Advocacy Project: My Political Representatives

My Political Representatives:
President: Barack Obama Democrat (D)
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500

Congresspersons: 2 Senators

The Honorable Amy Klobuchar (D) United States Senate 302 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510-2304
DC Phone:	202-224-3244
DC Fax:	202-228-2186

The other Senate seat is vacant while Norm Coleman (R) and Al Franken (D) are in court trying to figure out who won.


Representatives: DC Phone

Tim Walz (D - 01)	202-225-2472
John Kline (R - 02)	202-225-2271
Betty McCollum (D - 04)	202-225-6631
Keith Ellison (D - 05)	202-225-4755

Michele Bachmann (R - 06)												202-225-2331
Collin C. Peterson (D - 07)												202-225-2165
James L. Oberstar (D - 08)												202-225-6211

Governor:
Tim Pawlenty (R)
Office of the Governor
130 State Capitol 75
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St.Paul, MN 55155
Telephone: 651-296-3391
Toll Free: 800-657-3717
E-Mail: Tim.Pawlenty@state.mn.us


State legislators (senate & house):
My Representative Hermantown, MN:
Mary Murphy (DFL) District: 06B
343 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55155
651.296.2676 or 800.890.5428
E-mail: rep.mary.murphy@house.mn

Senator Thomas M. Bakk (DFL) District 06
Capitol Office: 75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Capitol Building, Room 226
St. Paul, MN 55155-1606
651.296.8881

County board president/Commissioner:

5th District Commissioner Peg Sweeney (Nonpartisan)
Room 208
100 N. 5th Avenue West
Duluth, MN 55802
(218) 726-2450
Term Expires: 12/31/2012

City mayor of my town:

Hermantown Mayor
Wayne Boucher
4263 LaVaque Road

Hermantown, MN 55811

729-1236

City Hall 729-3675

Reflections: Weeks 7 & 8

Left: Laura Dunn

Week 7:
At the beginning of week 7 we started to watch the documentary by graduate student Laura Dunn, called "Green." This documentary talked about "Cancer Alley" a 100 mile stretch on both sides of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The documentary showed some of the affects on the community in cancer alley. I was upset that kids are getting rare forms of cancer due to all the chemicals in their environment, and the EPA is not really protecting the people of this area. We also discussed reading 16 about The Chemical Plant Next Door, and also did a little resarch using the Environmental Working Group to check out what kind of cosmetic products we were using and how they affect us and our environment.

Week 8:
During this week we learned mostly about Privatization of Water from Reading 31 and also from the film "Thirst." Privatization of water is a term referring to the private sector owning water services and sanitation, not usually the water itself. They are in the business for profit not necessarily for the consumers best interest. Because water services are seen as such a key public service, proposals for this privatization often gets strong opposition compared to other utilities. Globally, more than 83% population has access to water, but that is 17% without.

All and All I was disappointed with how the US government has handled many things when it comes to protecting it's people and our environment.

Share & Voice: Why not salt water?

With all this talk about water, was wondering why we can't use salt water for more things. My assumption is that the salt in the water is the problem!!!

Yes and no, salt does a lot of damage to things. We could shower in salt water but we would have to have special shampoo and soaps to get ride of the damage to our skin.

We would have to redesign household devices so that salt doesn't build up as salt does tend to leave deposits of itself everywhere.

We couldn't grow crops with it as the salt in the water stops it being absorbed by plants (mostly) which would kill them.

What will happen to the salt water that goes down the drain?

After treatment, the water is discharged into streams.

The salt would kill off some of the critters living in the stream, many of them at the base of the food chain.

Here is a website that although not necessarily peer reviewed it has some interesting insight on the fact that people are using the process of desalination of seawater to get there drinking water. Here is the link to the article:
Why can't we use a giant magnifying glass to convert salt water to fresh water?

Also if you are ever stuck on an ocean island without fresh water here is a link to make your own drinking water:
How to Turn Salt Water Into Drinking Water

I'm sure someday when thigs get bad enough and the need is great we will find a way to use all that seawater.

Share and Voice : Enviro Cool Award!

I received this award from the lovely Kathy over at Choh's Changing Environment for my recent post Share and Voice: 1% for the Planet .

I am moving this wonderful award right along to my friend Sara O. over at Sara Loves Health! for the ingenious thought provoking video she brought to our attention in her Share & Voice: Lost Generation post.

Here are directions for you to "pass the torch"!

