Tag Archives: environmental justice

OUT NOW: Interview with Dayne Walling on the 10th Anniversary of the Flint Water Crisis (Popula)

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“Happy” 10th Anniversary to the switch that kicked off the Flint Water Crisis. Though that moment and its optimistic press coverage provides a convenient pulse point, the crisis writ large was possible due to the conditions set forth by obnoxious Tea Party-laced GOP politics and that heady, all-American mix of “racism and bad capitalism” (h/t to Henry Zebrowski).

I recently met up with Dayne Walling (Flint Mayor 2009-2015) to chat about what really happened, and how the systemic tragedy continues playing out for him and his city a decade later. Read the full piece here.

The Flint Water Crisis, Ten Years Later

Special thanks to Popula/Maria Bustillos for their interest and for publishing this piece!

Enjoy, and pass it along to other concerned citizens.

Dayne Walling points out toward the old Fisher Auto plant grounds from the home of his office at Insight. Flint, MI, March 5, 2024. (Photo by Tyler for Sonic Geography)

More Special Guests Return to ENV 300 (Dayne Walling & Teresa Homsi)

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Every time Dr.* Dayne Walling (Flint Mayor 2009 – 2015) speaks to my Environmental Justice class, I learn something new and amazing about Flint, not necessarily germane to the city’s notorious Water Crisis. For example, Flint has successfully regenerated riverfront lands which were once un-tamable brownfields into Chevy Commons. Also, former Governor Rick Snyder refused to set foot in Flint (outside of that press conference) until President Obama came in April 2016 and made him.

*I may as well call him “Doctor;” he’s been ABD for some time now, but COME ON.

We also got a special visit from our recent graduate, Teresa Homsi, who has been working for WCMU. Last August, she filed a series of reports called “Demystifying PFAS,” and stopped by before the Thanksgiving break to catch us up!

Special thank you to Dayne Walling, Teresa Homsi, and everybody else who has stopped by or chipped in to make this another great semester in ENV 300.

Thanks for checking in.

In case I don’t have a chance to update this site before then, Postcards from Irving 6 should be going to press by the end of this week, and you can see me at the Hagaman Memorial Library in East Haven, CT next Tuesday 12/12, for the release party! More details available here, or just scrolling down.

Pine River CAG Returns to ENV 300

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Almost every semester I’ve taught Environmental Justice, I’ve been fortunate to have Ed and Jane from the Pine River Superfund Citizen Task Force stop by to talk about JUST HOW BAD Velsicol Chemical Plant truly was for the St. Louis, MI region. I forgot to bring my phone to class on the day that Jane spoke, but here are a pair of photos of Ed sharing some stories from over the years, including a particularly jaw-dropping one about Neil Gorsuch’s mother!

Stay tuned for the coming weeks on the Flint Water Crisis with special guest Dayne Walling (who you probably know about) as well as that always-delightful conversation about how drenched-in-PFAS Michigan is with special guest Teresa Homsi. I’m also polishing my special lectures on the “miracle” of lead, with some actual print ads from the Great Depression that demonstrate how spectacularly loopy everybody was back then.

Have a great weekend!

P.S. If you’re in Central Michigan, come to the Broadway Theatre tomorrow night (Saturday) at 8pm for Trainspotting (1996), which is genuinely one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.

Pine River CAG Visits Environmental Justice

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Thank you again to Ed Lorenz and Jane Jelenek (pictured below) of the Pine River Superfund Citizens Task Force for paying visits to my Environmental Justice class! As always, it’s been a perfect introduction to Michigan’s very sordid history of poisoning and disaster, and I’m “grateful” (if that’s at all appropriate) that the atrocity happening in East Palestine, OH has brought them greater national attention across multiple media.

The Pine River Task Force Pays a Visit to ENV 300

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One of the classes I teach, ENV 300 (Environmental Justice) is divided into two halves: environmental disasters on a global scale, and engineered disasters in our own backyard (i.e. Michigan). The second half kicks off with the 1973 (and ongoing) Michigan PBB disaster, which was foisted on the state by the Velsicol Chemical Company, whose plant in St. Louis made Love Canal look tame in comparison.

Last week, we were fortunate to have visits from the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Pine River Superfund Citizen Task Force, Jane Keon and Dr. Ed Lorenz.

Dr. Ed Lorenz (Alma College) and Jane Keon speak with ENV 300 students about the pollution of the Pine River and local community in St. Louis, MI.

Jane and Ed both visited both of my sections, telling the story of just how badly the Michigan Chemical plant damaged their community. I knew a whole lot about the PBB crisis that the plant stumbled the state into (largely learning from Joyce Egginton’s brilliant book The Poisoning of Michigan and an eponymous BBC documentary from 1977), but I didn’t realize the vital role the community has taken with the EPA’s work to right decades of wrongs by Velsicol. The amount of money spent on cleanup (all of which, since 1995, has come from taxpayers) has long superseded the profits generated by the plant’s production of however many “-master” products.

If you’d like to join in on the Pine River Task Force’s next meeting and learn more about what they do, it will be happening on Zoom on Wednesday, November 17th at 7pm ET. They will post the public Zoom link on their website a few days beforehand.