Editor’s Note: Plastic is not found in nature, so no microorganisms evolved to break it down completely. Microplastics are often too small to pick up or even notice, but they are everywhere: in the air, dust, and rain. They have been found in placentas and breast milk, and they appear especially abundant in baby poop— 10 times more than in adult feces. Plastic is a toxin and pollutant that is a byproduct of the production of fossil fuel manufacturing. People never asked for plastics, they were forced on us by industry. Eighty years ago there was no plastic in the stores. Today you would be hard pressed to find a product that is not covered in plastic. Deemed the “greatest thing since sliced bread,” plastic has brought convenience at a terrible cost. We have saturated the planet with a material that does not biologically break down, forever plastics. An EWG study shows the astounding level of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in freshwater fish.
PFAS found at high levels in freshwater fish, with most concern for vulnerable communities
WASHINGTON – A new study by Environmental Working Group scientists finds that consumption of just a single serving of freshwater fish per year could be equal to a month of drinking water laced with the “forever chemical” Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) at high levels that may be harmful.
Researchers calculated that eating one fish in a year equated to ingesting water with PFOS at 48 parts per trillion, or ppt, for one month.
The study bolsters EWG’s long-running calls for strict regulation of PFOS and the other toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS, in addition to more tests of food such as fish, since diet is thought to be a major source of PFAS exposure for Americans. The findings are a particular issue for communities with environmental justice concerns, whose survival often depends on eating freshwater fish they’ve caught.
EWG found the median amounts of PFAS in freshwater fish were an astounding 280 times greater than forever chemicals detected in some commercially caught and sold fish. The testing data, from the Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration, showed that consuming a single meal of freshwater fish could lead to similar PFAS exposure as ingesting store-bought fish every day for a year.
“People who consume freshwater fish, especially those who catch and eat fish regularly, are at risk of alarming levels of PFAS in their bodies,” said David Andrews, Ph.D., EWG senior scientist and one of the study’s lead authors. “Growing up, I went fishing every week and ate those fish. But now when I see fish, all I think about is PFAS contamination.”
The forever chemical found at greatest concentrations in freshwater fish was PFOS, formerly an ingredient in 3M’s Scotchgard, averaging roughly three in four of total PFAS detections.
“These test results are breathtaking,” said Scott Faber, EWG’s senior vice president for government affairs. “Eating one bass is equivalent to drinking PFOS-tainted water for a month.”
Consumption of PFOS-contaminated freshwater fish can cause significant increases in people’s blood serum levels of the forever chemical, creating potential health risks. Even infrequent consumption of freshwater fish can raise PFOS levels in the body.
“The extent that PFAS has contaminated fish is staggering,” said Nadia Barbo, a graduate student at Duke University and lead researcher on this project. “There should be a single health protective fish consumption advisory for freshwater fish across the country.”
The researchers analyzed data from more than 500 samples of fish fillets collected in the U.S. from 2013 to 2015 under monitoring programs by the EPA, the National Rivers and Streams Assessment and the Great Lakes Human Health Fish Fillet Tissue Study. The median level of total PFAS in fish fillets was 9,500 nanograms per kilogram, with a median level of 11,800 nanograms per kilogram in the Great Lakes.
“PFAS contaminate fish across the U.S., with higher levels in the Great Lakes and fish caught in urban areas,” said Tasha Stoiber, Ph.D., an EWG senior scientist and another co-author. “PFAS do not disappear when products are thrown or flushed away. Our research shows that the most common disposal methods may end up leading to further environmental pollution.”
Freshwater fish are an important source of protein for many people, and PFAS contamination threatens those who cannot afford to purchase commercial seafood. Communities that depend on fishing for sustenance and for traditional cultural practices are inordinately harmed. This makes exposure to chemical pollutants in freshwater fish a textbook case of environmental injustice.
“Identifying sources of PFAS exposure is an urgent public health priority,” said Stoiber.
“Forever chemicals” in freshwater fish
Drinking water systems across the U.S. are contaminated with “forever chemicals” known as PFAS. The presence of these toxic chemicals in water is known to harm humans who are exposed to them.
Interactive map: ‘Forever chemicals’ in freshwater fish
Drinking water systems across the U.S. are contaminated with the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS. The presence of these toxic chemicals in water is known to harm humans who are exposed to them. This map shows how PFAS also contaminate fish in rivers, lakes and streams.
The widespread contamination of fish in rivers and streams across the country further emphasizes the need to end industrial discharges of PFAS.
EWG estimates there may be more than 40,000 industrial polluters of PFAS in the U.S. Tens of thousands of manufacturing facilities, municipal landfills and wastewater treatment plants, airports, and sites where PFAS-containing firefighting foams have been used are potential sources of PFAS discharges into surface water.
This contamination of water has spread PFAS to soil, crops and wildlife, including fish.
“For decades, polluters have dumped as much PFAS as they wanted into our rivers, streams, lakes and bays with impunity. We must turn off the tap of PFAS pollution from industrial discharges, which affect more and more Americans every day,” said EWG’s Faber.
Testing fish for PFAS
The EPA and the FDA test differently to detect PFAS in fish. The EPA uses what’s known as draft Method 1633 to test for up to 40 PFAS compounds in fish tissue, as well as in wastewater, surface water, groundwater, soil, biosolids, sediment and the liquid that forms when waste breaks down in landfills.
National EPA tests show nearly all fish in U.S. rivers and streams are contaminated with PFAS in the parts-per-billion range – even greater than parts per trillion. Although the most recent test results found decreasing PFAS levels, freshwater fish are still contaminated at high levels.
The FDA improved its scientific method to test for 20 different PFAS compounds. Its approach is used to test seafood samples, as well as processed foods. In its 2022 survey of seafood, the FDA found much lower levels of PFAS in seafood from grocery stores. The median levels of total PFAS detected by the EPA were 280 times higher than levels in commercially sold fish tested by the FDA.
Health risks
PFAS are among the most persistent compounds in existence, contaminating everything from drinking water to food, food packaging and personal care products. PFAS build up in our bodies and never break down in the environment. They are found in the blood of virtually everyone, including newborn babies.
More than 200 million Americans could be drinking water contaminated with PFAS. The problem is likely worse than has already been confirmed, further underscoring the need for swift regulatory action.
“The EPA needs to move swiftly to set regulations for the industries most likely to be dumping PFAS into the environment. Downstream communities especially have suffered the consequences of unregulated PFAS discharges for far too long,” added Faber.
The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.
Editor’s note: The 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, triggered by an earthquake and a tsunami, was one of the worst nuclear accidents of the twenty-first century to date. Nevertheless, worse ones might come in the future. In the quest for energy to fuel the machine, industrial civilization has built many vulnerable hazardous structures that can unleash highly toxic materials in the case of an “accidents.” Despite eleven years since the incident, TEPCO and the Japanese government haven’t been able to manage the waste water. Now, they are planning to dump it into the Pacific Ocean. Not only is the Pacific Ocean home to numerous marine creatures, it is also a source of livelihood for the humans who live near: the humans that the Japanese government claims to care for as their citizens. This decision by the Japanese government demonstrates, yet again, that decisions in this civilization are not made based on public welfare.
