A Civil Action, Environmental Surprise, Hurricane Katrina & Slum Videos

A Civil Action, Environmental Surprise, Hurricane Katrina & Slum Videos Midterm Review

Difficulties for the Plaintiffs • Internal fighting: take the case or not? Mulligan, a former lawyer on their team, quit and insisted on being paid his percent of the winnings; settled with him 6 days before jury selection (a potentially serious distraction). • Schedule of the trial as determined by Judge Skinner. First phase the plaintiffs attempt to show that wells G&H had become contaminated as a result of actions by Grace & Beatrice by answering very difficult/technical questions. And that the contamination occurred before the wells were closed in 1979. Second phase plaintiffs would attempt to show that exposure to the well water resulted in leukemia and other illnesses. Third phase: Damages. • The costs of personal injury lawsuits. The firm provides the money up front and if they win, they receive a percentage. Is this the only choice for people with no money who want answers? • The research needed and money needed to gather the research they needed to support their charge. The defense had deep pockets to handle these costs; they plaintiffs didn’t. • Expert witness problems: Pinder, the hydrologist (couldn’t prove his water flow/river theory) • The City of Woburn’s polluted and industrial past

Difficulties for the Defense Beatrice & Grace shared difficulty: • The stories of families and preventing them from testifying Beatrice: • Riley admitted to having known the toxic chemicals abbreviated names, even though he said he had never heard of them; perjured himself • Poor expert witness: Ellis Koch hydrogeologist only focused on surface water table pressure gradients rather than further down where they reversed (USGS) Grace: • Former employees of the Cryovac plant admitted they used the property in the rear of the building as a dumping ground for chemical wastes. • Toxic site owned by the company was much closer to the wells in question and on the same side of the river as the wells

Did the truth come out at the trial?Difficulty faced by the plaintiff: Is the courtroom a place for a resolving controversy or a “cause,” determining truth? Different versions of the truth were seen by the plaintiffs lawyer and families, defense, and Judge Skinner: • Jan Schlictmann felt the truth didn’t come out because the whole story wasn’t told by the families and because evidence was covered up (which was later uncovered). The truth wasn’t allowed in the courtroom but it sat in the hallway • Some families felt that the truth didn’t come out because they didn’t get to speak, and because new evidence came out later. • The defense felt that the truth came out as much as it could “based on the best scientific evidence/facts that were submitted at the trial. And that the courtroom is a place for evidence, not truth; truth is too complex. From reading the transcript: Lessons from Woburn.

Judge Skinner’s Truth • Jonathan Harr: “When Schlichtmann would hammer on about truth, the judge would say, “Truth? I can’t possibly hope to know the truth. I have two sides presenting exactly the opposite versions of the truth. And justice? As far as I’m concerned, that is in the eye of the beholder. I don’t want to talk about that stuff. The business of civil cases it to resolve disputes.” Question: “Does it trouble you, your honor, that the EPA conclusion was different than what happened at the trial?” Judge’s response: “No for reasons I just said. They were dealing with perhaps different evidence, though I don’t know. But they were certainly dealing with it in a different way.” • Science & the Law: science requires time to conduct studies to determine causation, whereas the law demands the truth be decided at a moment in time related to the trial; science goes by statistical significance (95%) and the law goes by a “preponderance of evidence,” which implies very little doubt (51%). Scientific standard is much closer to the standard in criminal trials, which require evidence “beyond a reasonable doubt”

Hurricanes • Feed off of heated oceans surface and low atmospheric pressure • Winds raise from the ocean and hit the clouds, releasing heat energy to make more clouds • As the winds move upwards into the clouds, they start going counter clockwise • Then, it becomes a tropical storm; after this, it becomes a tropical depression; half of tropical storms turn into hurricanes • Hurricane winds push on the water surface and causes it to rise and create a storm surge: this rise or bulge of water (98% of deaths in hurricane are from drowning)

Hurricane Pam • Hurricane Pam was a simulation designed to determine risk • July 2004: 1 year earlier; using old data, scientists simulated Hurricane Pam to hit New Orleans with 120 mph winds, a category 3 hurricane. • In this model, the city flooded and 6,000 deaths were predicted, and ½ million homeless • The results were revealed in meeting in Baton Rouge • All local workers discussed their response roles, but the state government officials scoffed at the data

