GP Calls on EPA Head to Visit Site of Proposed Shintech Plant

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GREENPEACE SUPPORTS ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE LEADERS CALL FOR EPA
HEAD TO "SEE FOR HERSELF" THE COMMUNITY OPPOSING THE SHINTECH
VINYL PLANT

February 6, 1998, Washington, D.C. - Greenpeace Southern
Regional Representative Damu Smith, called on Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) head, Carol Browner to heed the call of
a delegation of national environmental justice experts, who
recently visited and testified at public hearings in Convent,
Louisiana. In a letter to Browner, the delegation urged the
EPA's top policymaker to visit Convent as part of the agency's
review of a Title VI civil rights complaint lodged by citizens
of that community.  The complaint focuses on the proposed siting
of a $700 million PVC plastics plant in the predominantly
African American and impoverished community.  

Smith said, "It will take nothing less than the personal
intervention and leadership of Carol Browner to energize the
process of defining and creating policy guidelines to make real
the President's promise of environmental justice and ensure that
the EPA renders a fair decision in this case."

The delegation was organized by Greenpeace and invited by the
St. James Citizens for Jobs and the Environment.  Greenpeace
continues to work closely with the delegation to apply pressure
on the EPA to define and administer clear policies aimed at
implementing President Clinton's Executive Order on
Environmental Justice issued on February 11, 1994.  The Shintech
case has become a national litmus test of the EPA's willingness
to intervene in local cases to protect citizens of poor and
communities of color based on the President's order. 

Residents of Convent, Louisiana, who live closest to the
proposed plant are seeking to block the permits which would
allow the Japanese owned Shintech corporation to operate in the
town which is already overburdened with several polluting
industries. 

"Residents don't want this plant," Smith explains, "because the
production of PVC is known to cause emissions of toxic
chemicals, the most insidious of which is dioxin.  Dioxin has
been linked to cancers, reproductive disorders and developmental
problems."  In their letter to Browner, the national
environmental justice leaders also wrote that residents of
Convent are already complaining of cancers, skin rashes, asthma,
leukemia, lung damage and premature --including childhood --
deaths.   

Joining the national environmental justice experts and leaders,
in lending their support to the residents of Convent are civil
rights organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, and Rev. Jesse Jackson of the Rainbow/PUSH Action
Network who have come out solidly against the proposed plant. 
Smith says Greenpeace will support efforts mapped out by the
environmental justice leaders this week to: conduct an
independent inquiry into the community's charge of environmental
racism; increase pressure on top EPA officials to intervene; and
escalate efforts to increase national media attention on the
case.

ends

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