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PATRICK MCGUIRE: This is the First Nation of Aamjiwnaang's
burial ground.
These people have been here for hundreds of years.
And about 70 years ago, they got some great new neighbors.
This is the Chemical Valley.
The first thing you notice when you visit Sarnia,
Ontario, is the smell.
Imagine a mixture of gasoline, melting asphalt, and a trace
of rotting egg smacking you in the face and crawling up your
nose every time you breathe.
It's a cocktail that made me unpleasantly high and dizzy.
That smell is the Chemical Valley, where 40% of Canada's
petrochemical industry is located in a 25 kilometer
squared area.
The Chemical Valley is responsible for the production
of gasoline, plastics, pesticides, fertilizers,
cosmetics, and a whole bunch of other chemicals that our
society relies on.
It's estimated that in 2013 alone, the Canadian
petrochemical industry will generate $24 billion in sales.
Two years ago, thanks to the 60 petrochemical plants and
oil refineries that operate in the Chemical Valley 24/7, the
World Health Organization gave Sarnia the title of the worst
air in all of Canada.
To make matters worse, a First Nations reserve called
Aamjiwnaang, where just under 1,000 people live, shares a
fence line with the Chemical Valley.
This is a serious health concern for the people of
Aamjiwnaang, as their community has consistently
claimed to have higher cancer and miscarriage rates than the
national average.
And yet, the government has not launched a proper health
study to investigate their allegations.
Tensions between the First Nations Community of Canada,
the government, and the petrochemical industry have
been running high for a very long time.
Regular participation in highway blockades and protests
are the norm for many First Nations communities in Canada,
who are pushing back against environmental damage to their
native land.
-You're *** cowards!
-What happened is that Anthony W. George was killed.
His relatives insisted he was a peaceful man.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: One of the major issues the residents on
Aamjiwnaang need to deal with are chemical leaks from the
plants themselves.
Oftentimes, these leaks go unreported.
And in the first half of 2013 alone, there were three spills
of hydrogen sulfide.
One of them sent several small children form Aamjiwnaang's
day care to the hospital.
Once we heard about Aamjiwnaang's struggle, we
knew we had to go visit the Chemical Valley ourselves to
try and get a better sense of how the relationship between
the First Nations and the petrochemical industry is
being handled, what's being done to ensure the safety of
the people of Aamjiwnaang, and what the future of the
Chemical Valley holds.
We visited Sarnia while a high profile energy conference was
being held.
Political leaders and energy executives had converged on
the city to discuss how more money could be squeezed out of
Canada's most valuable resource, our oil.
As you might imagine, the people of Aamjiwnaang were not
happy to hear that more industry would be
coming their way.
-Clean water, clean air, healthy families.
-No more chemicals in the valley!
-No more chemicals in the valley!
-Clean air, clean air--
PATRICK MCGUIRE: While the protesters demonstrated
outside of the conference, the energy industry discussed a
plan to build new oil pipelines all across Canada.
In response, Vanessa Gray, a 20-year-old activist from
Aamjiwnaang, was there to cause a disruption.
VANESSA GRAY: I have the right to clean air and fresh water.
If you guys feel that money is more important than having
water, then there's something really *** up here.
Thank you.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: When you were on stage, there were probably
about six different people that came up to you trying to
get you off stage.
You didn't say a word to any of them.
Is that a difficult thing to do, just keeping a stone face?
VANESSA GRAY: Yeah, this lady came up to me and said that I
was taking her right away to enjoy the conference in peace.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: How did you feel about that?
VANESSA GRAY: I feel that she's taking my right away to
breathe air and drink water.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: After chatting with Vanessa outside
of the energy conference, we figured we should go meet up
with her in a less stressful setting.
That didn't exactly happen.
She brought us to a site in the valley right by
Aamjiwnaang called the Blue Water Plaque.
It commemorates a middle class white community who was
evacuated from the area because of the unsafe living
conditions that Aamjiwnaang's residents still live with.
You're getting involved in these very important, big
issues at a really young age.
What was it that first drove you to try and make a
difference?
VANESSA GRAY: I've just been affected by cancer in my
family and my friends and loved ones so much.
And I would like to see Chemical Valley exposed more
than it is now.