1. Leave a comment below so that I know you "picked up" the award.

2. Create a Share and Voice post that says you've received the award and indicate who the award is from (be sure to hyperlink).

3. Also indicate to whom you are going to pass on the award and why. Be sure to hyperlink the blogger (use main blog URL) and the blog title (use the specific URL for that blog post).

4. Copy and paste these instructions at the bottom of your post.

5. Publish the post.

6. Visit each blogger you've awarded and leave a comment telling them they've won.

7. Continue the process...

Share & Voice: Recycling in Switzerland

-Yellow in Back--Clothes Recyling

-Brown Bin on Right side--Different types of Paper

-Blue in Front--Plastic Bottles Luft=Air -as in take air out of bottles and caps on.

-Small Gray on Left--Batteries

The Swiss attach a lot of importance to recycling. Citizens are encouraged to recycle as much as possible. In many cantons (counties) households pay according to the how much garbage they put out for the garbage man to collect. You have to use specific garbage bags for your particular city, and of course you have to pay for these bags.(there not cheap) This acts as an incentive to recycle anything that isn't garbage. With many plastic bottles you can get money (.25 to 1.15 SFr) back for bringing them into the special recycling machine, usually located in the grocery store.

I have to say that the Swiss are very particular about just about everything and this includes there garbage and recycling. I have been reprimanded on a few occasions for not doing things correctly. Theres a saying in Switzerland which says,"there is a little police officer in every Swiss person." I can attest to this, of course nothing serious.

Impressive Numbers: The Swiss are champion recyclers. In 2003, 47% of all urban waste was recycled - a new Swiss record. They recycled 70% of paper (which all have to be tied up with twine before it can be put out), 95% of glass (which has to be driven to a local center then separated by color, 71% of plastic bottles (which have to be squished down), 85-90% of aluminum cans and 75% of tin cans(which all have to be brought to the recycling center and put through a medal squishing machine).

It was a great experience living there but the recycling seems to be a little over the top when you're spending an hour every couple weeks flattening cardboard then tying it up with twine. Then when I see how much of there recyclables get recycled it seems worth it. Just thought ya'll might like personal insight on how other people recycle.



Above: Can Crusher
Right:Garbage Bags

Share & Voice: 1% For the Planet

Introducing 1% For the Planet from coreindustries on Vimeo.

I found this website as I was looking at the Kleen Kanteen website and ran across the website 1% For the Planet this looked interesting so I check it out, the company began in 2002, and 1% For The Planet has recruited businesses from around the globe to contribute 1% of their sales to environmental groups around the world.

What's there?
It is a place to find companies that are making a bit of an effort to help the environment, I really only found one business in Duluth which is called loll designs and they make environmentally sustainable furniture. You can do a search for different categories. They also have an online store.

Why should we visit it?
I figured if I was going to buy something maybe there would be a business that is more environmentally friendly than another business. The idea that they are making an effort to try and give back to the environment and that some businesses are following suit is maybe an avenue to build on. The video from NBC makes the process sound pretty good.

Yvon Chouinard on NBC's Nightly News from coreindustries on Vimeo.

Eye Opener: Environmental Working Group

L'ORéAL Studio Line Head Lock, Mega Hard Hold Gel, Extreme Hold

Ingredients in this product are linked to:
	Cancer
	Developmental/reproductive toxicity
	Violations, restrictions & warnings
	Allergies/immunotoxicity
	Other concerns for ingredients used in this product: Neurotoxicity, Organ system toxicity (non-reproductive), Miscellaneous, Multiple, additive exposure sources, Irritation (skin, eyes, or lungs), Enhanced skin absorption, Contamination concerns, Occupational hazards, Biochemical or cellular level changes Information taken from the Environmental Working Group website

OK, so this is my hair product WOW!! Good thing that I don't really use it too often, as you probably can tell!
It is rated a 9 out of 10 which is considered HIGH Hazard. The ratings on this website go like this 0-2 low hazard, 3-6 moderate hazard, and 7-10 high hazard.

I may look for another product to use since the website tells me that 98% of styling gel/lotions have lower concerns so I'm sure there is a healthier one out there for me.

Yes this product Conducts animal testing

I don't know if there could be anything else bad about this product. I'm sure I bought it because it was cheap.

