FILM REVIEW: The Poisoning of an African American Town; New Documentary COMPANY TOWN Sheds Lights on
Who would ever think that the manufacture of Brawny paper towels, or those cute Dixie cups and plates could cause life altering consequences, even fatal, in many cases? That is what the new documentary Company Town explores, an intricate story of complicity, duplicity, governmental bureaucracy, corporate indifference and deceit.
The film’s principal and long-time resident and former Georgia-Pacific (GP) employee, Pastor David Bouie, has sounded the alarm throughout Ashley County, Arkansas, from local health departments to the state’s Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) and the regional Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) respectively. The carcinogenic pollutants that have arisen from GP are contaminating the city’s air and water systems. GP is a Koch Brothers company. This paper mill, plywood and chemical plant is creating health hazards, which have subsequently resulted in death sentences to the residents who share the town with this company situated in Crossett, Arkansas.
The business of making profits has actually turned fatal for many in this small Midwestern town with a population of 5,507. This is what the residents are egregiously discovering and have been confronting for nearly a decade. Company Town documents one town’s fight against the negligence and abuse of a corporate giant.
The documentary unfolds with the heart-wrenching testimonies of Crossett residents who believe GP is responsible for their pain, suffering and anguish. Director Nancy Kottke-Masocco follows the lives of the citizenry affected by the cancer-causing chemicals that GP leaves in the air and in waste waters which are eliminated into nearby creeks, and eventually spill over into major waterways and seep into the drinking well waters. GP has turned its nose up to the citizens of middle America in favor of profits, and at the expense of its workers.
"How many of our family members
have to die just to keep one job?"
Hush Money
At one point, in a knowing mission of complicity, GP visited the residents of Crossett offering financial settlements in return for their agreement not to seek financial remunerations or to sue. Towns and streets nearest the plant were identified, and residents were approached with contracts. GP wanted the residents to sign away their health rights, and in some specific cases, offered them financial resources to relocate. Interestingly, the streets with white residents were not only offered a larger financial settlement for their homes, pain and suffering, but also given the option to relocate. African American residents, on the other hand, were not offered nearly as much in compensation for their pain and suffering, the possible sale of their homes, or relocation fees, but they were offered a significantly reduced settlement rate, relative to their white neighbors, towards property damages.
Small Towns, Big Business
Crossett, Arkansas, located in Ashley County, is not the only town in America whose livelihood is sustained by a factory. Many companies set up shop in towns, and employ local residents. Many companies are keenly aware of their corporate and environmental responsibility. Communities thrive around factories, and mills have often supported generations of families. Moreover, Crossett, Arkansas is just one of the many towns across America whose toxic work product eliminations are poisoning not just the populace, but the earth.
Why is Crossett being ignored? Is it because, the untreated wastewater flows through a majority African-American area? Or is that blind eyes are being turned because the whistleblowers are led by an African American pastor with the support of his community?
The Crossett Concerned Citizens Commission is Pastor David Bouie’s raison d’etre. Pastor Bouie formed the Commission after watching numerous friends, fellow townspeople and long-time GP workers be stricken with cancer. Pastor Bouie has engaged various ranks of government officials to address this issue, including the highest levels of environmental water overseers such as the River keepers, along with environmental scientists, advisers, research scientists, investigative journalists, historians, and waste removal contractors. These individuals all contend that Georgia Pacific has been complicit in bringing health challenges to this small town, a community whose residents are often times undervalued and whose lives are not deemed significant enough to invest whatever it takes to remove the cancer-causing pollutants from the air and water.
The Cover-Up
Hence, on December 15, 2014, Ouachita River keeper, Gloria Slavant, represented by Tulane Environmental Law Clinic, filed a lawsuit under the Civil Rights Act, against the EPA for allowing GP to break the Clean Water act. The Ouachita River is one of the main tributaries into which GP wastewaters flow. This lawsuit focused primarily on the fact that African Americans were overwhelmingly and disproportionately affected by the water and air pollutants. Chemists, whistleblowers, even regional EPA authorities have visited Crossett to determine the level of responsibility that Georgia Pacific has towards the destruction of livelihood and community in the town.
Crossett ranks high in the state’s cancer cases. The emission of hydrogen sulfide and benzene - two known carcinogens - are emitted from the GP plants which manufacture Brawny paper towels, Dixie Cups, Quilted Northern toilet paper, and numerous other well-known paper product brands.
GP is well aware that there have been large levels of contamination in the air and the wastewater lands. The documentary, which is well-researched with mounds of documentation to support its premise, shows that even state officials are afraid of drinking the water from the town. Perhaps not intentionally, or consciously, but given a glass of water to drink from the faucets where the alleged poison comes from, one city government official refused to drink the water.
The Koch Brothers
The Koch Brothers are trained chemists, graduates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the nation’s top schools for engineers. Koch Industries has in its coffers billions of dollars to figure out a better way to dispose of hazardous waste products without dealing death sentences to its faithful community of workers. Instead of lobbying Congress and state legislators to look the other way, why not clean up their act?
I could’ve been saddened hearing the testimonies of loss, disease and the gargantuan fight against the apathetic bureaucratic system. However, the courage and sheer fortitude of the community to face this irresponsible corporate giant is heralding. Courageously facing the well-funded lobby of the Koch Brothers empire is in and of itself, herald-worthy.
According to Pastor Bouie, Georgia-Pacific has other plants around the country that are compliant with state health regulations, but why are the pollutants in the air and wastewaters in Crossett being mishandled?
Producers of Company Town: Natalie Kottke (Director), Erica Sardarian (Co-director) and Edgar Sardarian (Cinematographer)
Fighting ‘The Man’
Pastor Bouie compared Crossett’s fight to that of the townspeople in the recently released film The Free State of Jones. The townspeople, poor whites and enslaved Blacks, were forced to face down an agricultural giant resulting from slavery and king cotton. Pastor Bouie ironically found the same practices of "divide and conquer" present today in Arkansas as they occurred over 60 years ago. Working class people all breathe the same air. If working class communities come together, collectively, they are a stronger stalwart against a corporate behemoth. Together, they can fight the Koch Brothers.
Interestingly enough, the town of Flint, Michigan is currently serving as the poster child for the neglect of state water and health commissions, wherein the powers that be, turned and have been turning blind eyes towards the deteriorating health of its citizenry. Polluting water sources with chemicals up to a certain level, and then deeming them “safe” for public consumption is seen as de rigeur in urban and rural America. At what point does the American public demand that state health and environmental agencies be held accountable for the health of its local constituency?
The closing song by Mindy Jones is so well-written. It says, “O run down to the river, doing all I can, run down to the river, we gotta fight the man.”
This is for communities across the nation affected by corporate pollution and the abuse of power, and the apathetic malaise of state and federal legislators.