I'd like some more health studies to be done.
People all over can see how *** up the situation is
because it's something that a lot of people don't
understand, and they don't see every day.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: We went over to the reserve's well kept
baseball diamond that sits directly across from a massive
refinery to speak with Christine Rogers.
Christine is a mother of three daughters who were affected by
Shell's hydrogen sulfide leak in January of 2013, a leak
that was discovered by the staff of Aamjiwnaang's day
care center and the children they were caring for after
they all noticed a rotten egg smell in the air.
Several children were sent to the hospital as a result.
And because Shell did not properly alert the community,
the kids were wrongfully diagnosed for having colds or
flus when really they were suffering from hydrogen
sulfide exposure.
CHRISTINE ROGERS: You feel like a failure.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: Why?
CHRISTINE ROGERS: As a parent, you do everything you can to
protect your children.
You do everything that you can to make sure that your
children are safe.
And when something like that happens that's beyond your
control, you just feel like you've lost control.
What if it had been a bigger spill?
You think you're prepared.
But really, you're not.
And I don't--
honestly, it feels helpless.
She had gotten the crusted eyes at that time.
And her eyes were bloodshot for three days.
And I had to take her to the doctor to make sure there were
no infections.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: And how do you think these industries
need to step up and help this from not happening?
CHRISTINE ROGERS: If you want to operate here, then you
should have top of the line technology.
You should be putting safety above your dollars.
It's going to cost too much.
It's going to cost too much.
That's what you hear all the time.
And I don't care.
I don't care how much it costs to you.
That's my child's safety.
They would do it if their kids lived right here.
There's a funny thing that my kids, they came up with.
You see the smoke coming out over there?
PATRICK MCGUIRE: Yeah.
CHRISTINE ROGERS: Yeah, they used to think that those were
cloud makers.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: That's cute, but also--
CHRISTINE ROGERS: I had to tell her, no, no,
that's not a cloud.
That's pollution.
That's the bad stuff that we're breathing in.
So they came up their own saying, the more clouds in the
sky, the more people will die.
As a parent, that is heartbreaking that my kids
think about where they live like that.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: I'm here outside of the Shell Oil
refinery, which is one of the largest refineries in the
Chemical Valley.
The air *** smells like gas, and this plant alone has
been responsible for three different leaks of hydrogen
sulfide in the past five months since the
beginning of 2013.
And if you're not already familiar with hydrogen
sulfide, it was actually used as a chemical weapon by the
British in World War I. So you know it's really good for you.
When oil was first discovered near Sarnia in the mid 1800s,
mass industrialization was not far away.
To support the war effort, in the early 1940s, Sarnia became
a major center for the petrochemical industry.
And from there, business began to boom.
Sarnia's proximity to the United States quickly made it
an exporting hot spot for Canadian petrochemicals.
And to meet the demand, companies were quick to buy up
land from the people of Aamjiwnaang back when the
concept of environmental impact didn't really exist.
Then, during the '60s and '70s, Sarnia prospered as the
industry exploded with business.
All of a sudden, the Chemical Valley was being heralded as a
wonderfully exciting development.
Because of this, no one should be under any illusion when it
comes to the existence of the Chemical Valley.
We asked for it.
The operation of our society relies on petrochemicals.
This is an issue that all of us are responsible for.
I went to speak with Mayor Mike Bradley, who's been
running Sarnia for over 25 years, to discuss the history
of the Chemical Valley, what can be done to improve its
emissions, and the industry's impact on the people of
Aamjiwnaang and Sarnia at large.
MIKE BRADLEY: It doesn't matter where
you go in North America.
You will find toxins and other things.
The question always in this community and anyone that has
an industrial complex is, what does the cluster do?
Health Canada came to the community and said, we're
willing to do this health study.
And it's going to cost millions.
And then, within a very short period of time, they removed
themselves from the process.
And so that's been the issue of how can you fund it?
Because it is not an inexpensive process, to make
it credible.
I don't believe the study should have
any money from industry.
And yet, it is going to be funded in part by industry.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: What do you think the valid reasons, if
any, are for Aamjiwnaang to mistrust
government or industry?
MIKE BRADLEY: The first oil company came here
over 100 years ago.