More nuclear power means more weapons, more mining on indigenous lands, more CO2 emissions, more radioactive waste and more accidents.
“We must remind Japan that if the radioactive nuclear wastewater is safe, just dump it in Tokyo, test it in Paris and store it in Washington, but keep our Pacific nuclear-free.” (Vanuatu’s celebrated former ‘Turaga Chief’ Motarilavoa Hilda Lini)
In the face of considerable worldwide criticism, TEPCO is moving ahead with its well-advertised plans to dump contaminated water from storage tanks at the Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster zone into the Pacific Ocean. They are running out of storage space and the Pacific Ocean is conveniently right next door.
TEPCO’s toxic dumping scheme is opposed by some scientists as well as some of the world’s most highly regarded marine laboratories, e.g., the U.S. National Association of Marine Laboratories, with over 100 member laboratories, has issued a position paper strongly opposing the toxic dumping because of a lack of adequate and accurate scientific data in support of Japan’s assertions of safety.
The position paper: “We urge the government of Japan to stop pursing their planned and precedent-setting release of the radioactively contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean and to work with the broader scientific community to pursue other approaches that protect ocean life; human health; and those communities who depend on ecologically, economically, and culturally valuable marine resources.”
Furthermore, Marine Laboratories agrees with the Pacific Island Forum’s suggestion that TEPCO look at options other than discharge. The toxic dumping plan has already put Japan at risk of losing its status as a Pacific Islands Forum Dialogue Partner. There are 21 partners, including the US, China, the UK, France, and the EU. According to Secretary General Henry Puna, the Forum has persistently requested Japan to share pivotal data, which has not been forthcoming: “In fact, we are very serious, and we will take all options to get Japan to at least cooperate with us by releasing the information that our technical experts are asking of them.”
Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority has endorsed the dumping plan. No surprise there. Also unsurprisingly, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the marketing arm for nuclear power, claims the dumping proposal is safe. Effective December 29, 2022, IAEA released an extensive report that details how the process will be monitored by independent entities, not to worry, uh-uh.
TEPCO generates 100 cubic metres of contaminated water per day, a mixture of groundwater, seawater, and water that cools the reactors. It is filtered for “the most radioactive isotopes” and stored in above-ground water tanks, but authorities admit that the level of tritium is above standards. It is almost impossible to remove tritium from water. TEPCO claims it is “only harmful to humans in large doses.” But who’s measuring?
According to TEPCO: “After treatment the levels of most radioactive particles meet the national standard.” However, the statement that most radioactive particles meet the national standard is not reassuring. And furthermore, why should anybody anywhere in the world be permitted to discharge large quantities of contaminated water that’s been filtered for ‘most radioactive particles’ directly from a broken-down nuclear power plant into the ocean under any circumstances?
But storage space is running out and the ocean is readily available as a very convenient garbage dump. Well, yes, but maybe find more storage space… on land… in Japan!
According to a Japanese anti-nuclear campaign group, the contaminated water dumping scheme violates the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution as well as the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas. Their opposition is endorsed by the National Fisheries Cooperative Federation of Japan. In September 2022, 42,000 people signed a joint petition delivered to TEPCO and Japan’s Ministry of Economy demanding other solutions to the toxic water dumping plans. According to national broadcasting firm NHK, 51% of Japanese respondents oppose the dumping plan. And a survey by Asahi Shimbun claims 55% of the public opposes the dumping.
A Greenpeace East Asia press release d/d April 28, 2021, says; “According to the latest report by the Japanese government, there are 62 radioactive isotopes found in the existing nuclear water tanks in Fukushima, among which concentration of a radionuclide called tritium reached about 860 TBq (terabecquerel) – an alarming level that far exceeds the acceptable norm.”
China’s Xinhua News Agency claims: “TEPCO believes that tritium normally remains in the wastewater at ordinary nuclear power stations, therefore it is safe to discharge tritium-contaminated water. Experts say TEPCO is trying to confuse the concept of the wastewater that meets international standards during normal operation of nuclear power plants with that of the complex nuclear-contaminated water produced after the core meltdowns at the wrecked Fukushima power plant. The actual results of ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System) are not as ideal as TEPCO claims. Japanese media have found that in addition to tritium, there are a variety of radioactive substances in the Fukushima nuclear wastewater that exceed the standard. TEPCO has also admitted that about 70 percent of the water treated by ALPS contains radionuclides other than tritium at the concentration which exceeds legally required standards and requires filtration again.”
According to Hiroyuki Uchida, mayor of Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, despite strengthened information about the toxic dumping by TEPCO and the government of Japan, the discharge plan has not gained “full understanding of citizens and fishery stakeholders.”
Rhea Moss-Christian, executive director of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, aka: the Pacific Tuna Commission said: “It’s a real concern and I just wish they would take a bit of time to think more carefully about this… this is a massive release and a big, big potential disaster if it’s not handled properly… There are a number of outstanding questions that have yet to be fully answered. They have focused a lot on one radionuclide and not very much on others that are also present in the wastewater.”
Greenpeace/Japan on TEPCO dumping: “The Japanese government has once again failed the people of Fukushima. The government has taken the wholly unjustified decision to deliberately contaminate the Pacific Ocean with radioactive wastes. It has discounted the radiation risks and turned its back on the clear evidence that sufficient storage capacity is available on the nuclear site as well as in surrounding districts.[2] Rather than using the best available technology to minimize radiation hazards by storing and processing the water over the long term, they have opted for the cheapest option [3], dumping the water into the Pacific Ocean… Since 2012, Greenpeace has proactively campaigned against plans to discharge Fukushima contaminated water – submitting technical analysis to UN agencies, holding seminars with local residents of Fukushima with other NGOs, and petitioning against the discharges and submitted to relevant Japanese government bodies.” (Source: Greenpeace Press Release, April 13, 2021)
Addressing the U.N. General Assembly on September 22nd, 2022, President David Panuelo of Micronesia stated: “We cannot close our eyes to the unimaginable threats of nuclear contamination, marine pollution, and eventual destruction of the Blue Pacific Continent. The impacts of this decision are both transboundary and intergenerational in nature.”
In April 2021 Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister (serving from 2012-to-2021) Tarō Asō publicly stated that the treated and diluted water “will be safe to drink.” In response to Deputy PM Asō, Chinese Foreign Minister Lijian Zhao replied: “The ocean is not Japan’s trashcan” and furthermore, since Japan claims it’s safe to drink, “then drink it!” (Source: China to Japan: If Treated Radioactive Water from Fukushima is Safe, ‘Please Drink It’ Washington Post, April 15, 2021)
Mr. Zhao may have stumbled upon the best solution to international concerns about TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) dumping contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean. Instead, TEPCO should remove it from the storage tanks at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station and deliver it to Japan’s water reservoirs. After all, they publicly claimed it’s “safe to drink.” Japan has approximately 100,000 dams of which roughly 3,000 are reservoirs over 15 meters (50’) height. For example, one of the largest drinking water reservoirs in Japan is Ogouchi Reservoir, which holds 189 million tons of drinking water for Tokyo.
