Victory: St. Mary's Bridge

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rom KSAT 12

Southwest Worker’s Union Celebrates Fixing Of Bridge

Union Pacific Agrees To Fix Bridge Damage After More Than 2 years

SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- A celebration of sorts occurred near the site of a collision between two trains more than two years ago. In 2004, the trains crashed, tossing more than two dozen cars off the tracks on a line between South Presa and Saint Mary’s. In that accident, the Saint Mary’s bridge was damaged, but last week workers began to fix the bridge and the sidewalks below it. Now, the southwest workers' union is celebrating. They said it hasn't been an easy fight to get Union Pacific to agree to fix it, but it's a job that had to be done. The workers' union also said it's not finished with Union Pacific. Their ultimate goal is to get a UP train re-routed out of the city of San Antonio.

Skull Valley Nuke Dumped Stop

Congratulations to Margene & IEN for all your work & dedication

“Nuclear Waste Dump No Longer Threatens Our Homeland; Private Fuel Storage Dump Defeated!”
--Skull Valley Goshute Reservation, Utah

Recent new stories on the defeat of a nuclear waste dump on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation have primarily highlighted the role the state of Utah played in stopping the radioactive spent fuel storage plan. The battle over nuclear waste has been described as a battle between the state, on one side, and the tribe and Private Fuel Storage, a coalition of utilities, on the other. Yet, it is grassroots tribal members from Skull Valley who played the decisive role in defeating the plan, due to their tireless effort and their environmental justice and sovereignty platform.
The grassroots platform is based on protecting the way of life, traditions and homeland of the Goshutes from the ecological and cultural threats posed by radioactive waste storage. It is this platform that rallied a national coalition of Indigenous and environmental groups to support tribal members, and to which the Bureau of Indian Affairs referred in rejecting the waste dump.

“Fourteen years ago, Skull Valley Band Of Goshute members were told of plans to store high-level nuclear waste on our reservation land,” said Margene Bullcreek, founder of the grassroots Skull Valley group Ohngo Gaudadeh Devia (Shoshone word meaning ‘Timber Setting Committee.’) “We were told how safe it was and how it would bring prosperity to our lives. It would have been easy to lose oneself in the vulnerability of the Band members who were groping for wealth as a way out of despair and reservation poverty. For those of us who respect our Devia, our homeland, wealth at the expense of our cultural traditions was never an option for us.”

“Sovereignty is the root of our lives as indigenous peoples, and it can't be bought, sold, or abused with greed and dishonesty when our traditional life is at stake. It gives me a great sense of being an Indigenous woman that Ohngo Gaudadeh Devia members not only spoke out against nuclear power and waste but also stood up for our cultural and traditional values and the protection of animal life, air, water, people and Mother Earth. And in the end, this stance was recognized by the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Indian Affairs,” adds Bullcreek.

In two separate decisions, the Bureau of Indian Affairs disapproved a Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted lease for Private Fuel Storage to use Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation land, and the Bureau of Land Management refused to grant the rights of way needed to build transportation infrastructure to move tons of used nuclear fuel through the state to the storage site. The Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, as "trustee-delegate", issued his ultimate decision and ruling after a “complex task of weighing the long-term viability and preservation of the tribal culture of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute against the benefits and risks from such economic development activities”. In conclusion, Associate Deputy Interior Secretary James Cason wrote: "It is not consistent with the conduct expected of the prudent trustee to approve a proposed lease that promotes storing high level spent fuel on the reservation."

“While the decision is a victory for Margene, who has been fighting to protect her reservation for years now, it is somewhat disappointing that it took the BIA so long to reach this decision”, said Mark EchoHawk, an attorney representing Ohngo Gaudadeh Devia. “In December, 2002, we asked the BIA to withdraw its conditional approval for the PFS lease based on many of the points the BIA now relies on in its decision. The BIA has been aware of the reasons which justify disapproval of the PFS lease for years now, but failed to act,” EchoHawk added.

“This was a precedent-setting and decision the Secretary of Interior made for the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes in that it recognizes our cultural perspective and lives as well as our sovereignty and the trust relationship between the federal government and our reservation community,” said Bullcreek.

Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network said the decision has national implications. “This decision by the Secretary is not only highly important for Goshute people,” he said, “but also for all Indigenous peoples who face the same dilemma and who need protection against environmental injustice.”

