Where employers like to store their most dangerous chemicals

Scan page 7

There to close the plants down. We're here to clean the plants up. It's a lot cheaper to clean the plants than close them.

We want to see these plants so clean that we feel that we're at home when we go into work. We don't want to worry about chemicals altering our health fo the rest of our lives or even leaving work every night with a headache and a nosebleed.

S.A.: What support have you gotten from the youth?

Winkle: We've had some, since they are our future workers.

had a 16-year-old speaker from problems we had, they have more. They were taking these problems home and their families were getting sick. So, we've just begun a cooperative program with workers in the plant. We're in the very early stages and we hope it continues.

S.A.: What has been the reaction of government officials?

Wilson: It's really disheartening to see that we have federal and state governments legalizing murder. There is actually a national law that you can put a certain amount of cyanide in people's drinking water and there's nothing they can do about it. That's murder.

Literally hundreds of thousands of chemicals much more toxic than cyanide have been put into the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink-and it's legalized by our federal and state governments.

If they kill one out of every 10,000 people, they say that's acceptable. But it's only acceptable to the poisoners who are doing this for profit. It's not acceptable to the people being poisoned.

S.A.: What has been the reaction of local elected officials?

Wilson: A county judge in Eastern Kentucky called me a radical, anarchist, communist. We're called troublemakers. We're called emotional. They say don't get emotional, but I want to know what we're supposed to do when our kids are dying. They tell us don't get angry, but I don't know what else you can do when you see people being killed. They say just go home, SOCIALIST starting a similar group get in touch with you?

Van Winkle: They can call me at (216) 545-0234. We are glad to have more members or affiliates of WATCH, and we don't turn anyone down. My address is 1804 1/2 N. State St., Girard, OH 44420.

shut up, and we'll take care of you. Well, they've taken care of us for 200 years and we see what we've got. It's time that we take control of our own lives.

S.A.: Have you considered members of your group for office?

Wilson: We supported some city council people and won a two-thirds majority. When our group tried to change a city ordinance, the mayor would veto it. When they overrode his veto, he'd issue an executive order saying, "Ignore the override." This forced the city council to file suit, but the judge was a friend of the mayor, so he sat on the decision for two years.

The folks that we're up against built the system. So, we took a beating because we were ignorant of how it works. We thought the judicial system worked. We didn't know that justice is for sale, that the poor and powerless can't afford justice, that only the rich and influential can afford justice.

S.A.: What activities have Yellow Creek Concerned Citizens carried out?

Wilson: We do lots of things. We've circulated petitions; we've filed suits; we've had public hearings. We've done a lot of protest marches. We've done civil disobedience. We occupied City Hall for two weeks. We set up roadblocks and laid down in front of trucks hauling toxic chemicals.

We even took one truckload of hazardous chemicals and dumped them on the Capitol steps in Frankfort. We do whatever we think needs to be done to correct the problem. ACTION JUNE 1990 7