Florence Nightingale, the English pioneer of modern nursing is quoted as saying, “I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse.”
Editors note: Never give up your agency. If your goal is to save life on the planet, sometimes you have to sink your own boat.
Derrick Jensen This is Resistance Radio on the Progressive Radio Network. My guest today is Diane Wilson. She’s a mother of five, a fourth generation shrimp boat captain and an environmental activist. She’s been fighting to save the bays on the Texas gulf coast from chemical and oil development for the last 30 years. I also have to say that you have for at least 15-18 years been one of my heroes so thank you for that.
Diane Wilson Thank you Derrick, I appreciate that.
Derrick Jensen Thank you in general for your work in the world and thank you for being on the program. My first two questions are – can you introduce yourself and can you also then introduce the region where you live, the region you love
Diane Wilson First of all I’m a fourth generation fisherwoman, shrimp boat captain. My family has been around this area on the mid-Texas gulf coast for about 130 years so you might say I’ve got a real sense of place, where I was born and raised. I’ve been in the same town for my whole life. I’m 72 years old so I always call myself a late bloomer. Anybody out there who thinks they’re too old to start – that is not true. As a matter of fact, it just gets better as you get older. You get a little bit more free every year.
Basically, all of my family – my brothers, my brothers-in-law, my cousins, my uncles, everybody in the early days they were just gill netters, fin fishermen and they caught black drum and red drum. They had little wooden boats and they oared out. Where I’m from is a little fishing town. It’s probably the most authentic fishing village on the whole Texas gulf coast – Seadrift. We were all fishermen and your whole life was centered around the fish house, the bays, the nets the boats and that was your life. As a matter of fact, like most kids around my age, you spent your whole life outside. I was always on a boat I was always out on the water laying in.
I remember I was a real introvert even though people have accused me of being a real troublemaker, I’m by nature a real introvert. I can remember going to the fish house where my dad was coming in in the evenings and I would go to the bay and there was this old woman down there and she really liked me and when you’re one of seven kids and you’re getting attention from somebody and somebody likes you. I mean I liked going down there because of that old woman and she felt like she was my grandmother and the only thing I realized when I got older is that woman was the bay and she was as real to me as any other member of my family. I have never forgotten her and I have never forgotten what it feels like for something, what people call a resource or a commodity or an ecosystem, to me it was real and it had an aliveness and it had an energy.
When you’re small and your dad is just a small-town fisherman and you’ve got a small boat – I imagine his boat was good – and you would go out there because fishermen were poor people and they really couldn’t afford deck hands. So they would generally take the kids along. I had three sisters and me. My three sisters we decked for my dad and I really, really liked being out there and I was really good at it. When you had to take your turn at a wheel; when you’re dragging a net and you’re kind of holding the wheel and you gotta hold the wheel just so because you got to keep the net and the wheel wash in the shrimp all at the same time. My sisters would start crying because when you start turning a boat into the wind with the waves it will almost feel like you’re flipping over so my sisters did not like did not like handling the wheel but I loved it. I loved going out in the mornings and it was still dark and there was nothing but that salt air in that wind and you’re just barreling out in the dead of night. You see nothing. it’s almost like your instinct and there are very few beacons. It’s just years and years of doing it. I can remember and I suppose it’s because I had a real sense of the energy of that old woman. It’s like you literally could feel like your skin would separate – the wind in the water would just kind of move in there and it actually made me a bit of a mystic.
I’m a little bit of a mystic and I hate to tell you, I was raised Pentecostal and that’s holy rolling – speaking in tongues. My grandmother was a faith healer and I think she tried to raise my uncle from the dead and all kinds of stuff like that. I’m not that but I am a mystic and I have a real sense of what’s alive out there. People think it’s only what you see and it’s only yourself and it’s only the boundaries and the borders within your skin – that’s not true. As a matter of fact, that’s why I like your books so much because you seem to have a real sense of the connectedness and how valuable everything was. I could sense that, and I think it was because I spent all my life on the bay and I was a little bit of a loner so I didn’t have that peer pressure – sometimes at a certain age you get peer pressure and you get pulled away from that naturalness. I don’t think I was pulled away from it, so I’ve always had it my whole life and I still have it. It’s like a lot of the stuff that I do. It’s gut instinct and I don’t believe I’ve ever had a plan. I feel like I leave myself open for the energy because I truly believe there is energy out from nature and it’s got an intelligence, if you just work with it.
My location down here is mid-Texas gulf coast. We’re around Matagorda Bay, Lavaca Bay, Spirit Center Bay, San Antonio Bay, Mesquite Bay, Guadalupe Bay. Our county is a tiny county. When I was growing up there’s probably like 12 000 people in the whole county. The town where I was raised, Seadrift, was a thousand people. It’s been through so many hurricanes I can’t even tell you. It’s had so many hotels and railroads and restaurants and lumber yards destroyed in hurricanes. It always remains a very small town – a thousand people – and it’s always been this fishing town. We’re close to what they used to call Blackjack Island and now it’s known for the Aransas wildlife refuge. That’s where the endangered whooping cranes come every winter. They count every single last whooping crane that is left and they all come down and they nest in what they call Aransas wildlife refuge. Where my folks were from, they were fishermen there, and one of my uncles was in a hailstorm that killed a hundred cattle they had hail so big. He drowned out on the bay. I had another uncle, they had bonfires in those days and they did a lot of cooking on bonfires He was just a toddler and fell in the fire. I’ve got kin folks that are buried out there on that island. I’ve got a real sense of ancestries around here.
I know this whole area around here was where the Karankawa were. Those very tall, good looking, native American indigenous people and they lived around the water. We went across to where they were. They had all these arrow heads and all their camps and places and I believe I’m not too far from where there was literally a battle between some Irish settlers that came in. The Karankawas must have taken one of their calves and so they raided them and killed most of them and it was over a calf. It’s a sad part of the history down here. I think a lot of the Karankawas went to Mexico. That’s the history of this area. Even the Karankawas were early fishermen, and they laid the shrimp out to dry. I remember someone was telling me they would have a burning stake and stick it out in the shallow water and shrimp will come to the light and that’s where they would get a lot of their shrimp. They would have little catch nets or whatever and they would get the shrimp and then they’d dry them. That was one of their one of their ways they got nourishment around here. But like I said the Karankawa is no more although they’ve named bays and towns after them, but it’s a tragedy.
A lot of this area is where a lot of Irish settlers came in and a lot of German boats came in. There used to be a town called Indianola and now it’s a ghost town because that was where these big ships came in. All these German settlers came in and I think there was even a big civil war battle right there in Indianola and it was right on Matagorda bay. Two hurricanes hit it, one right behind another; then a fire hit it and then I believe smallpox wiped everybody out so now all you got is a beach. People say they can see that train out there when the tide’s real low although I have not seen that train.
