Hope Beneath Our Feet_ Restoring Our Place in the Natural World - Martin Keogh [59]
We tried to educate and work collaboratively with the local city government, but it became obvious to us that our community had lived far too long under the shadow of corporate strong-arming. The hypnotic pull of the old mill-town history created a denial that was pervasive. It wasn’t long before local politicians shunned us, and threats were made on our lives. Nevertheless, we continued to educate, organize, and speak out.
After four years of working to uncover this toxic legacy we discovered that high levels of dioxin—the most deadly toxin known to humans, second only to radiation—had been discovered in the mill site’s soil. Rumor had it that the dioxin had been created by burning treated redwood bark in the mill’s powerhouse, which generated huge amounts of fly ash. People began to come forward with stories of Georgia Pacific transporting fly ash off the property and dumping it on school grounds, ranches, and in the gardens of residents. What we thought had been contained to the mill site was contaminating soil up and down the coast.
Our scientist friends began referring to the coastline as “Behind the Redwood Curtain.” The testing could take years and the cleanup could be immense!
Stories of people on the coast with rare forms of cancer, brain tumors, and autoimmune disorders began to surface. People talked about alarming numbers of miscarriages, birth defects, and infant mortality when the mill was in operation. Dioxins have been shown to accumulate in humans and wildlife due to their lipophilic properties, and they are known as mutagens (chemical agents that change genetic information) and suspected human carcinogens. Generations to come would inherit GP’s toxic legacy unless the mill site was cleaned up.
Shortly after we found out about the dioxin, Georgia Pacific Corporation was purchased by Koch Industries, the largest privately held company in the world. Owned by the Koch brothers, Koch Industries holds a less than stellar environmental record. In 2000, Koch was indicted on ninety-seven counts of violating federal clean air and hazardous waste laws. The charges came less than one year after the company was slapped with the largest civil penalty ever levied under federal environmental statutes. That same year, Koch Industries was ordered by the Justice Department and the California EPA to pay the largest civil fine ever imposed on a company under any federal environmental law to resolve claims related to more than three hundred oil spills from its pipelines and oil facilities in six states.
Suddenly, the stakes were higher. Shortly after Koch took possession of Georgia Pacific Corporation, they opened the gates in the month of July for the community to view fireworks from the mill site. This was after the tests had reported dioxins on the property, with the findings well publicized in the local media. Women from the community banded together and made up signs warning people of the potential danger to human life on the mill site. They stood outside the gates carrying the message in English and Spanish: “Keep Out—Danger, Dioxins!” Infuriated by the corporate scheme to tell the public the site was safe while blatantly putting us in potential danger of life-threatening toxins, we knew it was time to recruit a hard-hitting environmental agency.
The current oversight agency for the mill site, chosen by Georgia Pacific Corporation, was the Regional Water Quality Control Board. For the past eighteen years, this state agency, through a gentlemen’s agreement, had overseen all the lumber counties in Northern California, from the Bay Area to the Oregon border. That was good insofar as it went, but for sites like ours, it was insufficient for a full-site characterization of contaminated soil.
We decided, with the help of many community members, to recruit the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), an arm of the California EPA. DTSC is known for enforcing stringent regulations, especially