paton' than hes was in last year's version ment outraged members of the all-white his pallid wife, sets off to Chicago in his where, playing oppositeCry the Richard Beloved Harris, Country, he Barnetts Creek Baptist Church, which oper- pickup truck in quest of family and of se- ates the cemetery. Until dissuaded by em- crets to his own identity. "Find your portrayed a poor black father who finds fel- barrassing publicity, they were planning to brother and know him as your family," lowship with a rich white father after their exhume the errant infant corpse. Deacon wrote the white woman who for sixty-three sons each die unnatural deaths. Logan Lewis explained to the Atlanta Jour- Ray's adult son Virgil (Michael Beach), nal-Constitution: "There's not any mixing years had posed as Earl's mother. A a bus driver who might have become a of cemeteries anywhere in this area." Chicago(James Earl policeman, Jones) is RaymondEarl's half-brother, Murdock football star but for a serious injury, ini- From cradle to grave, mixing of races the older son of Willa Mae Lambert, who tially resents the Arkansas traveler for anywhere in the South has never been usurping his sofa while recuperating a simple matter. Miscegenation is the from his beating. Though Ray offers dreadful family secret that quickens Earl a place to put his head, tem- the fictions of Kate Chopin and Engaging performances porarily, he is loath to reveal their William Faulkner and the drama of redeem the protagonists from kinship to other members of the South African playwright Athol Fu- household. However, nothing es- gard. It is the felony for which newly- being simply illusihrations for capes the notice of eighty-year-oldik weds faced imprisonment in 1960 in a homily on brotherhood. Aunt T. (Irma P. Hall); though blind, Central Point, Virginia (a case drama- she is quick to deduce that Ray's tized by Mr. and Mrs. Loving, a movie strange guest is her nephew. "I'm not recently broadcast by Showtime, written died giving birth to Earl. an old fool," she tells Ray, who is. "I don't and directed by Richard Friedenberg and Much of A Family Thing follows the for- have the blessing of being able to separate starring Timothy Hutton and Lela Rochon). mula of Black Like Me, John Howard Grif- people by looking at them," snarls canny Dread of miscegenation also provides fin's nonfictional account of how, after alter- Aunt T., mouthing the liberal values that the premise to .A Family Thing's original ing the tint of his skin, he was able to undergird this benevolent film. Present at screenplay, contrived by Billy Bob Thorn- experience what life for a black man is actu- the birth of Earl, which is reviewed in a ton and Tom Epperson to illustrate how ally like. In Tootsie and Mrs. Doubfire, men sepia flashback, Aunt T. provides the impe- much race still shapes a Southerner's sense dress as women and learn a lesson in empa- tus behind the brothers' reconciliation and of self. Filmed in Tennessee as well as thy for the Other, as did Gregory Peck when, their decision to journey together to the for- Chicago, the film establishes a regional in Gentleman's Agreement, he pretended to saken graveyard where the mother who identity with its opening image: the statue be Jewish. For Earl, it is not a matter of pre- bore them both lies buried. of a Confederate soldier. Earl Pilcher, Jr. tending to be black but of trying, within a A Family Thing is an endearing work be- (Robert Duvall) and his ancient daddy run society still tainted by racism, to accept and cause of its utopianism. It is sanguine about a tractor shop in a languid Arkansas town, understand his hybrid bloodline. the prospects for mixing not spilling blood. and one of the first things we discover Director Richard Pearce (also responsi- Unlike recent fables of violent urban de- about them is their partiality to Dixie. ble for Country and for The Long Walk spair, it imagines a society in which ethnic When they learn that an assertive customer Home, an earnest account of Southern inte- animosities are not intractable. By the end is from Wisconsin, they berate him as a gration) schemes to convey Earl through a of the film, the Murdock family, at least, Yankee. Earl even locks the outlander in kind of African-American odyssey, from has learned to embrace their wan-corn- the store before rushing home for a family South to North and through the mean streets plected kinsman, and Earl himself is more emergency: the final breaths of the Pilcher of black Chicago, the twentieth-century or less at peace with being black in Amer- matriarch. "You take care of your family, haven for desperate and hopeful folk fleeing ica. However, the story ends with Earl and Earl," insists his eighty-five-year-old rural Jim Crow. Earl spends time in all- Ray on their way back to Arkansas. If the mother, minutes before she dies. black bars and even sleeps in the streets. Pilcher