Derrick Jensen Can you talk about what has happened and what caused you to become an activist? What has happened to the region in terms of industry and its effects on the bay and also its effects on fishing including shrimping?
Diane Wilson Well in the beginning there was no law; there was no verdict from Congress that industry had to say anything to anybody. So for a very long time these industries like, for instance. Alcoa and Union Carbide – very big plants – came in around 1950. They didn’t say nothing to nobody. They just did what they did. Sometimes the shrimpers, if it was a bad winter, might get a job for two or three months during the winter months and drive a truck or something like that. But basically, this industry did not have to report to anybody at all and the only thing that fishermen would get is when the times that they would work. They would say “they told me to take these barrels down to Stinky Ditch and I dumped them down there and I nearly passed out from smell and I remember and everybody in my unit is dead” or stuff like that. But it was just anecdotal because industry did not have to report or say anything to anybody.
Around 1989 shrimping was starting to fall off and so I started running a fish house. A fish house is a tin building. It’s got open windows and it’s got double wide doors that open to the bay and it’s got this long dock and this is where shrimpers bring their boats in. They tie up, they unload their catch – usually shrimp – and you take it into the fish house, put it on ice. You put it in these ice vaults so you can ship them off on these trucks later. I ran a fish house probably for five years. If I happened to look out that window, I could see my shrimp boat which was SeaBee and she was she was tied right up to the docks. I had probably 14 shrimp boats that I took care of.
One day I had this shrimper and he had three different types of cancer and he had these huge lumps all over his body and he was the best looking. I mean he looked like a surfer from California. My mama thought he was about the nicest looking guy she had ever laid eyes on. Anyway, he had all this cancer and one day I was in the fish house and I was sitting with a cup of coffee and I had my rubber boots sitting up on the desk and he came in and pitched this newspaper article to me. He said I want you to read that and like I said I’m a real quiet person so anyway I looked at the newspaper article. It was 1989 and on that front page article, The Victoria Advocate, was an associated press story and it was talking about the first time the toxic release inventory ever came out. The toxic release inventory was a community “right to know” bill
that was passed in Congress after Bhopal. People mainly know Bhopal because of Union Carbide was doing this whole effort to make India green and they were doing a pesticide plant in Bhopal, india. It wasn’t working so they were cutting all the safety. Anything that had to do about the lowering the temperature, about alarms, about freezing; they were removing it and the unthinkable happened and there was a chain reaction. There was a debate over actually how many people died but probably around two or three thousand died that first night in Bhopal, India. It was the worst environmental disaster that has ever happened and I think it still is. I think at this point maybe 20 000 people died from that one incident by Union Carbide. Because of it Congress passed the community “right to know” law meaning that there would not be another time when anyone in the US woke up one morning and there was something like that happen because they didn’t know what the industry next to them was doing or what they were polluting with. So, for the first time ever, industry in the United States had to report their air emissions, their water emissions, their injection wells, their landfill, their trucking – all of it. They had to report the numbers for the first time ever and that’s what that article was about. Our little bitty county with 12 000 people in the whole county we were number one in the nation and it literally blew my mind. It’s like “how could you be the most polluted place in the United States probably if it was the United States it was probably ranking worldwide and never know it?” I had never heard the first word about it. So, I acted totally out of character because I don’t like talking, I don’t like having to deal with people. I’ve never had a meeting called in my entire life but I went to City Hall. I walked down to City Hall which wasn’t too far away. I had that newspaper article and I went to the City Secretary and I said I want to have a meeting. There was the City Hall and a little bitty room that sometimes they let people have birthday parties or whatever. I said I wanted to use that little room and I wanted to talk about that we were number one in the nation. So, they put it down and they put down my name and the next day I was at the fish house and here comes the City Secretary. Well, you never see anybody, all you see is fishermen down there and here was a City Secretary and I still remember she had the prettiest fulstar with flowers all over it and she said “Diane you’re just gonna have to get this meeting out of the city hall.” I was like “why?” and she said “oh red flags; it’s putting out red flags all over the place.” I’m like “well I’ll do it in an elementary school, you know, they got a cafeteria I’ll do it there.” and she’s like “no they want you to get it totally out of town. They actually don’t want you to do it at all.” I couldn’t get over the fact that I had just asked for it and they didn’t want me to do it. The next day I had the bank president come down to the fish house. I had never talked to that man in my life and here he was, three-piece suit, and he said he said “Diane, are you gonna start a vigilante group roasting industry alive?” I’m totally dumbfounded. I have no idea what they are talking about; why they’re so upset with me – I have not even had the meeting. Then a guy from economic development called my brothers who were fishermen and said you better calm your sister down. My brothers were not the type that would even talk to women and tell them anything. Anyway, one of my brothers said “what in the heck are you doing?” and I’m like “I’m not doing a thing.”
Eventually I did the meeting anyway because I really don’t like people telling me I can’t do something, even though I’m a real quiet person, so I went ahead and had it. I went to a different place and had it. Eventually what it came down to is 1) nobody had ever questioned industry, ever, and 2) it was Formosa plastics, a Taiwanese company who had been kicked out of Taiwan- the biggest chemical expansion in Texas history; the biggest in the United States in 10 years. They had the Governor, the Chamber of Commerce, the Attorney General, the Senators, Congressional and whatever had promised this chemical company. There will be no questions asked; you will get all the tax abatement you want; you will get all your permits expedited; there will be no environmental impact studies. It was pretty much a giveaway and they never once asked one question about this foreign company’s environmental record. They could just come in and we’ll give you everything and I just stumbled on it. It was a fluke. Actually, I went to the mailbox and I got an anonymous letter. I opened it up and it was a newspaper clipping. It was for no supply sticks and it was seven air permits and I didn’t even know what it was. I didn’t know what the company was. When I finally had my little my little meeting as I got a group and I said “we’ll ask for a permanent hearing on this plan.”
As it was, I walked into a hornet’s nest. They couldn’t figure out who I was. They figured I was an official woman – a woman- so I was not bright enough to be doing this on my own. So they figured I was a spy hired by Louisiana to get it kicked out of Texas so the chemical plant would go to Louisiana. That’s how it started, and it never got any better – it got rougher and rougher. I mean everything for the last 30 years has been a battle. It’s been a battle and you just have to be very, very persistent. I think the reason why I’m so persistent is I am connected to that bay.
I remember when I first started. All I got was high school education, I didn’t have any money and nobody supported me. A fishing woman speaking out! People thought I was kind of crazy and all I had was this good sense of the bay. That was what was keeping me going on it. I really kept thinking there’s bound to be someone way better than me; way better at speaking; probably has a biology degree, can understand all of this chemistry and what these chemical plants are and what these chemicals are. It took about five years before I realized I was actually the best person to be doing it because it was my passion. It has always been my passion for the bay that has kept me persistent. That’s what I’ve been doing for 30 years – I’ve been fighting these chemical companies. I fought Union Carbide, I fought Dupont, I fought Alcoa and probably be the longest and the hardest is I fought Formosa.