What really accelerated the industry was they needed to be
on the water during the Second World War.
So the big plant [INAUDIBLE] came here, located here, that
made rubber.
Then, all the other plants grew around it.
Well, the natural place to go to was where the Aamjiwnaang
reserve was.
So over the years, it's been eroded by industry and, I
understand, by the city just taking it away.
History hasn't been fair to the Aamjiwnaang.
There's no question of that.
But what I've been trying to do is make sure that this
generation's life will be better by doing what we can to
make sure that that relationship is more stable
it's been in the past.
You would not do this today.
You would not locate industry close to a city.
You would not locate industry on reserve lands in the way it
was done 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: We heard a lot about a scientist named
Jim Brophy who used to work very closely with Aamjiwnaang
and the workplace victims of Chemical Valley who developed
serious health conditions from their jobs in the plants.
Jim has since been chased out of Sarnia and
now lives in Windsor.
We went to visit Jim to discuss what the Canadian
government and the petrochemical industry need to
do to protect the people of Aamjiwnaang and the blue
collar workforce of the Chemical Valley itself.
All right, I'm here with Dr. Jim Brophy here in Windsor.
And across the river there, we've got a three story tall
one city block long pile of petroleum coke.
Can you maybe explain what that is?
JIM BROPHY: That's the end stage of refinery process.
And in that particular case, that's
bitumen tar sands crude.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: Yeah, so that's
coming out from Alberta.
JIM BROPHY: And it's going to a large refinery, a Marathon
refinery, in southwest Detroit.
Southwest Detroit and Sarnia, Aamjiwnaang, are classic
examples of the environmental racism.
The whole environmental justice movement was in
response to these types of egregious, really criminal,
situations where poor communities find their
neighbors are these large industrial complexes.
And there's little or no protection from the kinds of
exposures that these people get.
So let's remember, who's the highest populations at risk?
It's First Nations communities on the fence line.
It's blue collar industrial workers.
It's the poor working class and poor people who live in
south Sarnia.
Not the CEOs.
And it's the same in southwest Detroit,
right across from Marathon.
It's the poorest people in the city.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: It's clear that the energy industry has a
habit of letting the poorest neighborhoods inhale the
majority of their pollution.
It was obvious in Windsor, as we stared at the coke pile.
And it's very obvious in Aamjiwnaang, where refineries
surround the community.
We went to see Ada Lockridge, a local hero in Aamjiwnaang,
who has continually battle against industry, to go for a
toxic tour of the Chemical Valley.
ADA LOCKRIDGE: Listen to this.
[TRADITIONAL MUSIC PLAYS]
ADA LOCKRIDGE: So these guys are allowed to put out so much
into the air.
And if they don't put it all out, they can trade those
credits or sell the credits to another company so they can
pump out more.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: Whoa.
So one clean company is doing well, and they're staying
under their regulated emissions.
They can sell that excess to a really bad company who can
then extend--?
ADA LOCKRIDGE: Yeah.
We used to come back here.
And we would--
Solidarity Day, which is the national aboriginal day.
So we would come back here, have canoe races.
Everybody would go canoeing, and then whatever.
They'd tip, aha ha, it was all fun and games.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: We're all wet not.
ADA LOCKRIDGE: Until we found out what was here.
And we were like, oh my god!
So we had to quit having those games.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: So it's mainly mercury in here?
ADA LOCKRIDGE: That was what was found in the sunfish and
stuff like that.
We got concerned about the animals, too.
Because they're coming here and drinking.
They don't know how to read.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: No.
They don't know what that sign means.
ADA LOCKRIDGE: Mm-hm.
And see our poor geese?
They're all messed up.
They don't know how to fly.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: Yeah, that's not a V at all.
ADA LOCKRIDGE: Do you know how they're supposed to--
yeah, yeah.
I think they're trying to tell us something.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: Not only has Ada been outspoken about
pollution in Aamjiwnaang throughout her adult life, she
actually does her own air testing with an apparatus
called the bucket brigade that she uses to
catch unreported leaks.
Ada was cool enough to show me how the bucket brigade works.
ADA LOCKRIDGE: Let me stick this part under there.
So that's kind of like a lung.