Hurricane Katrina • Meteorologists knew 3 days before how bad it would be • 1st it was a thunderstorm off the west coast of Africa; then it was a category 1 hurricane heading for FL; hit land but had no warm water was there to fuel the hurricane; then headed for Gulf of Mexico where it encountered lots of warm water. • Soil and silt used to be sent to the west side of the river in New Orleans each year (the area that used to naturally flood yearly). This flooding allowed the wetlands to recharge and the wetlands would then soak up future flood waters, protecting the city. • The levees were built to prevent flooding in a hurricane but ironically, they prevented the wetlands from flooding and the soil never replenished. The marshes then became vulnerable to salt water intrusion from the Gulf of Mexico. • So the river rose 11 feet when Katrina hit; a 15 foot storm surge hit the canal; the levees were destroyed; hit Lower and Upper 9th ward; then a second 28 feet storm surge, above seal level hits NE part of the city • All goes out: electricity, phones, satellites all go down: no communication = emergency teams have no idea • Levees Burst – Lake Pontchartrain floods the city; city water pumps failed and pipes burst

Environmental Surprise • Discontinuity: “An abrupt shift in a trend or a previously stable state.” It is the time scale which matters. An example is that overfishing can result, not in gradual decline, but in a population crash. • Synergism: “…several phenomena combine to produce an effect that is greater than would have been expected from adding up their effects taken separately.” • Unnoticed Trend: The third element of environmental surprise is an unnoticed trend: “An unnoticed trend even if it produces no discontinuities or synergisms, may still do a surprising amount of damage before it is discovered.” • Question: can anyone give me an example of how one of these is related to some we have studied?

Environmental Surprise Example Hurricane Katrina: a discontinuity • Katrina was not a normal predictable “trend” by the measurements we make – it was a discontinuity in the weather • New Orleans’ Emergency Design was to MANAGE the level 3 scenario, not to PLAN for failure. Also, the US Congress failed to provide money to the Army Corps of Engineers for stronger levees.

Planet of the Slums: The city periphery or edge (page 46) • What does the city periphery mean to you? Where you grew up? What does it mean in developing country’s cities? • It is the “societal impact zone” where the city meets the countryside; a rough point of transition • How did it come to being? A reverse migration from the city to periphery must occur as land gets more valuable downtown • There is often a convergence of two demographics: farm workers or country people (forced by an inability to support themselves) come from rural parts to work in the city, crossing paths with the city slum dwellers who are being re-located or forced out by the government or military • People leaving rural areas for jobs in the slums but there aren’t jobs in the city – no jobs and no sanitation – the state disavows the risk - this is the treason of the state (as Mike Davis discusses in his book) • People and industry come together on the periphery (esp. illegal industry) • Qualities of the periphery: No laws apply; it is the true “frontier;” corrupt; where the bad or illegal industries thrive (ex: Beijing’s small garment sweatshops are on the southern edge); this is the easiest place to find cheap workers • Often there are also desolate government camps or warehouse populations expelled as a result of the war against city slums - they create “transit camps”

NY Times Video on Pakistan Slum & Drug Resistant Tuberculosis • 72,000-1.5 million live in just one Nigerian slum with no sanitation, clean water, health care, or education • Pakistan: 20% of the country was underwater for most of the summer; have nuclear weapons; biggest player in keeping Afghanistan war stirred up; a mostly ungovernable and failed state; huge civil wars; history of military dictatorship • Movie: Life of young woman with drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) who is responsible for her mom’s six children but has drug-resistant tuberculosis; parents dead • TB can have a drug resistant form which is a deadly lung disease; is a disease of the poor; it can be cured with antiobiotics if you take them everyday for 2 years (16 pills a day) but most patients in stop taking pills when they feel better • People with drug resistant tuberculosis are immediately quarantined in the developed world