family could guess who's coming, Of course. the man values family, but a These adventures of a born-again mulatto to dinner with Earl, it is unlikely that they letter from the deceased intended for Earl appear contrived, not least when a carload would be thrilled at the prospect of adopt- to read after her death upsets his assump- of urban home boys taunts the alien cracker, ing a black cop from Chicago. Instead of beats him up, and drives off with his driving Miss Daisy, Earl is transporting a pickup. But the consequence—that reluc- black half-brother, along with the shameful Steven G. Kellman is the Ashbel Smith Pro- tant Ray feels obliged to retrieve Earl from secret of his own conception. A Family fessor of Comparative Literature at the the hospital—creates the film's most com- Thing comes to a halt just as the Thing be- University of Texas at San Antonio. pelling moments, the interactions between a gins to be monstrous. ❑ 20 • APRIL 19, 1996 Lilies of the Field some Environmental Solutions May be Living in Our Own Backyard BY TED HUGHES THE USEFUL WILD PLANTS about land use and the health of the envi- that "the trees and the flowers and the OF TEXAS, the Southeastern and South- ronment. A healthier, more diverse envi- grasses, the vines and the bushes and even western United States, the Southern ronment is our best hope for reducing our the weeds in your lawn... [are] what we'll Plains, and Northern Mexico. growing dependence on a shrinking reserve use in the future as renewable sources of By Scooter Cheatham and Marshall C. of non-renewable resources. Useful Wild oil, fuel, food, pharmaceuticals, and Johnston, with Lynn Marshall. Plants is also the opening oration in a more....They are our vital link to life and Useful Wild Plants, Inc., Austin, 1995. twelve-volume plea for bio-diversity. they are our most important resource for 592 pages. $125.00. In Texas, ques- our future.” Cheatham further cautions in tions about bio- his introduction, "If threatened species in WENTY YEARS AGO, Scooter distant and exotic lands command atten- Cheatham decided to write a book. ,,,,,,,%.,, tion, how much more ought those that T Finally, with the publication of the s'.7..*P11.., grow nearby? No one yet knows the ulti- first volume of what will eventually be a :: ..*:::;. ,:;‘?,,- mate benefits to be derived from this re- twelve-volume encyclopedia, The Useful "3,-4 .,,,::.,rL- ..A,': gion's native wild plants....Only by un- Wild Plants of Texas, the Southeastern ''1:t::: - . --.::. :4-.`. locking the secrets of the plant kingdom and Southwestern United States, the °:*". :., .1.3'-, can we claim our full botanic Southern Plains, and Northern Mexico,;,.- C---Sc-c • \\V birthright." Cheatham and his collaborators Marshall, ,...... • /„k) Cheatham estimates that the C. Johnston and Lynn Marshall fill vast typical American diet is depen- gaps in what is known about this place ' dent on no more than thirty plants, we call Texas. nearly all of which were brought America is entering a new here by our European ancestors. He eeriod in its natural history: .. says we're dangerously close to attention is shifting away \*. blowing any chance we might have of from Big Ecology, and set- \ decreasing that dependency. Useful Wild tling upon our own backyards. 1 Plants documents some three thousand In Texas, where some ninety- under-appreciated plant species, most seven percent of the land is in of them persistently ignored despite private hands, a more local \ their ample nutritional and myriad focus is certain to intensify - :• . other benefits. It is ironic that even the long-standing debates about weeds that plague those thirty im- property rights and the public ported crops are imports and that interest. Knowing just how vast corn, which can be traced back to a • and diverse our natural resources native plant (Zea mays), has be- are, and the natural historical record come what another writer, Paul of the land, will aid the debate immea- Gruchow, calls "the white man's surably. Texas plant hunters Cheatham buffalo." Virtually every product and Marshall have produced a seminal we use and every food we eat is ei- work toward that end. ther processed with or packaged in a Useful Wild Plants is a magnum opus corn-derivative. Gruchow says we have that includes detailed plant descriptions, not begun to imagine a life without corn: photographs, range maps, and historical "We have assumed, by the default of failing and anecdotal notations about the medici- diversity can to think about it, that corn is eternal. But it nal, nutritional, recreational and potential drive the environ- is not any more eternal than the buffalo. In industrial and agricultural uses of virtually mental debate back fact, because the corn we cultivate shares a every wild plant found in an area that cov- to the local level. There is no issue more common cytoplasm, it would take exactly ers hundreds