Think of it as a lung that, whatever, so many minutes
worth of breathing.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: So you've detected quite a few different
leaks here.
The most recent one was the hydrogen sulfide from Shell.
So can you maybe walk through that discovery?
ADA LOCKRIDGE: My daughter showed up--
she lives in Corunna, just south of the reserve here.
So she came about 10 to 8:00.
I was out here on my porch having my coffee.
And she showed up.
She says, oh, Mom, it's terrible out there.
It's really bad.
It smells like rotten eggs.
I said, all right.
So I hurried up and got on the phone.
I got Spills Action Center, SAC, on speed call.
So I called them up.
Hey, something's leaking here.
So that was five to 8:00.
By 8 o'clock, it was on the radio.
Shell's calling a Code 8.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: They already know that they're leaking.
Why haven't they already said something?
ADA LOCKRIDGE: A lot of times, we are the ones who notify the
company somethings--
PATRICK MCGUIRE: You are the siren?
ADA LOCKRIDGE: Yeah.
We usually say, hey, something's
happening over there.
I called in one time.
And they go, what's the wind direction?
OK, the wind is coming from--
and they go, what's the wind speed?
PATRICK MCGUIRE: Oh, let me go check my--
ADA LOCKRIDGE: I said, um, hang on.
I'll lick my finger, open up the window, and we'll count to
see how long it takes to dry.
JIM BROPHY: We live in a situation now in Canada where
the oil industry has tremendous power.
I mean, some would say that they literally have a lock on
the federal government.
It falls, then, to the Ada Lockridges of the world to
stand up to this.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: Yeah.
JIM BROPHY: And so what does Ada--
I mean, think about this for a second.
There's Ada Lockridge.
And in the past, it's been other members of the
environment community with her, standing there with this
plastic bucket and a filter in it, trying to register what's
in the air that you can't see, sometimes you can smell it.
And then, sending this filter off to California to get it
analyzed, and then being given a report.
What is going on here?
ADA LOCKRIDGE: I'm Ada Lockridge, but they
like to tease me.
They call me Ada Brockovich.
I've been called lots of names lately.
Well, like the canary in the coal mine, and all
this kind of stuff.
Normally, there's the clash between natives and
non-natives.
And there's no reason for it.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: No.
ADA LOCKRIDGE: The chemicals don't care what color you are
or anything anyway.
So this is a human being thing, and it's
not a native thing.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: While the citizens of Aamjiwnaang have
to worry about chemical leaks on a daily basis, so do the
blue collar workers in the Chemical Valley itself.
We went up to north Sarnia, which looks like a pretty nice
place to live, to meet with Jim, a veteran employee of the
Chemical Valley.
Jim invited us in his garage to sit in front of his bright
red duster and discuss his lengthy career in the
petrochemical industry.
A lot of what we've been hearing is that some of the
major problems from Chemical Valley are legacy issues.
They're problems that happened in the '60s or the '50s, and
we're still just cleaning it up.
But do you find that companies have been taking ownership of
those issues?
JIM TAYLER: I don't believe so, no.
I think they take ownership like it's OK to say, I didn't
take the cookies.
But when you get caught with your hand right in the jar,
they can't deny it.
So when they get caught with their hand in the jar, they
take responsibility.
When the cookies are gone, there's just a couple crumbs
sitting around, it wasn't me.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: I'm outside the Sarnia Lambton
Environmental Agency.
We're going to go inside and speak with Dean Edwardson.
Basically, anytime you send an interview request to an oil
company to talk to them, he's the guy they refer you to.
So we're going to go in and speak with him about some of
the concerns the community has.
DEAN EDWARDSON: We're an overarching organization that
looks at environmental quality from an ambient air shed,
watershed perspective.
Companies have their own environmental people that look
at their sites specifically.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: Well, one of the problems we've heard about
time and time again is that these sirens that these plants
have don't go off in time.
There was that leak in January where a daycare called in,
terrible smell, bunch of kids went to the
hospital with red eyes.
The hospital didn't know what to do about it because they
hadn't heard about the leak.
And like four hours later, Shell admitted to a leak.
So if we're allowing the plants to do the monitoring,
and this is a real example of something that happened
earlier this year, do you think that's a problem?
