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On April 26th, 2018, a massive plume of black smoke exploded into the sky above Superior, Wisconsin. When Ginger Juel saw the ominous black cloud from her Duluth, Minnesota home across the water, and she immediately knew that something was wrong. However, when she turned on the news to see what was going on, there were no reports of any black smoke. Being a lifetime Twin Ports (Duluth, MN and Superior, WI) resident, she was especially concerned because she knew the smoke was billowing from Husky Refinery, and she knew that all five K-12 schools in Superior were located within 1-2 miles of the refinery.
So when the news failed to provide any information on the potential disaster, Juel turned to social media. As she began to comb through tweets about the area, she noticed that there was a Facebook live stream of the plume, warning people it was coming from the refinery. Even more alarming, the wife of a refinery worker had tweeted that there had been a fire at the refinery and all of the workers had been evacuated. Her husband had come home to tell her to pack up their kids and leave town.
Growing increasingly worried, Juel called her family members and advised that they leave town before preparing to leave the area herself. Her family was hesitant, because there were still no official evacuation orders from the city. They assumed that if there was any real danger, they would have heard about it, and that it would be okay.
As Juel learned later, Twin Ports was extremely lucky on April 26th. The tanks that exploded and caused the smoke plume on April 26th were a mere 200 feet from the tanks that contain Hydrogen Fluoride (HF), which is an incredibly dangerous compound that’s lethal even in small doses. Had the fires reached the tanks containing HF on April 26th, the death toll in Twin Ports could have been staggering— potentially upwards of 100,000.
Despite the immense danger posed by any fire or explosion at a refinery containing HF, Juel recounts an overall lack of leadership from local law enforcement and government in regards to the action. An official evacuation wasn’t ordered until 1:00 pm, even though the fires had been burning since the morning, and there weren’t clear instructions given on when it was safe for residents to return. Many returned early only to suffer from nosebleeds and headaches, and to notice that the air smelled strange. Juel remembers that a tweet she sent warning residents not to drink the water got over 10,000 retweets by Twin Ports residents. People were desperate for information, and official sources were not providing it.
Juel recalls spending the entire night of April 26th unable to sleep after the ordeal. The next morning, she had the conviction that she had to do something to ensure this never happened again.
When the ordeal began, Juel had already been wetting her toes in the world of activism. She first got involved with activism through attending a pipeline protest, and since then made sure to stay involved in issues in her community. However, she had never taken on leadership for a protest, let alone an entire community’s environmental justice movement. Before the explosion, she was planning on starting an organic mushroom farm, but the toxic fumes from the refinery ruined her chances of having a successful first crop.
“I always knew that I wanted to start a nonprofit, but I always assumed it would be about gardening or something,” Juel said. “I just kept thinking: if I don’t do this, who else will?”
So she began leading the charge to get HF banned from the Husky Refinery. She formed the nonprofit organization TPAA, or Twin Ports Action Alliance, who have been working tirelessly ever since. Some successes of TPAA include polling of residents regarding their opinions on HF, email campaigns to local legislators and a successful Chemical Safety Board (CSB) hearing resulting in the CSB calling for the EPA to investigate the use of HF at refineries across the United States.
After one year of hard work, Juel says she’s most proud of how her work has allowed the Twin Ports community to unite in raising awareness of the dangers of HF.
“I’m most proud of the relationships this community has built with each other. This group [/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][of people fighting against HF] hasn’t existed before in a genuine way,” Juel said.
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Category: News Archive
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced last Friday that the EPA is strengthening standards for lead dust, especially in schools and work places, throughout the county. Their updates include reducing the amount of dust considered to be a hazard in an attempt to better reflect the amount of lead that can impact children. These new standards focus on lead dust on floors and on windowsills. <Read more>
Why isn’t the DNC holding a climate debate?
In the past two weeks, climate change activists have been furiously protesting after Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Tom Perez announced that he did not support the Democratic party having a climate specific debate for the 202o elections.
According to Perez, holding a climate debate would be putting too much focus on a single issue, especially when there are candidates like Jay Inslee who are focusing their entire campaign around climate change.
However, environmental organizations don’t see climate as only a single issue, rather the issue that will define everything in the coming decade. 314 Action pledged $100,000 to put on a climate debate, and 15 out of the 23 Democratic candidates want to see a climate-specific debate.
As Vox reports, many democratic voters want to make climate a central issue in the 2020 election, especially since it was hardly brought up in the 2016 election cycle. In Iowa, three quarters of Iowa Democratic caucus voters wanted to see climate change treated as the single most threatening risk to humanity. <Read more>
Sign the petition for the DNC to hold a climate debate!