of thousands of square miles. local than land use, and there is no topic one persistent pathogen to devastate our It might also be the biggest self-publishing more fundamental to the health of the land culture as we know it." (Grass Roots: The project in Texas history. than the health of the soil itself. Arguments Universe of Home, Paul Gruchow, Milk- Finding new uses for wild plants is for restoration of prairie lands, regenera- weed Editions, Minneapolis, 1995.) something few of us spend much time tion of native plants in landscaping and thinking about, but even a cursory explo- farming, conservation of native habitats for SEFUL WILD PLANTS organizes ration of the topic reveals that wild plants wildlife, responsible use of parks, and information about traditional uses are an important link to broader concerns wilderness tourism, are all rapidly converg- Uof the plants and lays down a foun- ing in Texas—along with the more long- dation that suggests future uses as well. standing and urgent battles over water. Cheatham provides what he calls an "infor- Ted Hughes is a freelance writer based in Useful Wild Plants joins in that debate, mation platform" for further research that Austin. suggesting, as the authors/publishers put it, might help us answer questions about what

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 21 we should appropriately expect nature to do for us—and in turn, what good we might do for nature. A reader can not open this first volume (it doesn't even get through the AFTERWORD A's) without being intrigued by the questions that have kept Cheatham, et al., going for the twenty-plus years they've devoted to their project. Stalking the Wild Sotol It is fitting that Cheatham stumbled onto his project in an anthropology course he was taking while completing a degree in ar- BY ROBERT BRYCE chitecture; it was our urbanized population HE BLAZING HEAT tried to fry us. days later, tired and covered with mosquito that (only fairly recently) cut itself off from A torrential rain tried to drown us, bites, they emerged from the wilderness. useful wild plants. Our ancestors relied on Tfollowed by a flash flood that tried to On that trip, he says, "I learned a lot about common plants for home remedies, season- sweep us into the Rio Grande. A rat- how much I didn't know." In the years ings, vitamin supplements, fibers, and a tlesnake invaded our campsite. That was since that first misadventure, Cheatham has wide array of other products that in recent the first couple of days. become obsessed with plants. "Birds and decades we've replaced with man-made The Hunter-Gatherer Trek did not get animals," he notes, "can pick up and move chemical derivatives. off to a good start. somewhere else if they don't like a certain A simple example of new plant uses is I had recognized trouble when I got the location. Plants have to stay, and adapt to provided by Midland entrepreneur Tim equipment list: no canteens, knives, back- wherever they are. All the great, diverse re- Golson's broomweed conversion project. packs, tents or food allowed. In addition to a sources needed to start civilization come Golson has managed to take what is widely hat, pants and long-sleeved shirt, we could from plants." considered a nuisance plant—broomweed, take a wool blanket and a pair of gloves— His interest in plants also led Cheatham which he collects and packages as a decora- nothing more. For a mid-August trip into the to his life's work, The Useful Wild Plants tive add-on for dried plant arrangements— rugged . Chihuahuan of Texas. "We're and turn it into a cash crop. Cheatham says Desert of West Texas, doing," he says, "the that when more ideas like Golson's catch that isn't much. Cheatham always Brazilian rainforest on, the world will be a much safer place for I was prepared to project in Texas." wild plants. Recent efforts to develop the be uncomfortable. plans his treks in the Some writers are wild pawpaw's crop potential is another ex- But while I endured manner of ancient satisfied writing ample that Cheatham says holds great po- hunger, heat and an books; Cheatham had tential (there are oil, aroma, and tea possi- impossibly hard bed, civilizations, and for embarked on an ell bilities throughout the first volume). If, I could always turn to our trip, we were cyclopedia. At the despite its formidable size and erudition, Jeffrey Sacks for con- time of our trek, five Useful Wild Plants can find a broader audi- solation—compared re-tracing the path years ago, he was ence, it should inspire others to mine its to Sacks, I was Daniel of the Jumano. editing the first draft generous descriptions of the many aro- Boone. Before the of a manuscript that matic, medicinal, ritual, recreational, and Hunter-Gatherer would eventually chemical uses of the plants. Trek, Sacks had never even slept on the grow into twelve volumes, describing in de- With early sales