NY Times –video on slum in Pakistan & Tuberculosis Social Stigma & Helplessness • Drug resistant TB patients won’t tell their family or friends because they are afraid no one will want to marry them; feel embarrassed by the social stigma; hide the disease • Some give up on getting better and can’t work anymore • Hard to pay rent for their house; electric and gas bills; and have no piece of mind; feel too stressed to eat Hospital & Program for drug resistant TB infected people is funded by wealthy Pakistanis. The state ignores its existence. • In Karatchi –one woman’s job is to contain drug resistant TB – does house visits; brings medicine or meets them in the hospital to give them medicine; provides preventative tips • The program provides patients with food rations and covers their medicinal treatments • Teaches prevention: cover mouth when you cough and stay outdoors as much as possible • Because of the social stigma, doctors and program workers cannot make the house visits they need in order to help patients overcome the disease and keep their family members from getting it.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Being in the “Bottom Billion” • Woman has a son with cerebral palsy with no provision for necessities for the handicapped • Within the community where she lives there were a lot of people with special needs (chemical industry nearby); they are not getting assistance or were unaware of their rights • So she began to volunteer – and still does. But in her own life, her child was already too big to carry. • She makes a great contribution by telling others of their rights; where to go to get proper care; where the children can get help

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Rampant gangs & police violence • Favela is a slum, shanty town • Here, tattoos readily identify gangs • Gangs command rent from locals • Violence: Gangs cut up others and burn other gang members who come into their territories • Not just gang violence, but also police shoot at anyone who runs, even harmless citizens • Shoot outs between the two are common • Police shot two drug traffickers– the news man followed the trail of blood to see the body; the police were nearby on high alert, covering the boundaries with heavy guns and grenades • Found grenades, weapons and cocaine on traffickers • But, citizens also got hurt –bullet fragment in shoulder of a 9 year old, it was the police’s fire.

Guinea-Bissau, Africa: narco-state, corruption & instability • Gained independence from Portugal in 1974 • 5th poorest country in world • Major transit stop for cocaine travelling from South American -> Europe • Have had a civil war and 2 military coups in 10 years • 2 top government officials were killed (the president and the head of the army); now the Speaker of Parliament is the temporary president and has 60 days to organize elections and the army • Government and officials burgeoned under late president’s watch- the state was a narco state and made millions off of cocaine trade • Police arrested the drug traffickers but are accused of being part of the narco state –selling the cocaine, releasing the criminals and not combating the drug system • The head of the Navy complains that they can’t chase traffickers who have fancy Miami Vice type boats with their tiny government boats • He says he is not surprised they are accusing him of assisting the traffickers – everyone lies about their enemies, in his opinion • A human rights spokesmen is currently in hiding for speaking the truth about government corruption and his family fears for his life

Mumbai, India: what happens if your slum is on prime real-estate? Situation • 35 acres of land, the slum is called Dharavi, and it is prime real estate near the “Wall Street of Mumbai” and between two converging commuter lines and Mumbai International Airport • People have lived here for 40 years; Wash their clothes and walk in sewage ridden water • Officials completed an air or aerial survey (no one went on the ground to count the number of residents); 300,000 live here they say, but number is much higher, around 1 million • Developers want to bulldoze it and re-house slum dwellers into modern apartments; want land for market housing, & commercial activity • Required first to rehouse people in state of the art high rise housing and provide them with healthcare and schools • Then the government and developers can use land less; 40 million square feet left for them to build commercial real estate • The individual in charge used to build mansions in Long Island and has since moved back to India

Difficulties in relocation While they are offering to give people places to live in outskirts of town, many don’t want to move; their economy and social fabric is in the slum • Hard for some families; happy where they are; if they move into big houses, they’ll have to pay property taxes and will feel uncomfortable living next to the wealthy • National Slumdwellers Association developed to protect their social and economic small home industries • If they are displaced from the slum, their businesses will stop running (e.g.: pottery); they will have to learn new different skills than they know as small scale businesses who built their own skills • This move would put livelihood at risk; no manufacturing space; they need different “kind of space” – not just homes, they need economic space • It’s called “Slum rehabilitation” but it means, kick em’ out to go elsewhere and use the land to its highest possible value with profit for the developers

Final video - Nairobi, Kenya: waste into the river • African slum in outskirts of Nairobi • Trash is everywhere – stepping on used medical supplies; little or no sanitation • Full bucket toilet –with lots of maggots; • No route to get around the waste, it is everywhere; right in middle of town • Only one way to empty it is when a guy comes and empties it by tipping it straight into the river; where below kids are playing below

A Civil Action, Environmental Surprise, Hurricane Katrina & Slum Videos