Be Part of the Solution

I recently attended the 25^th anniversary of the first environmental conference sponsored by what later became the West Virginia Environmental Council, or WVEC.

It was simultaneously inspiring and disappointing. Inspiring because I was among long-time movers and shakers in the environmental movement in WV like Norm Steenstra, Cindy Rank, Vivian Stockman, Jim Kotcon, Bill Price, and Wendy Radcliff, who  spoke about issues they were working on and passionate about. Disappointing because I was one of only about fifty people in attendance.

One reason this was my first time attending a WVEC conference is that I’ve never considered myself an “environmentalist” or an “activist” on environmental issues.  However, I went because I have come to realize that due to the scope of problems facing our state and our world, all of us must, to some degree, become environmental activists.

The precipitating event for me was the January 9, 2014 Freedom Industries chemical spill which poisoned the water supply of 300,000 people in nine counties of West Virginia including the state capital, Charleston, where I live. I call it Aquageddon. If you experienced it, you haven’t forgotten it. Even if you didn’t, you likely remember the extensive national news coverage of the chemical, “crude MCHM”, about which little was known.  After only a few days, state officials and the Center for Disease Control declared the chemical was present in small enough amounts not to be a health risk.  But even a month or more later, the affected public continued to be highly suspicious of water that had the telltale odor of licorice, which the chemical emits. Questions about what level of exposure might result in long term health risks remain unanswered, and almost a year later there are still people in the affected areas who refuse to drink the tap water.

Prior to Aquageddon, I considered myself a supporter of environmental issues. Given a choice, I always voted for candidates who were more likely to support environmental protection, and on occasion I attended fund raisers, made contributions to environmental organizations, and attended rallies.

In the wake of Aquageddon, I attended rallies and led the singing of “This Land is Your Land,” with new lyrics I’d written about the water crisis and mountain top removal (MTR) mining. I attended public meetings and went to E-Day at the legislature to lobby for the tank storage bill, a bill that passed by a unanimous vote of the WV House and Senate. UNANIMOUS! How often does that happen?

I wondered if this would be a “come to Jesus moment” heralding the beginning of a new day for recognition of environmental catastrophes that have been occurring for decades in West Virginia due to MTR and other lightly regulated industries: poisoned water supplies, flattened mountains, buried streams,  increased cancer rates and other negative health impacts on communities near mountain removal coal mines? Would the legislature take another look at the effects on our water supply and communities caused by “Fracking” in order to decide whether stricter regulations are needed? Would they begin to question the actual cost of burning carbon fuels when damage to roads, water, air, health, tourism, and communities is factored in?

Or was this the Legislature’s version of “giving the Devil his due” in which they would have to be seen doing something because so many rich and powerful people in the state were affected by Aquageddon, but could ignore the by and large rural communities affected by MTR and Fracking. Surprise, surprise, it turns out it’s the latter.

I am not a scientist, don’t like to attend meetings, and don’t want to spend my time walking the halls of the Legislature. But I want to make sure that the environmental heroes who are working to protect us continue to have the resources they need to organize meetings and rallies, to study the impacts that fracking and MTR are having, to take water, soil, and air samples.  Before WVEC was formed, activists from groups working on local issues from all around the state descended on legislators in uncoordinated and overlapping ways. WVEC was formed so the environmental community could speak with a unified voice, sharing information with legislators so they are hearing the facts about the impacts of a lack of sensible regulation on West Virginians. Without WVEC and other environmental organizations, legislators only hear what the industry lobbyists have to say about how laws and regulations might impact their bottom lines.

To help support this critical work, I started a project called AWARE: Artists Working in Alliance to Restore the Environment. AWARE’s mission is primarily to raise funds for environmental organizations in West Virginia, especially WVEC and its member groups, which include the GreenbrierRiver Watershed Association, Ohio Valley Environmental Council, Sierra Club ofWest Virginia,  WV Citizen Action Group, WV Highlands Conservancy, and the WV Rivers Coalition, I hope you will think about what you’re willing to do to help protect our environment, and if it doesn’t include activism, at least make a donation to one or more of these organizations or another like them, or to AWARE, which will distribute the money among them.

Lazy, Hazy, but not Crazy

I can't believe it's almost a month since I last posted to this blog. For months after beginning a strategy for losing weight last November, I posted every week, usually to give updates on my progress and delve into the successes or struggles I experienced. I transformed my eating habits and lost thirty pounds, and though my goal of forty-four pounds remains something I'd like to reach, I've decided to live with this weight for awhile without "trying" so hard to restrict my eating. And so far I've done pretty well, though predictably, I'm at the high range of the weight I decided to allow myself for "maintenance"-- 180 pounds (I had started at 209).