Immunotoxicity
Neurotoxicity

Review of Reading 16: Ill Winds: The Chemical Plant Next Door

A Review of Ill Winds: The Chemical Plant Next Door
by Becky Bradway
Published in E: The Environmental Magazine, September/October 2002

The Town:
Becky Bradway writes about her life from the time she was 8 years old until the time she was 10 years old and moving back to the small town of Buffalo, Illinois, with her mother and father. Buffalo, was right down the road from Borden Chemical. She writes about how she loved that town nearly as much as her mother hated it. Her mother hated it so much that she never went outside except to get in her car and drive away. Looking at a town through a childs eye is different than an adults eye as Ms. Bradway explains how she didn’t know or care about unemployment and pollution and the other negative things that get people down. Was a very depressed area.

Chemicals Industry:
Becky Bradway did a bunch of research about the chemical industry and came up with the fact that Pesticides, herbicides, industrial chemicals, even cow shit: She learned it all. Factories, coal tar, farms, sewage: put them all together, and things die. She keeps referring to the floating fish, which were dying in the river. All these elements were present in central Illinois.

Borden:
Statistics:
Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
Incorporated: 1899 as Borden Condensed Milk Company
Employees: 20,000
Sales: $5.77 billion (1996)
SICs: 2034 Dried & Dehydrated Fruits, Vegetables & Soup Mixes; 2096 Potato Chips, Corn Chips & Similar Snacks; 2098 Macaroni, Spaghetti, Vermicelli & Noodles; 2099 Food Preparations, Not Elsewhere Classified; 2821 Plastics Materials, Nonvulcanizable Elastomers & Synthetic Resins; 2891 Adhesives & Sealants; 3089 Plastic Products, Not Elsewhere Classified

Borden, Inc. built this plant in 1962, in Illiopolis, Ill and produced Elmer’s Glue, and a competitor to Saran Wrap called Resinite and in 1987 it began making polyvinyl chloride (PVC) when it came under new ownership as Borden Chemicals and Plastics Limited Partnership (BCP). Later on, the company filed chapter 11 bankruptcy and was purchased by Formosa Plastics Corporation from Taiwan, in 2002.

Borden's specialties were initially resins, formaldehyde, then later polyvinyl chloride (PVC). These chemicals can cause high rates of cancer amongst workers along with the workers these chemicals, through various channels, make their way into the surrounding environment. In this particular area the nearby Sangamon River, drinking water, and landfills are getting polluted. The sad thing is these companies are able to obtain waivers and exemptions that allow them to bypass Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) laws. But in this area with so many fams and other companies it it hard to just blame Borden. Here are some scary numbers that don't reflect very well for Borden.

* They were caught shipping 2,500 drums of highly toxic mercury waste to South Africa. The stockpiled drums leaked contaminants -- a disaster that led to both criminal and civil investigations in South Africa.

* The U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit accusing the company of illegal hazardous waste storage, contaminating groundwater, burning waste without a permit and neglecting to report chemical releases into the air.

* The plant can legally dump 800,000 gallons of wastewater into the stream every day. Just two miles down, this water reaches the Sangamon River. Because the area around the stream is wooded, locals hunt and fish there.

* Not counting accidents, the plant routinely releases 65,000 pounds of vinyl chloride and 40,000 pounds of vinyl acetate into the Central Illinois air every year.

* Not only do the pollutants cause cancer, vinyl chloride is suspected of disrupting female hormones, which makes, women and girls especially -- vulnerable to all kinds of illnesses.

I wish I could live there!!!

Blue-Collar Risks:
This whole area of Ill. is not really too safe.

* Becky Bradway's family had thought their choices made them safe. We lived in the country by the river, away from the city and its violence. We never traveled, never took a plane or train or bus, never drove farther than “town.” Yet her parents killer was right there in the air an in the water.

* She tells a story of her uncle Wade who had talked about men who worked in a nearby factory. Each had died or was dying from a rare cancer. They’d been forced to climb into tanks to clean out mystery chemical crap. Anyone who said no was fired. “They swelled up big as blimps before they kicked off,” Wade said. “Pathetic bastards.”

* She also tells of a construction worker who thinks that since he's not working in the mill that he won't get sick. Only thing is that these workers are still breathing the air and drinking the water. On top of that there body's are all physically worn out from manual labor by the time they are 40 years old.

What's the plant doing today? Check out the following link.
Illiopolis: Center of disaster and environmental hazard

My Thoughts,
I feel bad for anybody that has lived in a city like this and didn't or couldn't do anything about it. I come from a city that had three big mills in town and without those mills the town would be dead. I hope that, because I don't know, our city wasn't contaminated like this. Most of the time people in cities like this think that they are safe until it is to late.