Derrick Jensen: Thank you for all that. The next two questions are going to be:
can you talk about some of your best victories or your best victory, either way? and
can you talk about current struggles?
Diane Wilson What was to me one of the most interesting things that ever happened and it probably was a psychological kind of a spiritual thing. I had been fighting the Formosa wastewater permit and I had an attorney who agreed to help me and he became a really good friend. People in the community were afraid of the retaliation from the chemical company, especially when a lot of the local officials have contracts with the company. Fishing is going down so you have workers that are being hired at the plant, so nobody wants to say anything and I was the main thing. I haven’t a lawyer who could help me file a suit or something like that. You know a thing about a chemical company. One thing they do is they sense who the allies are so they go after them. On this one they started just throwing them into a deep hole with documents so the money expenses really started hitting them hard and so eventually my lawyer quit and started working for the company. I literally had nobody at all. So, I started filing some papers trying to fight Formosa’s wastewater discharge. When you don’t have a lawyer and you and you don’t have a college education and you got to write briefs and do your own legal work and you don’t have any money. I was doing pretty much filing my own briefs on a Royal typewriter.
Sure enough, they didn’t give me status and they said I couldn’t fight the permit so I appealed it. I always considered you give a monkey a typewriter and after a while that monkey is gonna type a word and so eventually I managed. Believe you me I still don’t know how I did it. I managed to stall the permit with an appeal with a Washington judge, an appellate judge, and so Formosa could not discharge until there was all this ruling and all ofthis process with an appellate judge out of Washington DC.
So I pretty much had their waste water and they could not discharge; they could not begin their plant. So one day I called the EPA to check on the status of the of that discharge permit and I said my name was Diane and I was second on the status. They start talking about “how was that discharge going and I noticed you have some copper discharges but I’m sure we can try to figure out how to do it and you really kind of need to keep the flow in the right periodand now you know.” Then it hit me that she was talking about Formosa’s discharge and she thought I was Formosa’s lawyer whose name was Diane too but that was a different Diane. I said you’re talking to the wrong Diane and that’s when she realized she kind of screwed up there.
Basically, it doesn’t matter what the legal documents say, what the law says – if you have enough money you will get what you want. It was it was the first time I had really come home to the fact that the law doesn’t matter when you got money and when you got power; you really can do what you want, and the law is like a handkerchief in your back pocket. You pull it out when you want to. I was outraged. I was totally outraged about it. The unfairness of it, the injustice of it. It hit me like nothing had hit me before. I knew I had to do something to symbolize that type of injustice. When it appears that nobody cares, everybody overlooks it, it’s injustice going on so I knew I had to do something. l knew that I had to sink something; I had to sink something that I cared a lot about. That’s when I knew I had to sink my shrimp boat. I was going to take it out and sink it on top of Formosa’s illegal discharge. That boat was nowhere near the value of a bay.
Some people can get the little picture, or you can get the big picture. You can look at the little picture and it’s like “oh it’s my livelihood it’s my boat.” It’s “what am i gonna do?” and then you get the big picture and it’s like “this is the planet this is your home for all of us we’re all supposed to be here.” Are you gonna let them take it? I wasn’t gonna let them do it. I was gonna symbolize it by sinking my shrimp boat. So, I put the motor out and I convinced an old shrimper to pull me out in the dead of the night. There was this crazy norther came in at the same time. I can’t imagine how all of these elements came together at the same time – this weather and the black of night in this boat and just doing this covert of pulling a boat out to sink it on top of Formosa’s discharge. There happened to be a shrimper who had been bought back from us and they were paying sixty thousand dollars a year just to be a consultant. He was pretty much just watching me to see what I did and tell the company. Anyway, he pretty much told the company that I was towing a boat out so they called the coastguard. At one o’clock in the morning there were three boatloads of coastguard and they were out there in the middle of the rain and all that wind. They were like “Miss Wilson, Miss Wilson are you out there, Miss Wilson?” They said they’re gonna charge me with terrorism; that I was gonna go to jail for 19 years and it probably took an hour for every two yards because you’ve got a boat towing you; you got a boat with no rudder and you got three coastguards in the middle of the night; in the middle almost of the jetties and all this current. It was the wildest scene of all. These coastguards jumping all over the boats with ropes and all of this stuff. Eventually it took about an hour to happen, but they eventually pulled my boat to a harbor. They put seven or eight ropes and tied it down. They put me in the cabin, locked me in. The guys were so afraid I was gonna get out and somehow take that boat out there without a rudder. I was going to get it out there. They were sleeping on the back deck; they were sleeping in trucks on the wall. I was pretty much stuck there with all these coastguards and all the ropes on my boat. I hadn’t sunk the boat. The next morning when I woke up I heard the sounds of a boat. Then I heard more boats and I looked out the window and there were these shrimpers who never get involved – they don’t believe you can fight; they gave up hope. They think every nail is in their coffin. These guys did a blockade. They all went out in the middle of that rough water. It was so rough you could have sunk a boat out there. I promise you the coast guard does not like shrimp boats blocking anything and here all of these shrimp boats went out in this rough weather and they did a protest and in support of what I was trying to do. That was the most amazing experience to see how if you move sometime and you have no real plan – just have a real instinct – is that things have a way. Some of the most amazing things that you can never plan happen.
I remember after that – Formosa saw all of those fishermen out there protesting in the middle of the bay. I think they had a funny sense of a house built on sand. That’s when uh they asked me “what is it gonna take to shut you up?” and I said “zero discharge of your entire waste stream” and so that’s actually how I got zero discharge from Formosa of this waste stream back in 1994.
Derrick Jensen: I’m sorry that this is so short because i’m loving everything you’re saying and we only have like five minutes left. Can you talk briefly about the lawsuit that you won? Then can you talk about current issues?
Diane Wilson: I have a lot of connection with workers inside the plant. Over the years they’ve come to me with information. I had a worker that was in the utilities or the wastewater and he was a whistleblower. He wanted to give me information, so I met him in a beer joint 40 miles away. He was telling me about all of the pellets that were in the waste stream and how they were going into the bay; how they were in the storm water ditches. He was just real concerned about it because he liked to take his kids fishing and when he took his kids fishing there would be all these pellets all over their feet. So I started checking on the pellets that were coming out of Formosa plastics and the state agencies, EPA – nobody, nobody seemed to care at all. Eventually me and a couple of workers – probably it was three or four of us all together – in January 2016 we started collecting all of these pellets and this powder that was all over the bay, all over the creek. Within a year, and we were all going out almost every single day for over a year, we had a thousand samples and probably had two or three thousand photographs. Then we got a legal aid group – Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid – and they offered to be our lawyers to file a citizen suit under the Clean Water Act. For the next two and a half years until March 2019 we collected around 2500 samples of illegal discharges. We probably had 8 000 photos and videos and we took Formosa to federal court. Believe it or not we won. It was astounding and it was the first time a citizen brought their own evidence; it wasn’t the state’s information; it wasn’t the EPA’s information, it was our evidence. The federal judge said Formosa was a serial polluter and their violations were enormous.