Most specifically, Sunrise Movement is currently holding a sit in in the DNC protesting the organization’s lack of movement on the climate debate front. Sunrise Movement is a an organization building a network of young people to create an army fighting climate change.
In 2019, fighting climate change is more important than ever. The midwest is flooding, more temperature anomalies have been reported, and large chunks of the polar ice caps are breaking off. What’s even worse is that climate change has the potential to have impact marginalized communities the most. No matter your political affiliations, it’s important to discuss this issue across the aisle.
Sunrise Movement is circulating a petition to demand the DNC hold a climate debate. Click here to sign the petition.
Last Monday, the Supreme Court ruled on Virginia Uranium vs. Warren, a case questioning whether Virginia had the authority to ban Uranium mining, the New York Times Reports. The justices were deciding whether the Atomic Energy Act, a federal law regarding Uranium, would overturn Virginia’s decision to ban the practice after a fierce battle beginning in the 1970s, when Uranium was first discovered in the state.
The Supreme Court upheld Virginia’s right to ban Uranium Mining, with Justice Neil M. Gorusch (joined by Justice Thomas and Justice Kavanaugh) stating that states should have the authority to regulate their own policies on mining. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (joined by Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan) wrote a second opinion, agreeing with much of Gorusch’s analysis but stated that Gorusch’s opinion discussing the perils of questioning the motives of legislation “sweeps well beyond the confines of the case”.
Chief Justice Roberts, along with Justice Breyer and Justice Alito, offered a dissenting opinion. <Read more>
Members of the Seneca Nation paddled down the entire 290 miles of the Allegheny River, called Ohi:yo’ (meaning beautiful river) in the Seneca language, in a journey called Paddle for Peace to Protect Our Waters. The journey has been organized by Seneca cause Defend Ohi:yo’, a group that helped stop corporations from dumping treated fracking water in the river just last year. The purpose of the journey is to raise awareness about the importance of protecting the environment and to protest a proposed pipeline project that will threaten the region’s rivers. <Read more>
- One of many bends down the 290 mile length of Ohi:yo’ (Allegheny) River
Vermont legislators have just passed a bill that will require schools to test water for lead, and that will require the state to pay for it. The bill comes after increased national concern about potential toxins in school water systems: just last year, Vermont tested water in 16 schools, and all were found to have traces of lead in their water. <Read more>
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Corroded faucets can be a source of water contamination / Pixabay Creative Commons
As WWMT News reports, an EPA advisory group will hold three community meetings for the Allied Paper, Portage Creek, Kalamazoo River Superfund Site. These meetings are meant to serve as town halls for the community to discuss the status as the clean up, as well as the role of Michigan and Natural Resource Trustees in the clean up. Each meeting will discuss a different aspect of the Superfund Site clean up. <Read more>
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Portage Creek Superfund site on the Kalamazoo River Jeremy M Wintworth, Creative Commons
In August 2018, a dive group found barrels containing the two specific toxic chemicals required to make Agent Orange at the bottom of Wallowa Lake, Digital Journal reports. One of these chemicals is known to be contaminated with dioxins, which were used in Oregon forests as a herbicide until higher rates of miscarriages were reported in 1979. Residents were alarmed, not only because the lake is treasured by the community but also because it provides drinking water to the nearby town Joseph. However, Oregon DEQ still has not pulled these barrels out of the lake. <Read more>
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A new elementary school in Moore County, North Carolina, is to be constructed between two Superfund sites threatened by high levels of air pollution, NC Policy Watch reports. According to the city, the site bears no heightened risk of contamination, but CHEJ science director Stephen Lester isn’t so sure. Stephen shares CHEJ’s findings that there is no scientifically proven “safe distance” from pollution sites, and he calls into question effectiveness of current school siting guidelines. He recommends that parents sending their kids to the new Aberdeen elementary school in the future be incredibly vigilent about changes in their children’s health.
The Moore County case is particularly relevant because the new Aberdeen elementary school would serve primarily low-income students and students of color. In many ways, constructing a new elementary school is a push toward progress, as existing Aberdeen elementary schools were built during the segregation era. However, the new elementary school’s future location could potentially mean disproportionately exposing students of color and low income students to environmental contamination. As Stephen says, children are at higher risk for health complications from pollution contamination, and no child should have to face health complications due to pollution. <Read more>
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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
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In 2019, the Midwest has experienced unprecedented flooding, BBC reports. The flooding is tied to the increased frequency of rainstorms: not only have they been stronger, but there’s less time for water levels to recede between each one. Floods can be especially damaging for farmers, who’s crops are increasingly threatened by rising waters. <Read more>