DEAN EDWARDSON: Emergency response issues, oftentimes
communication is one of your biggest problems.
And in that case, I will freely admit that we had a
communication problem.
And clearly, it was unacceptable.
And I think if you asked Shell, they would say it was
unacceptable.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: I'd love to.
They told me to talk to you.
DEAN EDWARDSON: Well, I'm going to tell you that they
would tell you it was unacceptable.
Any of our plants will tell you, impacting the community
is not acceptable.
And we're looking at things to try and improve that.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: But there were two more hydrogen sulfide
leaks in the next four months after it.
And one of them was only discovered by Ada Lockridge
and her bucket testing.
I mean, if you're saying there was a communication problem in
January, by May when there was another hydrogen sulfide leak,
shouldn't they have learned from their mistake?
DEAN EDWARDSON: Again, I can't talk to you about that.
It's under legal investigation right now.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: OK, so what communication
breakdown was it that--
DEAN EDWARDSON: We had a communication breakdown
between what occurred at Shell and the response for sounding
our sirens.
And we're trying to fix that.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: We heard there were fish with tumors
swimming around the Chemical Valley which is alarming,
because many scientists see fish as an early indicator
that something is very wrong with the environment.
So we went down to Aamjiwnaang's fishing dock to
speak with a fisherman who caught one of
these toxic fish himself.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: Oh, ***, yeah.
KEVIN PLAIN: You can see all the lumps, the lumps and stuff
that are on it.
And it was all over the tail.
There was a big chunk.
All these here--
you can see them right there.
See them all growing?
PATRICK MCGUIRE: Yeah, yeah.
In 2002, as a response to Suncor's attempts to build the
country's largest ethanol plant in the Chemical Valley,
an environment committee was founded in Aamjiwnaang.
We went up to meet with Wilson Plain, one of the founders in
the environment committee, to discuss
the community's struggle.
WILSON PLAIN: There was always some interest in having a body
that monitors what's going on around here.
Personally, I have a post on Facebook that puts up wind
direction and temperature and what's happening.
My interest is ongoing with respect to the environment.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: Now, we were in the cemetery.
And it's an alarming juxtaposition between the
Suncor refinery and the cemetery.
WILSON PLAIN: Not a healthy place.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: Yeah.
WILSON PLAIN: We could have a funeral procession there.
And we would get caught by those emissions in the air.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: A lot of times when we hear about a
leak, the plants will maybe be able to blame each other
because they're both emitting that pollutant.
And one says, well, it be the other one.
Does that kind of thing happen a lot?
WILSON PLAIN: I think the Ministry of the Environment
needs to monitor the direction of the wind.
If we started off with a bag of pollutants, just from one,
what would it be like if we had five different sources?
PATRICK MCGUIRE: Yeah, if you had a bag, and I had a bag,
and we both opened our bags--
it's a bigger bag up there.
And who's watching the big bag?
Nobody.
WILSON PLAIN: The cumulative issue is the main issue in
Aamjiwnaang.
But there needs to be an ongoing monitoring of the
worst offenders of those pollutants.
And benzene being the top one, I think.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: Even though the Ministry of the
Environment didn't return our phone calls, they can and will
step in to prosecute industry.
In 2005, the Nova chemical plant had a serious benzene
leak that lasted more than 15 hours.
It was so severe that Aamjiwnaang was completely
evacuated, and Nova was fined over half a million dollars.
JIM BROPHY: The health effects of benzene are well documented
in the scientific literature.
The International Agency on the Research of Cancer, IARC,
designates it as a definitive human carcinogen.
It's connected with leukemia, all kinds of
blood related cancers.
And what we have are thousands of tons of this very toxic
chemical being released in Sarnia every year.
Nobody is really tracking the communities that are getting
the biggest exposure.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: Would you say that the amount of benzene is
higher in Sarnia than most other places?
DEAN EDWARDSON: No, I would not.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: So despite having plants in Sarnia that
emit benzene, there's no higher emissions quality here?
DEAN EDWARDSON: We are consistent.
The level of benzene that we saw on our ambient monitors
are consistent with what you'll find in other urban
centers in Canad and the United States.
WILSON PLAIN: My grandson, he used to live about one and a
half have kilometers basically west from here, died as a
result of leukemia.
