The Monster of Minisink
The events that occurred in the hometown over the last ten-ish years perfectly align themselves to show the hypocrisy of all those who don’t treat environmentalism like it is a social justice issue. Many people in Minisink, New York barely treat environmentalism like it is even an issue, let alone one that has higher stakes for people that are not them. I could spend a while delving into their justifications for the indifference of folks in Minisink to environmentalism or environmental racism, but I think it would do more justice to simply say that they post crap like this on Facebook:
The prevailing ideology among people in Minisink that rich, liberal, elites are telling them what to do because liberals have nothing in their lives more pressing than this climate situation that may or may not be a problem. This prevailing ideology completely overlooks the massive numbers of people of color and low-income families that don’t choose to live next to facilities that expose them to hazardous pollutants. Either due to ignorance or indifference, these were not the people discussed when climate change was discussed in my town. Rather, the main talking points around hazardous waste facilities were that regulation of facilities would harm workers.
That was the case until a large gas fracking company named Millennium Pipeline LLC decided to build its massive compressor station about a mile and a half from my house. When this happened, I saw my town mobilize like it never had before. As the massive structure was being built, hundreds of people came every Saturday morning at 11 to protest its construction. Nobody wanted it there. Facebook posts quickly shifted from the messaging above to all the information about what exposure to benzene and other carcinogens emitted from the plant would do to us over long periods of time.
Ultimately, the community was not successful in stopping the construction of the station. However, the mobilization of the community against this facility in my community makes it impossible to ignore how amplified these same worries are for people that 1.) have no economic freedom to escape these plants and 2.) face much more significant pollution than just one facility in their rural community. If nothing else, these protests showed me, and hopefully my community, that at the end of the day nobody wants to live near something that will harm them or their families. I cannot emphasize enough that experiences like this should not have to occur for people to empathize with the lived experiences of their fellow human beings; but I hope that this potentially opened the eyes of some people in my community and showed them that environmental racism is a pressing issue and a human one.