En Recuerdo: Mary Lou Ornelas

Southwest Workers Union & the Committee for Environmental Justice Action remember the life and spirit of Mary Lou Ornelas, a member and former Kelly AFB worker. She passed away from liver cancer at 59. from the San Antonio Current: Work-Related (Or: How many lives can a carcinogen touch?) By: Keli Dailey Affectionately known as “Lulu,” Mary Lou Ornelas. Los Dos Gilbertos sing a conjunto farewell to accompany a photo slideshow projected near the closed, silver casket. “Hija Mia Nunca Te Olvidare” reads a banner draped over one of the floral arrangements; from the family viewing area, 80-year-old Janie Saenz sobs her daughter’s name. “I remember that,” someone in the Palm Heights Mortuary memorial room says when the constant in the photos, a composed middle-aged woman in oversized, blush-tinted glasses, appears with a young bride and groom. From the slideshow alone, Mary Lou Ornelas’s life would appear to have been one of celebrations, family milestones, leisure — various “My mom wasn’t a part of any litigation. She just wanted it to be known that those chemicals were dangerous.” — Jacob Moran snapshots feature smiling guests sitting beside her on a couch in a wood-paneled living room. But the 59-year-old’s life was also one of work; as a single mother of four, she’d often work two jobs, sometimes cleaning houses. And in 1978, she got a job at Kelly Air Force Base. Her family says working there killed her. The Defense Department disputes the toxicity of chemicals used at its military bases, and had blocked public disclosure of the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2001 findings about their carcinogenic risks. In July, a report affiliated with the National Academies of Sciences reaffirmed some of the EPA’s risk assessments [see “Blinded With Science,” August 9-15, 2006], which may contribute to discussions about the cause of Ornelas’s liver cancer and the San Antonio native’s death on September 3. What is indisputable, however, is that her career brought her into prolonged contact with the chemical Trichloroethene (TCE), an industrial solvent used to degrease metal parts at the former Kelly Air Force Base’s plating shop, where she worked for 18 years until the base was finally shuttered in 2001. She appeared in a passage in a March 2006 Los Angeles Times article about TCE’s health risks: “With her bare hands, she would dip cotton cloths into buckets of TCE and then wipe grease from aircraft parts. The air in the plating shop was a steamy, solvent-rich brew that turned the walls yellow and had a stench that made visitors wince, she said. The exposure made her dizzy and caused outbreaks of scaly rashes. ‘I would scratch and scratch the sores,’ recalled Ornelas.” Robert Alvarado Sr. put the LA Times reporter in touch with Ornelas, the cousin he grew up with. “We used to go and hear records, oldies but goodies, rock’n’roll, listening to ‘Rock Around the Clock’ together,” he recalls. “She was so happy. If you met her, you’d walk away with a friend.” Alvarado, 64, has lived in the Southside neighborhood surrounding the base for 36 years, and founded the Committee for Environmental Justice Action, a group that has been demanding that the Air Force clean up its former charge, which leaked harmful chemicals into the shallow groundwater beneath some 20,000 neighboring homes, an area known as the “Toxic Triangle.” [See “Containment Policy,” June 28-July 4, 2006.] Alvarado suffers from thyroid cancer and partial blindness — the result of living above a plume of contaminated groundwater that “migrated approximately six miles off-site to the East and Southeast at concentrations above health-base limits,” the EPA’s website reads. Air Force documents show TCE, the nation’s most widespread water contaminant, is present at 1,400 Defense Department pollution sites, according to the LA Times article. “It’s never going to change until the government accepts some responsibility because thay came into the neighborhood and opened bases and then they leave everything behind without cleaning it up,” Alvarado said. But the high incidence of liver cancer, kidney cancer, cervical cancer, birth defects, and leukemia within the ZIP codes surrounding the former base and the need for a full-scale cleanup are only part of the tragedy, Alvarado said. At one time, Kelly was the Air Force’s oldest continuously operating flying base, and also the city’s largest employer: It had more than 25,000 employees, both military and civilian, and in 1989 its payroll exceeded $721 million. Anyone who worked at Kelly at least a year can get free health services from the city’s Environmental Health and Wellness Center at 911 Castroville Road, just as those who lived near the base at least a year can. Since 2000, only 2000 people have visited the center, program manager and nurse Linda Kaufman said. People just aren’t that informed; and you’d expect a disbanded population of workers might never hear about environmental health issues related to a former employer. “My mom, she never sought any further information like hiring a lawyer or getting behind a group,” Moran said. Ornelas kept her health concerns to herself, even as late as 2002, when she started vomiting blood. “The LA Times came down and met with her, and she still didn’t want to pursue anything. My mom wasn’t a part of any litigation. She just wanted it to be known that those chemicals were dangerous. She wanted to let other people know that she worked with TCE … with her bare hands, no gloves or anything, she used to put her bare hands in,” he said. “I just don’t think she was involved enough politically to know, even though she’s had a few other friends die from cancer from her shop … Now that we lost our mom, we might get together something.” “I think this is one of the best times to talk about Kelly,” said Alvarado, who hopes that more former Kelly employees will join the residents’ fight. “Even though my cousin, she’s gone, you know reality strikes and we have proof.” The family has not received Ornelas’s death certificate, nor any confirmation from doctors about the cause of her cancer. “But it was through direct contact with this stuff,” her son insists. “She was a single parent, no child support, never took any welfare, and she raised us well,” Moran said. “And she worked herself to death for us.” Ornelas was buried at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery on Monday, alongside her first husband, who died during a tour of duty in Vietnam. The Committee for Environmental Justice Action is hosting a Kelly AFB health roundtable at Dwight Middle School, 2454 W. Southcross, Saturday, September 23, 8:30 am-12:30 pm. 922-2420.

