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Keeping toxic waste at bay
| Sunday, Apr 30 2006 10:45 PM
Last Updated: Sunday, Apr 30 2006 10:49 PM
It was pollution that drew Jane Williams' family to Rosamond, and it's pollution that's kept them busy since.
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Williams, a 46-year-old mother of two, has dedicated her life to fighting incinerators, landfills and other polluters that take root in rural towns like her own. In April, she was selected by Volvo as a finalist in the company's search for "America's Greatest Hometown Hero," a distinction that carries a $50,000 award to the charity of her choice.
Volvo is honoring Williams for her work on behalf of California Communities Against Toxics, an environmental justice network her mother helped found in 1989. As its executive director and sole employee, Williams coordinates 70 community groups into a network that wields much more force than any one of its members would on its own.
Though she's a player in environmental justice issues statewide, Williams is keeping the prize money close to home. She's donating it to Desert Citizens Against Pollution in Rosamond, where her family's environmental journey began.
Refuge in Rosamond
Poor air quality drove Williams' film-executive grandfather from Beverly Hills in 1945. His son -- Williams' uncle -- had asthma, and the family moved into quonset huts under the desert's clear skies.
A generation passed and the family stayed in Rosamond, with Williams' father taking a job in a rocket lab at Edwards Air Force Base and her mother raising Williams and her two brothers. Williams' father died of cancer in 1973, years before the state began investigating a suspected cancer cluster in Rosamond.
California Communities Against Toxics was born out of statewide alliances formed in the 1980s. Williams' mother, Norma "Stormy" Williams, launched a campaign to identify toxins causing a brain cancer cluster among children in Rosamond.
The Kern County Health Department and California Department of Health Services verified this cluster: From 1975 to 1984, eight cases of childhood cancer (ages 0-15) occurred in Rosamond. During those years, the rate at which children in Rosamond developed cancer was several times greater than in areas like Los Angeles and San Francisco, according to the CDHS. The cancer cluster galvanized residents against the region's heavy polluters.
United as Desert Citizens Against Pollution, Rosamond's activists prevented cement plants from burning hazardous waste. They shut down Mobile Smelting, a dioxin-spewing plant dedicated to salvaging aluminum and copper. Dioxin is a carcinogenic ingredient in Agent Orange, the defoliant used by U.S. forces in Vietnam.
Members of Desert Citizens Against Pollution didn't stop protesting at the desert's edge. They fought a state plan to haul Rosamond's dioxin pollution to an incinerator in Kansas.
Even now, the community won't let its pollution go until it can be disposed of safely, Williams said.
"Just because it's Kansas -- we still care about Kansas," Williams said, standing outside a chain-link fence guarding Mobile Smelting's dioxin stockpile. "We see it as a huge environmental victory the dioxin is (still in Rosamond)."
The network
Through her work in Rosamond, Williams' mother got to know other grass-roots community leaders around the state. They attended one anothers' marches and shared strategies. Finally, after helping protest against a hazardous waste incinerator in East Los Angeles, Stormy Williams and her colleagues created California Communities Against Toxics. It was 1989, and it had 23 member groups.
"Mom founded (the network)," Williams said. "I just get the legacy of it all."
Williams' mother died of breast cancer 10 years ago, but the organization she helped found is one of the longest-running coalitions of its kind. It operates on less than $100,000 a year and has stopped dozens of incinerators, landfills, chemical plants and other polluters from locating in California's poorest communities.
Its members recently blocked a plastics incinerator in Hanford and a medical waste incinerator in Chowchilla. They've partnered with the California Farm Bureau to fight a sewage sludge incinerator in Imperial County, and enjoyed early success with the board of supervisors there.
"I take personal pride in the fact that (the state hasn't) been able to build a new landfill in California in 15 years," she said.
Her mission is to stop big, rich entities from bullying small, poor ones, she said. With Williams' help, the small, poor ones win "amazingly often" by raising the uncomfortable question: "Why would you concentrate pollution in poor communities?"
It's an argument that resonates with many people, she said, even leaders who typically court industrial development.
Williams' work often takes her to Sacramento, where she does battle with highly paid lobbyists and consultants. In a city full of political players, Williams is a standout, according to her adversaries.
Sometimes people refer to her tenacity -- in a good-natured way -- as "a flame thrower," said Eric Newman, a political consultant who handles environmental issues for companies and industries. "She'll make a deal if it's good for the environmental movement; otherwise she'll fight you tooth and nail to the end."
The recognition
Volvo's grand prize -- a lifetime supply of automobiles -- went to a doctor in Michigan who leads medical missions to Ethiopia. That's as it should be, Williams said. The doctor is absolutely deserving, and Volvo doesn't make a hybrid, she said.
"This is all I need, a polluter-for-life award," she joked.
She seems embarrassed by the award's elaborate fuss. In April, Avril Lavigne played an acoustic set at a New York City gala in her honor, and Williams was shuttled there by limousine. Too many big-city trappings, she said. She'd take Rosamond any day.
Though its finalists might be modest, celebration is in order, said Soren Johansson, Volvo's manager of public relations. Williams was selected from a pool of more than 4,300 nominees. The judge's panel included Maya Lin, Paul Newman, Hank Aaron, Val Kilmer and Sally Ride.
"If you look at Jane's accomplishments ... you wonder how in the heck can one human being do this," Johansson said. "It gives you hope that this earth will be a better place because there's so many wonderful people out there doing unselfish things."
There are lots of regular "Joes" and "Janes" out there doing perfectly extraordinary things with their lives but never make the headlines. Know of anyone like that? Think they'd make a great story? Call us at 395-7384 or e-mail us at local@bakersfield.com and say you have a submission for a Real People story.