I don't feel like I've been sitting around doing nothing, but I've been decidedly less ambitious than in the months previous to July 3rd when the fundraising event for AWARE: Artists Working to Restore the Environment was held. I had put so much effort into making that a success (netted over $3,000, $2500 of which I'll be distributing to WV Environmental Council and member groups, the rest of which will be used for upcoming projects), that my wife had mused that I was working harder in retirement than I had for years.

So the rhythm of activity has definitely slowed, and I've actually had time to sit down and read a little in the last couple weeks, ride my bike regularly, play a bit more music, even actually doing a "bar gig" of sorts (tip jar Tuesday at the Boulevard Tavern), dusting off a slew of my original songs many of which have not been played in public much over the years, some of which have only been heard by Rita and a couple others. Not that they've been heard by many others after playing Tuesday night -- it was a pretty empty room. But it was good practice, and when I finished my second set and called it a night with a solo rendition of the fiddle tune, Catharsis, a complex G-minor rockin' contra dance favorite, the eight or nine people at the bar clapped and whistled.

Tonight, old friend Joe McHugh and his wife, Paula, will play for a FOOTMAD Wandering Minstrel Concert I organized for them. They live in Washington state and came here to do a couple programs at the Appalachian String Band Festival at Clifftop, WV, and this is their last stop before heading home. I may also play a little fiddle before the anti-Mountain Top Removal at Kanawha State Forest rally at the WV Capitol beforehand (5 pm).

Rita and I fly out in the morning for ten days in Colorado Springs (visiting grandchild, Jack Martorella, and his parents), Albuquerque (daughter Hannah and husband), and points in between. So this is retirement during lazy, hazy, not too crazy days of summer 2014.

This Land is Our Land

This Land is Our Land

February 9, 2014

(today’s Diet Challenge ‘report’ is at the end of this post)

Today it is one month since the water crisis in WV began. Pete Seeger died on 1/27, and in searching for some of the songs he’d written I came across a couple verses of Woody Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land he penned, one about income inequality, and one on the environment. And I also saw other verses of Woody’s much more hard hitting than the version usually sung. I had gone to a town hall meeting during which Erin Brockavich and one of her team talked about the need for this community to engage in ongoing community activism in order to start getting our governor to direct the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to enforce existing laws, let alone getting the legislature to pass new ones. There were some mountain top removal activists there also making the point that in the coalfields of WV, the DEP has been letting coal companies destroy their streams and poison their water for years without taking action. So, one sleepless night, after writing a new verse to This Land is Your Land, I went down into my basement, set up my i-phone on a tripod and videoed myself talking about what’s been going on and singing This Land is Your Land. I found my voice, sad but resolute, and I am now committed to doing what I can to hold our politicians to the promise of clean water and a healthy environment, a cause I’ve only supported with lip service and a few donations until now. The video (with some editing), is fifteen minutes long and I plan to put it up on YouTube, but am trying to get permission from the holders of Woody Guthrie’s copyrights first. What follows is a transcript:

Three weeks ago on January the ninth, 2014, there was a chemical storage tank that leaked and spilled its contents, or at least ten thousand gallons of its contents, into the Elk River a mile or so north of Charleston, WV where I live. You’ve probably heard about it; it made national and even international news. Because, well, the water company, a private company, a profit making company, didn’t shut their water intakes, didn’t realize what the chemical was; they thought their systems would filter the water. So, it got into the water supply, and they figured out after a day, you know, several hours, that they had a possibly poisonous chemical in the water system in our city. So they put out a Do Not Use order to all the customers of this West Virginia American Water Company.

They cut off water to, you know, 300,000 customers in nine counties around the capital city of WV. We’re only a city in the city limits of about 50,000, so it’s a wide geographical area that they serve. And we were told not to drink the water, not to wash or use the water, except to flush our toilets or to put out fires.

After four days they started approving certain areas. They said, “Your water is safe now to use, to drink.” People are confused and angry and scared. And there’s been a lot of conflicting reports. There’s not much known about this chemical, MCHM, a chemical used in the process of cleaning coal to make it ready for market, for burning.

So this week, Pete Seeger died, and if you don’t know who he was, Google him and listen to his music – ninety-four years old, sang and was an activist for the Earth, and for labor and for every good cause in the last 70 years. And, you know, he was in the same, almost the same generation as Woody Guthrie. Woody was obviously a little older. And Pete sang Woody’s songs too, and so I’m going to honor Pete with a song he sang a lot, This Land is Your Land, this land is my land. But you know Woody wrote verses that you probably haven’t heard. I’m going to sing those verses in addition to the chorus. And Pete wrote a couple verses, and I’m going to sing those. And I wrote a verse, just yesterday, and I’m going to try to get through that.