Stop the Invasion

As the minutemen (armed migrant hunters) attempt to invade Texas for the 3rd time, SWU and allies from South Texas confronted their press conference in Laredo. A couple dozen, predominantly older white men imported from other states and draped with hundreds of American flags, declared war on migrant workers across from the local Border Patrol office. SWU launched its Campaign for Dignity and Justice, carrying a message for a just and peaceful border based on respect. The root of the immigrant issues lies in free trade policies, like NAFTA, that create poverty and oppression on both sides of the border. Our 2 hours of non-stop chanting under the boiling sun added spirit and color to the otherwise lame event.

Che says, "Without migrant workers the capitalist system will crumble to pieces. Without the Minutement the world would be a better place to live."

News coverage:
SA Express News: Tempers Flare as Minutemen take to border
Houston Chronicle: Minutemen volunteers...
Star-Telegram: Texas pays tribute...

Video:
Kens 5: Minutemen Take to Border

Note to HEB customers: the managers of the HEB in Laredo allowed the minutemen to park their large trucks on their lot, but threatened to arrest us for being on their private property.

Where is Mexico??

Lesson: If you are compelled to attack someone for advocating a position against armed ractist vigilantes, please check your facts.

Yesterday, while protesting the newest 'operation' of the minutemen in Laredo Texas, it glaringly came to our attention that these vigilantes, ready to declare war on all people brown, do not know where Mexico is or most other countries for that matter. A potential Congressman from Texas (district-25) and ally of the minutemen asked for my thoughts about if Mexico should militarize its border with Panama.

While it is unclear the logical link between Mexico's border policy and protesting the presence of violent migrant hunters in the US, it is obvious that want-to-be leaders of the so-called 'free world' are clueless when it comes to geography. Whether a reflection of the pathetic educational system or immense national arrogrance, i propose a mandatory world map test for any potential elected officials. At least the subsequent six wrong guesses where all countries in Latin America.

So Grant, keep the message simply and don't try to be too worldly. And next time you open your mouth, know Guatamala and Belize lie on Mexico's southern border.

Kinky is a Racist

Yesterday Kinky Friedman revealed his plan for curbing immigration and crime in Texas (“Kinky maps out his plan for state”). In a racist scapegoating of migrant workers, this so- called plan would further criminalize workers and militarize our border with 10,000 troops while doing nothing to alleviate the persecution of the people that harvest our food and build our homes. Freidman fails to recognize that migration is driven by the U.S.’s own economic policies, which create poverty in Mexico by forcing small farmers to compete with U.S.-government subsidized crops and allow corporations to freely cross the border to escape labor and environmental laws while denying human beings that same right. Workers will seek jobs to feed their families no matter the barriers, and U.S. companies will continue to hire the labor force that is the foundation of our economy. Adding troops to the border will only create more violence and death for those forced to come here in search of work. No human being is illegal – and immigrants deserve all the rights of U.S. citizens.

Friedman also called displaced victims of hurricane Katrina “crackheads and thugs”. If anyone is on crack, it’s Friedman. The federal and state governments have failed completely to provide the assistance with loan refinancing or rebuilding costs that is needed to guarantee that low-income and African American communities have the right to return to and rebuild their city of New Orleans. Friedman is appealing to the same ideology that created this crisis in the first place: historically-rooted and institutionally-perpetuated racism. That is what kept black New Orleaneans poor, uninsured, and living in the more flood-prone neighborhoods of New Orleans.