After that Formosa wanted to settle. They wanted to sit down and negotiate. So we sat down and negotiated with one woman, Taiwanese American, and we said we wanted 50 million; we wanted zero discharge of plastics; we wanted a clean up; we wanted our own enforcement and we wanted to make sure their plant did not discharge any plastic and we got it. We got all of it. It was the biggest settlement of a citizen suit ever in the United States. From that 50 million dollars we put 20 million dollars into a sustainable, diverse co-op for the fishermen to try to bring back the fisheries. Right in the middle of it then you know you got this Max Midstream trying to do oil export, and to do oil export he needs the bay dredged so he can get big ships in. Unfortunately, it’s a mercury superfund site and so I did a 36 day hunger strike to try to stop the oil exports and to stop the dredging. After that I went to the corps of engineers and blocked their highway; got arrested, thrown in jail. Then we went to his headquarters, we went to his home and we’re doing every single thing that we can to stop that oil export and stop the dredging because we’re trying to bring back the fishermen who have been devastated and that’s pretty much where I am right now.
Derrick Jensen This whole this whole time you’ve been talking I’ve been thinking about this line by Florence Nightingale which was something to the effect of somebody asked her to what did she attribute her success and she said “I never gave nor took an excuse.”
Diane Wilson That’s right.
Derrick Jensen You know you did not take the excuse that I’m not a lawyer so I can’t do this; I’m not a somebody so I can’t do this – you just did it That’s one of the reasons you’ve been one of my heroes forever.
Diane Wilson Thank you very much, I really appreciate it. You know when that Taiwanese American lady, that negotiated, the only woman that came in, when I walked in, and looked at me and said “you are very persistent”. You do it and be persistent; just keep doing it.
Derrick Jensen So my last question for today, and I’d love to have you on again, my last question for today is one of the things I try to do with these series of interviews is to help people. I mean everybody knows something that is that is bad; everybody loves something that is being destroyed. What can you say to them to help move them from sitting around going “gosh things are really bad somebody should do something” to being the person who does something. Or to being one of the people that does something. Can you say something to them?
Diane Wilson Basically I believe everybody, and I truly mean everybody, has – it’s almost like a destiny – there is something we are meant to do. Somewhere in their life some little piece of information is going to come to them. What they do with that information will determine the rest of their lives. I am just so glad I acted totally out of character and stepped out. That’s what you gotta do and I think everybody gets a chance. It’s what decision they’re gonna make on it and it will change your whole life. I’ve lost a lot of stuff but for the first time I remember “I like myself” and for a woman from the south to say she likes herself that’s a big deal. It’s changed my whole life. I am 72 and I have never felt so free and happy in my life.
Derrick Jensen Thank you so much for all of that and thank you for your work in the world and i would like to thank listeners for listening. My guest today has been Diane Wilson. This is Derrick Jensen for Resistance Radio on the Progressive Radio Network.
Featured image: Barge transporting oil drums in the Niger Delta. Image by Stakeholder Democracy via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
Oil has been spilling from a wellhead in Nigeria’s Bayelsa state for a month now, with the local company responsible unable to contain it.
Experts say the scale and duration of the spill is so severe that it’s imperative that local communities be relocated for their safety.
Oil spills and other forms of pollution caused by the industry are common in Bayelsa, the heart of the oil-rich Niger Delta.
Companies, including foreign oil majors, are largely left to self-declare the spills that frequently occur, but face only token fines for failing to respond quickly.
Crude oil from a blowout has been pouring into creeks in the Niger Delta since Nov. 5, with the well’s owner, Nigerian energy firm Aiteo, unable to contain the spill and specialists called in to help.
The blowout, at a non-producing well in the Santa Barbara field in Bayelsa state, has caused extensive pollution of rivers and farmland in the Nembe local government area, according to the state governor, Douye Diri. According to the News Agency of Nigeria, he said Aiteo should not think that “this criminal neglect of its facilities and disregard for human life and the environment, as demonstrated by its conduct, will not be accounted for.”
In a statement released Nov. 22, the company blamed the incident on sabotage. “Aiteo remains committed to ascertaining, immediately the well head is secure, the immediate and remote causes of the leak which will be driven by a [joint investigative visit] that will follow,” it said.
The oil industry in Nigeria attributes many oil spills to sabotage by people trying to steal crude. Nigeria’s National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), which relies almost entirely on the industry itself for access to on- and offshore oil facilities, reports that around 75%of spills are caused by sabotage and theft.
The joint team initially despatched to the Nembe spill was unable to determine the cause of the spill, as the wellhead could not be accessed “due to hydrocarbon fumes that saturated the atmosphere in the area.” A video of the spill site, captured Nov. 29, showed a high-pressure stream of brownish liquid spraying through the creeks from a wellhead as technicians worked on the site.
The scale of the spill has overwhelmed local disaster response capabilities, and U.S.-headquartered oil-well control specialist Halliburton Boots and Coots has been drafted in to “kill the well,” a process that involves injecting cement into the well to plug it.
“Work is still ongoing at the site to stop the spill,” NOSDRA director-general Idris Musa told Mongabay last week, but all activities around the well were temporarily suspended Nov. 29 to allow the well-kill operation to proceed.
Decades of destruction
The Niger Delta is rich in biological diversity and natural resources. Its creeks, swamps and mangrove forests are home to fishing and farming communities as well as threatened species including manatees (Trichechus senegalensis), chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes ellioti), and the Niger Delta red colobus (Piliocolobus epieni).
But decades of oil production have made the region one of the most polluted places on Earth. NOSDRA recorded 639 oil spills in just the past two years, resulting in 28,003 barrels spewed into the environment, according to the agency’s data.
Bayelsa is where oil was first discovered in Nigeria, in 1956. In the decades since, oil spills from wells and pipelines have contaminated farmland and water bodies, and exposed residents to toxic chemicals. Flaring of gas has led to acid rain falling on the area, while contributing to making Nigeria the 17th largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the world.
This environmental destruction has been caused by oil majors including Shell, Chevron and Eni. The Nembe well was bought from Shell by Lagos-based Aiteo in 2015.
“It is extremely disturbing because the trend we are seeing now is that international oil companies know that their equipment are dilapidated, and to avoid responsibility, they move offshore and sell to gullible local companies who think they can make profit and are not ready or equipped to [deal with] this kind of emergencies,” said Nnimmo Bassey, an environmentalist and founder of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), a prominent green NGO in Nigeria.
Dead and dying trees near the site of a previous Niger Delta oil spill in 2020. Image by Sosialistisk Ungdom (SU) via Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0).
Consequences — just not for oil companies
The impact of the Nembe spill on local communities and the environment is still to be determined, but Samuel Oburo, an environmental activist affiliated with Friends of the Earth, who lives about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Nembe, says villagers in the area have been badly impacted.
“I can tell you that the people there face great danger. They have started crying out. They have started experiencing strange illnesses due to the unfriendly atmosphere this spill has exposed the community to,” he told Mongabay over the phone.