This land is your land,

This land is my land,

From California to the New York Island,

From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters,

This land was made for you and me.

One bright sunny morning, in the shadow of the steeple,

By the relief office I saw my people,

As they stood there hungry, I stood there wondering if,

This land was made for you and me.

Was a big high wall there that tried to stop me,

Was a great big sign that said, "Private Property,"

But on the other side, it didn't say nothing,

That side was made for you and me.

Nobody living can ever stop me,

As I go walking my freedom highway,

Nobody living can make me turn back,

This land was made for you and me.

This land is your land (sing it with me)

This land is my land (California)

From California to the New York Island,

From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters (Katrina),

This land was made for you and me.

So yeah, those were Woody’s verses, and you know just singing “Gulf stream waters, and thinking about Deep Water Horizon and the tragedy that was Katrina.  Deep Water Horizon, of course the oil rig that spilled, broke and dumped millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico despoiling their waters.

These next two verses were Pete’s verses, and you know, I don’t know when he wrote them, but this first one’s about inequality and that’s a bit topic right now, and it has been for a long time, but it’s just been getting worse and worse – inequality of income.

Maybe you've been working as hard as you're able,

But you've just got crumbs from the rich man's table,

And maybe you're thinking, was it truth or fable,

That this land was made for you and me.

Woodland and grassland and river shoreline,

To everything living, even little microbes,

Fin, fur, and feather, we're all here together,

This land was made for you and me.

This land is your land,

This land is my land,

From California to the New York Island,

From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters,

This land was made for you and me.

Well, my verse is really about Mountain Top Removal coal mining, because as bad as we’ve had it in Charleston the last three weeks, people of southern West Virginia in the coalfields, and in Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky, Virginia, parts of North Carolina, maybe into Tennessee, are living through a kind of strip mining called Mountain Top Removal. They just plain cut the tops off the mountains and push ‘em over into the valleys. And, uh, you know it covers up the streams, miles and miles and miles of streams. It kills everything, and nothing can grow there. I mean they, they, they spray something on it, makes grass grow. They, they say, “You can put.. shopping malls there.” The place is so depressed, there’s nobody putting shopping malls there. “You can put golf courses there.” It’ll never grow back. It’ll never come back.

And not only that, but it’s poisoning the water for the people down there. It’s been doing it for years and years. It’s poisoning the wells. It’s poisoning the people. The rates for cancer are through the roof! And, these people are strong, proud people. But they’re giving up the fight, and they’re doing drugs, their kids are hopeless and their education system is failing because all the money’s been leaving. And all the jobs have been leaving, because it’s all done by machine. It’s not like the underground mines, which are dangerous and have big machines that require a little more manpower. It’s a, it’s a travesty. Oh well, time to sing:

Our Mountain Mama, they’ve spoiled your water

Cut down your mountains, it’s a true slaughter

But we will rise up and stand together

This land was made for you and me.

Well, that last line, This land was made for you and me, that’s not, it didn’t work for me,  it doesn’t work for me, I mean it’s the song,  I had to change that, because, you know, this land has been here before we were here, before the Native Americans were here. You know there’s a verse of this song written by Native Americans that says, This land was our land before it was your land, you stole it from us.” I don’t know the rest of it. But this land wasn’t made for us to do whatever we want with it—to destroy it….This land is for us, to take care of and leave for our children and grandchildren and those who come after us. And we have Got. To stop this Mountain Top Removal coal mining. We have Got. To Stop. Destroying our mountains, our rivers, our streams. And, you know, whatever cause, wherever you live, write yourself a verse for this song and add this line to the end of it. This line that says, this last line instead of, “This land was made for you and me,” “Saving this land will be our legacy. Saving this land,” wherever you are or come down here and help us save this land. Help us change our government’s mind.

There’s not a War on Coal.  There’s a War on West Virginia. There’s a war on the mountains! There’s a war on the rivers! There’s a war on the People of West Virginia! I’ve been here forty years, and like the people who were born here (I wasn’t born here), I love this land. And I love living here, and there’s a whole lot of people in this town  who are talking about leaving. And that’s the ways it’s been in southern West Virginia for years and years they’ve been leaving, and….(sniff), and not coming back…they love it, or…. so sing this one with me for the people of West Virginia.

Our Mountain Mama, they’ve spoiled your water

Cut down your mountains, it’s a true slaughter

But we will rise up and stand together, saving

This land will be our legacy

Saving this land will be our legacy.