hovering at a few hun- ground. A gay Jewish real estate appraiser tail the prehistoric and present uses of more dred, Useful Wild Plants hasn't yet reached from the Bronx, Sacks is the quintessential than three thousand species of wild plants. a large enough readership to stir much talk New Yorker—witty, urbane, and com- Among the most useful plants described in bookstores. But at one hundred twenty- pletely innocent about the natural world. by Cheatham is the sotol. Archaeological five dollars a copy (less, if you subscribe) Coerced by a friend to join her on the trip, records show remains of sotol in Indian that's not such a big surprise, although it is Sacks continually wondered aloud, "What sites dating back to 2000 B.C. The leaves unfortunate, because of the role the book the hell am I doing here?" More than once, of the sotol, a member of the lily family, could eventually play in the critical debate I wondered the same thing. were used to make mats, baskets, hats, san- over our place in nature, and what might Our group of fifteen included an attor- dals, brushes, cradles and cordage. The constitute our responsible use of the land. ney, a housewife, a sixty-year-old grand- plant is also edible. So in the Chihuahuan Cheatham suggests that once we begin to mother, an investor, a massage therapist, desert, we cut away sotol leaves, dug the understand truly where we are and the di- and a couple of college students. We would plants out of the ground, and cooked their mensions of our resources, we will also spend six days in the desert—alternately inner pineapple-like hearts in an earthen begin to see that we're but one part of this hot, wet and irritable—because of Scooter pit. Twenty-four hours later, we scooped place—and a small part at that. We can then Cheatham. A tall, muscular and intense them out of the smoldering pit and ate them begin to consider how the parts might better man now in his mid-forties, Cheatham has for dinner. They tasted a little like squash. fit together. been leading groups of soft city dwellers As we ate, we were the Jumano. Sotol into the wilderness for twenty years. His was an important part of the diet for the Ju- (Useful Wild Plants, Inc., is a not-for-profit Hunter-Gatherer Trek is a mixture of mano Indians, a nomadic tribe that inhabited organization, dedicated to "saving the botany, geology, art, archeology, and an- the Rio Grande region from about 120110 rainforest in your own backyard." Annual thropology. A.D., through the 1600s. Cheatham had told memberships, which include reduced prices us he always plans his treks in the manner of on The Useful Wild Plants of Texas and HIRTY-ONE YEARS EARLIER, ancient civilizations, and for our trip, we other benefits, can be obtained by writing Cheatham had traveled his own first were re-tracing the path of the Jumano. Ju- Useful Wild Plants, Inc., 2612 Sweeney Twilderness trek. As he tells it, he and mano women usually wore ponchos made Lane, Austin, TX 78723, or calling a friend took a pocketknife, the Boy Scout from animal skins; the men were nude, their

(512) 928-4441.) ❑ Handbook, and a pair of shorts each. Two only adornment ribbons worn on their

22 • APRIL 19, 1996 penises. I was glad we were not attempting and sheer cliff faces, is a forbiddingly that he was "scaring the snakes away." an exact re-creation of the Jumano culture. beautiful place. "This is the roughest coun- Cheatham eventually led us to a new Nonetheless, like the Jumano, we for- try I have ever taken a trek," Cheatham an- campsite, where he had earlier stashed aged for cat-tail roots, berries of the brazeal nounced—after we had begun our trip. We some beans, venison jerky, and dried fruit. bush, and the fruits of the prickly-pear cac- had no reason to doubt him. For the first The infusion of calories improved our sag- tus. Called "tuna" by the Mexicans, the thirty hours, we ate nothing. Cheatham ging morale, and it seemed to hold up :uit of the prickly pear was our most plen- showed us various edible seed pods and through the following day, as we rested, tiful food source. Covered took short hikes, and by a thin, thorny skin, the bathed in the shallow inner meat of the beet-col- pools of the canyon. The ored fruit has a tangy, next morning, we walked slightly sweet taste. Mexi- a few miles through steep can cooks use them in cold canyon country, finally re- drinks and in picadillo, a turning to the ranch house. meat filling. We ate them The closer we got to civ- raw—a lot of them. ilization—the world of Cheatham's own fa- air-conditioning and su- vorite food was strawberry permarkets—the happier I cactus—the dessert of the got. Still, I began to real- desert. The pulp of the ize I'd spent an entire strawberry cactus, he told week without alcohol, ice, us, tastes just like straw- meat, bread, packaged berry ice cream. The sweet, food, soft beds, clean seedy pulp was a welcome clothes, or