But getting oil firms to clean up or pay for environmental crimes in Nigeria is difficult. Legal claims for compensation can take years, even decades, and companies are expected to pay relatively little in fines when they err.
NOSDRA’S regulations say oil companies have 24 hours to respond to the discovery of a spill. A joint visit by government agencies, company officials and community representatives should take place as soon as possible. But a 2018 study by Amnesty International found frequent delays, with some spills continuing for months after they were reported.
Shell, one of the largest operators in the country, visited spill sites within 24 hours on just 26% of occasions, Amnesty said. The slowest response time recorded was when Eni took 430 days to respond to a spill in Bayelsa state. “These delays point to serious negligence. Shell and Eni are wealthy, powerful multinationals: why can’t they act faster? Why can’t they do more?,” the report said.
But the penalties for noncompliance are negligible: 1 million naira ($2,400) for an initial default, and an additional 500,000 naira for every day after that.
“How much is N500,000 to an oil company?” NOSDRA’s Idris Musa said. An amendment increasing the fines is in progress.
Speaking to the ongoing spill at Nembe, HOMEF’s Bassey said that considering the apparent scale and duration of the latest spill, the safest option for residents of the area is to be relocated. “This area does not have pipe-borne water, and when the river is covered with crude oil, it means they have to depend on imported water,” he said. “Some may drink from that river because these areas are permanently polluted and they have no option. Children will swim in that river and people will drink from that river.”
“Crude oil contains very toxic heavy metals like lead; you know, lead affects a lot things concerning people, the nervous system, causes cancer. You have mercury in oil, you have cadmium, you have arsenic and benzene and many others,” he told Mongabay.
“So anybody eating fish from that river is in trouble already. So the relief that they are giving, I believe they should actually evacuate people from that territory at this time.”
Oburo agreed: “So long as the spill continues, there is nothing that can be done to restore the air quality. The only solution is to evacuate those people from there because their lives are precious.”
Bayelsa government spokesperson Dan Alabrah said the state is providing relief materials to communities, but had no plans to relocate them.
Editor’s note: This article has been published in The International Journal of Human Rights. Unfortunaltly we don’t have the rights to publish the whole article which is behind a paywall, but we are publishing the extract and some quotes.
Featured image: The surface mine storage place, mining minerals and brown coal in different colours. View from above. Photo by Curioso Photography on Unsplash
ABSTRACT
This article describes the connections between resource extraction, prostitution, poverty, and climate change. Although resource extraction and prostitution have been viewed as separate phenomena, this article suggests that they are related harms that result in multiple violations of women’s human rights. The businesses of resource extraction and prostitution adversely impact women’s lives, especially those who are poor, ethnically or racially marginalised, and young. The article clarifies associations between prostitution and climate change on the one hand, and poverty, choicelessness, and the appearance of consent on the other. We discuss human rights conventions that are relevant to mitigation of the harms caused by extreme poverty, homelessness, resource extraction, climate change, and prostitution. These include anti-slavery conventions and women’s sex-based rights conventions.
Farley writes: “In this article we offer some conceptual and empirical connections between prostitution, resource extraction, poverty, and climate change.1 These associations are clarified by Seiya Morita’s visual diagram, in Figure 1.2 In the short term, resource extraction leads to a sudden increase in the sex trade, as shown by the arrow on the left side of the diagram. In the long term, resource extraction causes climate change as indicated by the right arrow. Climate change then leads to crises in peoples’ ability to survive extreme events such as drought, floods, or agricultural collapse. These climate change catastrophes result in poverty which then mediates and channels women into the sex trade. The arrow on the bottom of Figure 1 illustrates this process.
The initial phase of resource extraction launches and expands prostitution
“At first, colonists and their descendants subordinate indigenous people who live on lands rich in natural resources. Historically, extraction industries have exploited young, poor men who are paid well to perform jobs that no one else wants because the jobs are unplea- sant and dangerous. This initial phase of resource extraction temporarily results in a boom economy with cash-rich but lonely working-class men. In order to pacify the workers and enrich the pimps, women and girls who are under pimp control are delivered to workers in these boom/sacrifice zones such as the Bakken oil fields in USA and Canada, gold mines in South Africa, coltan mining regions in Colombia, and logging regions in Brazil.3 This movement of trafficked women increases prostitution both in the boom town and in neigh- bouring communities. Following is an example of this process.
“The Bakken oil fields of Montana/North Dakota/Saskatchewan/Manitoba are located in lands where the Dakota Access Pipeline causes physical, psychological, and cultural damage to the community, and ecocidal harm to the land and the water.4 In 2008, large numbers of pipeline workers moved into the Bakken region’s barracks-style housing which were named man camps. Sexual assaults, domestic violence, and sex trafficking tripled in communities adjacent to the oilfield sacrifice zones,5 with especially high rates of sexual violence toward Native women.6 Adverse consequences of living near extractive projects include increased rates of sexually transmitted infections and still- births; general deterioration in health; ecological degradation and climate change; threats to food security; and political corruption – all of which severely impact women.7 When resource extraction is terminated, for example when coltan mining was halted in Congo because of environmental protests, the newly expanding sex trade remains in operation, an enduring legacy of colonisation. Belgium’s domination of Congo gradually shifted from state to corporate colonisation.8 The Belgian colonists’ commodification of the nation diminished the people’s social and political power, leaving them poorer, with fewer resources, and often desperate for a means of survival even before the later phase of climate change occurred. This sequence happens wherever resources are commodified. Initially, a boom economy based on resource extraction creates short-term job opportunities and wealth previously unknown. Prostitution is established both to pacify the workers and to generate money for pimps and traffickers. When the boom economy goes bust, men’s continued demand for paid sexual access, combined with women’s need for survival – drive the institution of prostitution, which remains even after the extraction industry has ended.”
Melissa Farley (2021): Making the connections: resource extraction, prostitution, poverty, climate change, and human rights, The International Journal of Human Rights, DOI: 10.1080/13642987.2021.1997999
Melissa Farley
Melissa Farley is a research and clinical psychologist who has authored many articles and 2 books on the topic of prostitution, pimping/trafficking, and pornography. She is the executive director of Prostitution Research & Education, a nonprofit research institute that conducts original research on the sex trade and provides a library of information for survivors, advocates, policymakers, and the public. Access to the free library is at www.prostitutionresearch.com.
A ravenous, yet decrepit cyborg – part machine, part zombie – lurches onward as it is programmed to do. Its hunger is so insatiable that it eats its own flesh; it eats its offspring; and it eats the future. The catabolic effects are inescapable and its death rattle reverberates for miles. An entire city lives inside this beast. Yet in this late hour, inhabitants put their heads down and carry-on as usual, for they are all dependent upon this monster for their very own food, water, and shelter. No one dares utter a stray word, until the day one brave soul holds up a mirror that reveals who they have become.