He's not with us anymore.
He was 13.
So I don't know where my grandson took a deep breath or
took several deep breaths.
But benzene would be the cause of that leukemia.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: Why should these industries be trusted?
DEAN EDWARDSON: I don't think anybody's asking anybody to
trust industry.
Trust has to be earned.
And I think that our companies are trying to earn that trust.
Obviously, trust oftentimes is predicated on your
performance.
You can be a great guy, but you go *** somebody.
All of a sudden, you're a murderer.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: You're probably not
a great guy, then.
DEAN EDWARDSON: Pardon me?
PATRICK MCGUIRE: You're probably not a great guy in
that circumstance.
DEAN EDWARDSON: Well obviously, but it's like
everything else.
You do the best you can to operate.
But as soon as you have an incident, it
causes people to maybe--
PATRICK MCGUIRE: Think you're a murderer?
DEAN EDWARDSON: Well, yeah.
PATRICK MCGUIRE: We're walking through a park that's
completely fenced off because of all the asbestos
contamination.
So this only happened a few weeks ago.
The park's basically abandoned as a result, which is a bummer
because it's right in the center of the city.
And it's definitely a beautiful spot
to spend some time.
It's really serene and peaceful if it weren't for the
mass amounts of pollution, contamination, and fencing.
So even though this park is totally contaminated with
asbestos, there's no actual signage from the city anywhere
indicating that.
But there are these two little handwritten notes.
It says, this is a memorial for those that died and
suffered because of Chemical Valley.
It's behind a fence because the government found out that
this park is also polluted by toxic chemicals.
So that says it all.
After worrying about whether or not we inhaled any airborne
asbestos in Centennial Park, we met up with Sandy Kinart,
one of the founders of the Victims of Chemical Valley
Foundation to discuss how the Chemical Valley continues to
negatively impact Sarnia, and how the workers of the
industry who fall fatally ill are treated.
SANDY KINART: People liked Blaine.
He just had a way with people.
I feel that I am truly blessed to have married this man.
I fell in love with this man when I was in grade five.
And I got to marry him.
And that doesn't always happen in life.
He was always good natured.
He came home from work one day and said, I can't breathe.
It was a hot, humid day.
And I just though, OK.
But realizing he was having a hard time breathing.
Got him to the doctors.
So they admitted him, drained seven liters of fluid from his
lung, with his heart and trach pushed to the side.
And they didn't know why he was still alive.
They finally diagnosed him with mesothelioma.
You have four months to live.
Get your life in order.
This was the feature section in "The Globe and Mail" called
"Dying for a Living." If it takes one man to use his
picture to change what's happening, then
that's a good thing.
And that's what he wanted.
He wanted to take his shirt off.
He wanted to show people what asbestos will do to you.
And he said, I want people to know.
I didn't go to work to die.
He died in 2004.
When he got sick in 2002, my brother-in-law came to the
house to say, as a man would, don't you worry.
We'll make sure everything's OK for her.
November that year, my brother-in-law who came to the
house was diagnosed with stomach and bowel cancer.
So in total, we've lost five people in my family to
mesothelioma, and that does not include all the other
types of cancers that have come into the family.
I think people don't talk about it because that's where
dad worked.
That's where grandpa worked.
And you'll hear this from a lot of the men.
Well, I had a good life.
I made great money.
And I guess it's my time.
Well, you shouldn't be dying at 57 years old.
I don't know if you've been down to the Chemical
Valley in the night.
Take the drive down Vidal Street and how all
the lights are there.
Well, as a child, that was part of a
Sunday evening, go down.
The lights are all there.
They're all on.
And boy, that just looked like fairyland to us.
All the sparkly lights, and wasn't that pretty?
My father was an electrician.
And back in the day, those tanks were
kept pristine looking.
The gardens were beautiful.
It was lovely to see.
And we were proud that we lived in the Chemical Valley.
And it wasn't until, gosh, after my husband died,
it was like, duh!
We don't see that anymore.
the flowers are dead.
The trees are all dying.
The drums are all scungy down there.
It looks derelict down there because they don't have to
keep up the pretense anymore.
The gig is up, and the word is out.
And it is what it is now.
It's a chemical valley.