television, and break from the prickly-pear I'd survived quite well. fruit, and Cheatham's de- I'd watched meteor show- scription was at least close; ers streak across the desert its taste bore about the sky. There were crystal same relation to strawberry clear dawns and blistering ice cream as bark does to afternoons, followed by root beer. cool, shaded sunsets. I'd The plants kept the learned how to make fire 1punger pangs at bay, but using only a bow drill, fhey couldn't prevent the and come to some under- inevitable. It was Sacks—a standing of how hard it graduate of New York's was for native Americans Culinary Institute of Amer- and the early settlers sim- ica—who began, with a de- ply to survive. scription of his grand- A few hundred yards mother's sweet noodles. from the ranch house, I Soon, while our bodies fol- stopped and listened to lowed Cheatham through one of the vaqueros. Rid- the desert, our imagina- ing up the trail on his tions were occupied with mule, he sang a Mexican planning meals we would folk song; his clear voice never see. SAM HURT carried down the trail and I craved breakfast: orange juice, hot bis- grasses, but mostly, we walked. By the sec- echoed throughout the canyon. I began to cuits and coffee with cream. On to lunch, ond night, everyone in the group had a forget my hard desert bed, and my insa- then dinner, each of us suppressing our grumbling stomach, so Cheatham gave us tiable hunger. hunger in a salivary safari. Prerequisites for each a handful of raw corn. Corn was per- Would I follow Scooter Cheatham each meal were tall, sweaty pitchers of ice missible, he said, because it was cultivated through the desert again? Hell no. Am I water, but each menu-maker kept a particu- by native Americans for hundreds of years glad I did it? Absolutely. lar food in mind. The investor longed for before Columbus. pancakes. I longed for cold pasta salad. In The next day, we woke to a drizzling the nearly waterless desert we all dreamed rain that grew into a gully-washing down- • of cold swimming pools, iced tea, and pour, as our cooking fire merged with a ANDERSON & COMPANY shade—deep, dark shade. nearby stream. The corn cakes that had COFFEE There was precious little shade to be been cooking quickly disintegrated into TEA SPICES TWO JEFFERSON SQUARE had. We were in the middle of the vast runny mush, slumping toward the Gulf of AUSTIN, TEXAS 78731 Chambers Ranch, seventy square miles of Mexico. Rather than sulk in the open, most 512 453-1533 terrain so rugged that the cowboys on the of the group—cold, tired and hungry— Send me your list. 1 ranch ride mules instead of horses, a land huddled under rocks. The following night, so sparse that a single cow requires one a rattlesnake slithered up to our favorite Name hundred grazing acres. From the ranch New Yorker's bed—though it quickly Street house to the nearest pavement—in Cande- moved on, Sacks was less than thrilled. City Zip laria, Texas—is a bumpy, hour-long ride. Thereafter, he clapped and sang out when- The ranch, a mixture of volcanic rock ever he walked into the brush, explaining

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 23 POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE

Newt three percent of the vote after the spoiler, says he spent fifty thousand dollars on the ✓POSTER-BOY DEFUNCT. Gingrich embraced him, former President West Dallas neighborhood organizer and primary and has nine thousand left in the George Bush endorsed him, and the New environmental activist Luis Sepulveda, bank. But Democratic Party spokeswoma, Anne Marie York Times ran a front-page story on his took nineteen percent of the vote. In Fort race. But in the end, Greg Laughlin, re- Worth, progressive Democrat Lon Burnam Kilday said the Party is "ready to wage a full- cruited by the Republican Party after he prevailed in the runoff race for the House out campaign." That remains to be seen, for had voted like a Republican since 1988, seat of Doyle Willis, who is retiring. if the Bryant defeat has any lesson, it is that lost—to a Libertarian. There's more than a the Texas Democratic Party is apparently unable to turn out the vote for its own favorites. bit of poetic justice in Laughlin' s defeat, ✓ THE NRA IN EL PASO. An en- after a particularly nasty run-off campaign. dorsement by former Governor Ann As for the Observer, crow is a chewy but His first election to the U.S. Congressional Richards wasn't as effective as the National flavorful dish, and the occasion of much District 14 seat was in part a result of envi- Rifle Association's endorsement and finan- reflection. While we're eating, we hope that ronmental groups turning out blockwalkers cial support, as former Border Patrol Chief Morales will discover that a Senator needs be to hold the line in the urban fringe of his Silvestre Reyes beat out Jose Luis Sanchez able to say something besides "I don't largely rural