A decade ago, I attended a series of contentious activist meetings with Rio Tinto, the mega-mining corporation that owns the massive Kennecott copper pit in the Salt Lake Valley. Rio Tinto planned to expand the mine, and activists were pushing back. The meetings foundered and collapsed upon the lack of viable possibilities for avoiding local impacts and for making operations more sustainable. Activists’ proposals were considered impractical and unprofitable. Ultimately, Kennecott got its expansion and activists got nothing.
Jean Arnold, Civilization, 2012, oil on canvas, 42 x 42 inches. An early Egyptian pyramid is seen with the gaping hole of the Kennecott copper pit. As civilization builds up monuments to itself, it must tear down into Earth for her treasures.
As a visual artist, I took my angst to the studio and captured eviscerated earth in a series of paintings and drawings, depicting large-scale mining operations that are rarely seen or considered by the public. What better way to reveal our civilization’s insatiable hunger for resources?
I realized that the mining industry cannot be greened, intrinsically by its very nature. Mining casts a long shadow: habitat loss, land theft, worker exploitation, local health impacts, and groundwater contamination, to name just a few issues. Without mining and other forms of extraction, Industrial Civilization could not exist. Yet we rarely ponder our Wonder-World’s material basis and its extraction costs.
Turns out I’m not the only one working in this vein – far from it.
This year a broad panoply of photographers, painters, poets, and printmakers are raising a ruckus in a four-continent constellation of almost sixty exhibits, installations, performances, and events under the rubric “EXTRACTION: Art on the Edge of the Abyss.” When EXTRACTION originator Peter Koch announced the project, it took off like wildfire. Creators are shining lights on all forms of the omnivorous extractive industry, “from mining and drilling to the reckless plundering and exploitation of fresh water, fertile soil, timber, marine life, and innumerable other resources across the globe.” The project’s broad definition begs the questions: In our civilization, what isn’t based on extraction? What isn’t affected by extraction?
The Algonquin word “wetiko” reveals extraction as a symptom of the culture-wide soul-sickness driven by domination, greed, and consumptive excess. It blinds humans from seeing ourselves as part of an interdependent whole, in communion with all of life. It is through this toxic mindset that the world is divided up and consumed for profit.
Extraction is an uncomfortable topic: it confronts us with our system’s voracious appetite for taking Earth’s riches without reciprocity – the very epitome of wetiko. Sure, we can point at capitalism, corporations and elite interests, but as participants in this wetiko culture we are all infected by this mind virus.
Far beyond a “problem” – extraction and its consequences pose a predicament without escape. Humanity is hitting planetary limits: declining resources, excess CO2 in the atmosphere, and plastic choking our oceans. Many of the proposed “solutions,” are just new iterations of the same paradigm, bringing more extraction. For example, see our blog “We are Strip-Mining Life While We Drink ‘Bright Green Lies’” as to why “green” tech will never save us. Humanity has dug itself deep into a hole from which few of us may emerge.
Since stories create meaning, the “wetikonomy” seeks to maintain itself through a tight control over its own narratives. In our situation, the system rewards those that uphold its delusions: endless growth, techno-magic, fulfillment through consumption, and superiority over nature. We are told there is no alternative and things are getting better all the time.
Stephen Braun, The Hoarder, 2009, raku ceramics, 24 x 30 x 8 inches. Clinging to the same mentality at the root cause of the crises.
The pressure to act according to these grand-yet-contradictory narratives is pervasive, which means compliance is near-universal. Witness the charades played by world leaders and diplomats at decades of climate conferences, giving lip service to fossil fuel phase-out while maintaining the techno-growth-extraction paradigm – essentially mocking the stated climate goals by clinging to the same mentality at the root cause of the crisis. Does anyone think this year’s climate conference, COP26 in Glasgow will play out differently?
Why are people so willing to surrender their agency? Society is captivated by a grand bargain described by social critic Lewis Mumford in his 1964 essay “Authoritarian and Democratic Technics”:
The bargain … takes the form of a magnificent bribe … each member of the community may claim every material advantage … food, housing, swift transportation, instantaneous communication, medical care, entertainment, education. But on one condition: that one must not merely ask for nothing that the system does not provide, but likewise agree to take everything offered … Once one opts for the system no further choice remains.
In other words, the bribe offers everyone a share in the largess, that is, the cornucopia of material goods unleashed by this industrial economy — as long as one does not question the costs to others, to ecosystems, or to the future.
The wetiko-spirit hates to be seen and named, as this begins to dissolve its parasitic power over its host. Dissent against the existing paradigm is ignored, penalized, or co-opted – that is, absorbed into the hegemony. Until it’s not. The time comes when costs become unbearable, limits are reached, and opposition finally boils over.
Thus, the last thing the power structure wants is a cultural spotlight on extraction, which exposes the core of our malady. And certainly not through art, which has a visceral, soul-level power – a power that scientific reports, statistics, and warnings do not have. Art can play a prophetic role: bearing witness to unsettling matters and grabbing attention before we can turn away. It can portray possibilities previously unconsidered, vitally needed at this time.
Jos Sances, Or, the Whale, 2108-2109, scratchboard, 14 x 51 feet This very large scratchboard drawing was inspired by Moby Dick and the history of whaling in America. The whale’s skin is embedded with a history of capitalism in America—images of human and environmental exploitation and destruction since 1850.
EXTRACTION co-founder Edwin Dobb (now deceased) posed the question of our time: Can we break the spell? A growing chorus on the periphery – Greta Thunberg, poets, painters, performance artists, Extinction Rebellion – is revealing the sociopathic end-game holding us in its grip and unraveling slowly in real time. Learning to see wetiko within ourselves and our culture can begin to break its spell. Can we come to see our own hubris?Contraction is coming whether we like it or not – how can we deal with this if we are spellbound? We have no individual or collective roadmap for the coming post-extraction Reality.
The EXTRACTION project’s exhibits and events are winding down, although organizers hope for continuation in some form. Only a few more venues are scheduled to open, yet its effects will continue rippling outwards. The project has legitimized the extraction art movement and showcased some of today’s most potent work. It has broadened my own definition of extraction-inspired art, which helps me see new possibilities. The project will live on in the evolving work of extraction artists and in others forging authentic responses to our global predicaments. Art is all-too-often wed to money and societal embrace, compromising its own power and obscuring rather than illuminating Reality. Artmaking on the margins is not easy, so supporting this work is necessary.
Chris Boyer, Atlantic Salmon Pens, Welshpool, New Brunswick, Canada (44.885980°, -66.959243°), 2018.
Art that challenges the wetiko-extraction paradigm will become even more relevant, as extraction’s impacts widen. Extraction art is not going away, until extraction itself goes away. While industrial-scale extraction has “only” been with us for four hundred years, art has been with us for thousands of generations, since our early ancestors rendered images inside caves.
EXTRACTION megazine (648 pages): download for free or purchase a printed copy for $25 + $7 shipping.
Partly a group catalog of extraction-related artwork, each artist or creator’s individual contribution documents their own personal investigations into the extraction question. The project is by no means limited to the visual arts—in these pages you will also find poetry, critical writings, philosophical treatises, manifestos, musical scores, conversations, historical or found photographs, and much more.
