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https://reasonstobecheerful.world/diane-wilson-texas-shrimper-pollution-fight/>
"First, the shrimp disappeared. In late 1980s, the catch became so poor that
Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation shrimper, had to take a job running a fish
house in Seadrift in Calhoun County, Texas, where she grew up and still lives.
Then beached, diseased 300-pound dolphins started appearing, and dead pelicans
kept floating to the shores of Lavaca Bay.
It was only when a fellow shrimper with three different kinds of cancer showed
her a news clip from the
Associated Press in 1989 that Wilson connected the
dots. Calhoun County was the number-one county in the nation for toxic waste
disposal, the news story read. Aluminum smelter Alcoa had contaminated Lavaca
Bay and other nearby waters with mercury, creating one of the largest Superfund
sites in the US.
Wilson was incredulous. “We had the distinct honor of containing half the
hazardous waste Texas generated,” she learned. Nobody had ever mentioned that.
“I was so surprised that I called a town meeting,” Wilson says with her heavy
Texan accent. “Everybody went crazy and tried to talk me out of organizing a
meeting.” How dare she, a shrimper woman, question the biggest employers in the
county?
This was the day her “life turned 180 degrees from reclusive fisherwoman with
five kids to controversial hell-raiser,” as Wilson puts it, and the beginning
of a fight against some of the nation’s largest petrochemical polluters that
has lasted to this day. Wilson, now 74 years old, is the founder of Calhoun
County Resource Watch and the executive director of San Antonio Bay Estuarine
Waterkeeper, both small nonprofits and all-volunteer. Eight petrochemical
plants operate in the region she calls home. Close to the largest concentration
in the country, these plants make up 42 percent of the petrochemical capacity
in the US. Locals call this area the “cancer belt.”
Nearly every day, you can find Wilson out in her pickup truck or in her kayak,
looking for evidence of plastic and chemical pollution. “The bay is my home,”
she says. “I’ve been shrimping since I was eight years old. Ever since I was a
little girl, I remember the smell of the sea and the shrimp, getting on the
boat in the early morning, seeing the pelicans gliding over the pink water in
the sunrise. You never forget that. If I gave up on the bay, I’d give up on the
best part of myself.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