district. Laughlin went to to replace veteran Democratic Congressman know..." Washington, promptly began to disappoint Ron Coleman, retiring after fourteen years in Election the environmentalists who helped elect him the House (District 16). Reyes, who ✓ CHILD MOLESTERS? in 1988, and last year wholeheartedly attracted national attention with his "Opera- news was nearly obliterated last week in embraced the anti-environmental tion Hold the Line" border blockade, had the Texas media, almost universally preoc- Republican Contract with America. Ron been an early favorite, but Sanchez, jumping cupied with whether self-advertising child Paul, the Klute physician, former Republi- on Reyes' statements about abolishing the molester Larry Don McQuay, just released can Congressman and Libertarian Party federal Department of Education and his from prison, will be granted his wish of presidential candidate, who won the race, support of a bill to abolish the assault being castrated, supposedly to prevent him wasn't even supposed to be a player. Jim weapon ban, closed the gap until the race from molesting any more children. Mc- Deats, who had run against Laughlin two was a dead heat. Reyes won by one percent. Quay claimed to have molested more than years ago, was the candidate the Republi- two hundred children before he was ar- rested and jailed six years ago, and "vic- can Party was grooming—until Laughlin ✓ CLEAN VIC VS. FOUL PHIL? He switched parties and Gingrich anointed fooled nearly everybody, including the Ob- tims' rights" groups around the state rushed him with a seat on the Ways and Means server, but schoolteacher and political un- to endorse his bragging—and his unproven' insistence that castration would solve his Committee. known Victor Morales is now the Demo- Laughlin won only forty-six percent of cratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat problems. Governor Bush joined the cho- the vote, and Austin lawyer Lefty Morris, currently held by Phil Gramm. When he rus, telling the San Antonio Express-News who faced no opposition in the Democratic entered the Democratic primary, most po- the state would provide transportation for primary, now finds himself running against litical observers expected his candidacy to McQuay's surgery. Texas Parole Board Ron Paul, for an open seat. flounder for lack of money and name Chairman Victor Rodriguez called Mc- recognition, but his pick-up and shoe- Quay "Public Enemy No. 1 for the kids of leather campaign eliminated long-time poll the state of Texas." ✓ MAD, MAD WORLD. They were college roommates, ideological soulmates, Jim Chapman and John Odam, and then Bush and Rodriguez might read some- and finally opponents in a race that high- edged out the Party's progressive stalwart, thing beside the headlines. A few weeks lighted the fissures in the always fractious Dallas-area Congressman John Bryant, ago, The Center for Public Policy Priorities Mexican-American Democrats (MAD). In who ran an honorable race but seemed reported that Texas ranks forty-seventh the end, Domingo Garcia, the former stunned by Morales' ingenuous naiveté. nationally in child poverty, and that in Dallas city council member who character- Conceding the race, Bryant said simply, "I 1991, one in four Texas children were liv- ized two-term Dallas Representative just think the better man won." ing in poverty. (In five border counties, Roberto Alonzo (Texas House District Can Morales beat Gramm? The morning- child poverty rates exceed fifty percent.) 104) as a divisive member of the Mexican- after answers predictably broke on party Texas also ranks forty-sei/enth in the per- American political community, won by a lines, but GOP consultant Karl Rove seemed cent of children living in overcrowded fifty-three to forty-seven percent split. It re- at least a bit nervous at the prospect of housing, forty-third in those in substandard quires more space than is available here to Gramm having to run against a real outsider housing, and dead last—fifty-first—in the describe Who's Who in the old Mexican- with no political baggage. Rove told the Dal- percent of its children with no health insur- American Democrats, the new Mexican- las Morning News, "It's a little more difficult ance (twenty-three percent). American Democrats, and the Tejano to run against a Mr. Clean Gene, a political Of course, if any of those children are Democrats. But Alonzo must have known naive guy." Despite Gramm's expensive ever molested by Larry Don McQuay, he was in trouble in the Democratic Pri- failure on the Republican presidential trail, maybe the state of Texas will take an inter- mary, when he came in second with thirty- his campaign coffers remain loaded; Morales est in them. ❑ 14

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Postmaster: If undeliverable, send Form 3579 to : The Texas Observer, 307 W. 7th St., Austin, Texas 78701 24 • APRIL 19, 1996