The video ends there and the final credit reads, “learn more, donate, take action” along with a link to a site that serves as a clearinghouse for all the Mountain Top Removal and environmental groups working in the southern Appalachians: www.ilovemountains.org . I hope you will click and join me in fighting this scourge.

Here's how I'm doing on the 2-Day Diet. I'm half way to my goal!

Beginning weight 11/3/13: 209 lbs.

Height 5'8" Age: 61

Goal weight: 165 lbs.

Total loss goal: 44 lbs.

Beginning waist size: 43 in.

Current waist size: 39 in.

Weight end of week 14:  187 lbs.

Gain/Loss this week: -1 lb.

Total Gain/Loss:  -22 lbs.

Navigating Confusing Waters

*2 Day Diet report at end

In the Governor’s letter of January 27 to FEMA requesting continuing aid including bottled water he says that despite the government’s best efforts “…many people no longer view their tap water as safe and are continuing to demand bottled water…It is impossible to predict when this will change, if ever.” Many are boycotting any restaurant that will not agree to cook or even wash dishes with water from outside the area. It is hard for some to believe that small amounts of this chemical, “non-detectable” amounts of 10 parts per billion or less, more than 100 times below the level deemed safe by CDC scientists, could carry so much odor. It is hard for people to believe water smelling like licorice will not cause them harm. Many are just plain frightened, angry, suspicious and skeptical. Their sense of trust has been compromised.

Governor, you acknowledge your best efforts have not been good enough. That’s because this is not a problem you can ‘fix’. This is an education and credibility problem. Press conferences won’t do it. I attended the Town Hall Meeting sponsored by WCHS on January 29. No one on the panel contested claims that the water remains a danger to all of us. It would have been helpful to have your commissioner of Public Health, Dr. Tierney or someone from the CDC, and someone from WV American Water. You need to send a team of experts to town meetings in every affected area to listen to people’s fears and present them with balanced viewpoints and evidence. ScientificAmerican.com published, “How Dangerous is the Coal-Washing Chemical that Spilled in West Virginia?” on January 10, describing why people should not panic over this chemical. Among many other facts about what is known and unknown, it explains that 4-MCMH, will dissipate from air in less than a day, from water in about two weeks, and from the sludge at the bottom of a river (and presumably from hot water tanks), in one hundred forty days. You should have the article updated and put in every mailbox in the state. That is not to say that this isn’t a dangerous substance in large enough quantities such as were present at the spills beginning and perhaps even now for the pregnant women, the elderly, infants, and those with lowered immunity or allergic reactions.

I hope those responsible at Freedom Industries go to jail; WV American Water company should pay damages (and not recoup them through a rate hike) for their poor judgment allowing the chemical into their system; We need new laws to give appropriate agencies the power to regulate and inspect all facilities that transport, store, and use all potentially harmful chemicals that can foul our air, water, or land; Those sickened must have medical bills paid and be compensated for lost work time; and more studies are needed on crude MCMH to determine conclusively what dangers exposure may pose in the long term; medical monitoring should be instituted, at least for those who had greatest exposure or were sickened.

I respect anyone who decides they will no longer drink the water. Erin Brockavich and her associate told us not to use the water because unknown compounds were created from chlorine treatment. Their experience with hazardous pollutants around the country has taught them to err on the side of caution. But, isn’t there also a point at which you decide not to assume the worst? If exposure after the do not use order was lifted, hospital visits would have spiked. But the average number of hospital visits, stays, and calls to poison control per day decreased 60% or more since the early days of the spill. 

Strong emotions change our brains. The anger, frustration and fear many of us feel as we learn the very essence of life, water, is threatened, starts a chemical reaction in the brain making it difficult to think clearly, rationally, and objectively. Some of us may actually have a form of post-traumatic stress. Smells are particularly good at triggering past emotions. Every time we smell the licorice we may experience our initial emotion again.

Harness those emotions for good. We must do whatever it takes to put pressure on state government and WV American Water to clean up this mess and make sure it never happens again. According to Brockavich, we don’t need more laws, we need our laws enforced. Our DEP, many in the southern coalfields know from years of experience, does not enforce existing standards. If our legislators don’t pass needed legislation, and if our Governor will not direct DEP to enforce the law, we need to elect people who will make war on polluters and keep us safe, healthy, and prosperous!

Paul Epstein, a retired teacher, is a musician and writer living in Charleston

*Here's how I'm doing on the 2 Day Diet. 

Beginning weight 11/3/13: 209 lbs.

Height 5'8" Age: 61

Goal weight: 165 lbs.

Total loss goal: 44 lbs.

Beginning waist size: 43 in.

Current waist size: 40 in.

Weight end of week 13:  188 lbs.

Gain/Loss this week:  no change

Total Gain/Loss:  -21 lbs.