Granny Brigade's good deed conflicts with past stances

A March 7 Salina Journal front-page story featured the Granny Brigade. Their drive collected 25 pallets of bottled water for residents of East Palestine, Ohio. KINA radio publicized the drive, and Doug Bradley Trucking carried the load, 14 ½ hours away.  Both City and County Commissioners were asked, and signed, their large posterboard identifying the Brigade and Bradley as organizers and carriers.  Impressive! Hats off to all involved.

As most people know, a Norfolk Southern train carrying at least 1.1 million pounds of carcinogenic, toxic chemicals derailed Feb. 3, caused by unregulated and insufficient brake controls. A controlled burn likely prevented an explosion but polluted the air.  4,700 were evacuated.  EPA declared air and water within safe limits, but Palestine’s residents rightly fear contamination.

Therefore, locals organized River Valley Organizing (RVO). It demanded environmental and medical testing by Norfolk Southern and the EPA, plus the railroad paying for toxic waste disposal and relocation costs.

Additionally, it enlisted universities like Duquesne, Texas A&M, Pittsburgh and Kentucky to do board-certified testing that can hold up in court.

Data analysis by Texas A&M and Carnegie Mellon of EPA measurements suggests higher than normal chemical levels, likely from dioxins. Residents report myriad health impacts − burning eyes and skin, rashes, trouble breathing, and ill and dead pets. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources estimates 43,000 aquatic animals died.

RVO and community residents demanded no toxic waste incineration at Heritage Thermal, less than 20 miles upriver. Heritage has a long track record of violating environmental laws and OSHA safety standards.

Railroad cost-cutting for profit leaves all our rural communities vulnerable. Train derailments overwhelmingly happen in under-resourced rural/tribal areas. Of the more than 140,000 miles of railway in the U.S., over 100,000 of them run through rural areas.

Anne Junod, Urban Institute senior research associate studying train derailments, says our communities are “left [not only] holding the bag for most of the environmental costs, but long-term social and economic costs as well.”

We all can join the Granny Brigade in being moved to help. They deserve credit for caring actions.  But let’s do some local pollution testing.

The Granny Brigade has been well-known, or notorious for, supporting right-wing white nationalism and attacks on public education over years, complaining at nearly every meeting of the City/County Commissions and the school board, and initiating a petition to stop commissioners from acting for the public good. They have intimidated public officials and citizens. Some have advocated harm, or at the least opposition, to more progressive citizens. Division, not union, is their brand.

Radio station KINA has always lent hand-in-glove support, and was a key means of getting their word out for the water drive. Again, hats off.

But over-hasty applause would ignore their long-term legacy. KINA has for years been a chief airwave polluter, injecting toxic, unsubstantiated misinformation and lies into the public mind. Particularly as cheerleader-in-chief for Donald Trump.

Add to that the seemingly uncoincidental gesture by their iconic helmsman, who showed up in East Palestine to hand out what? Pallets of bottled (and old) “Trump water.”  While announcing that the mostly-white, poor population would “not be forgotten.”

The irony, if not hypocrisy, can be cut with a knife. The Trump administration specifically cut regulations for safer railroad braking and working conditions, potentially leading to this disaster in the first place.

This is not just a Salina problem.  As Candice Bernd of Truthout, observes, “Far right groups are using a deliberate far-right strategy of exploiting unfolding crises to appeal to residents and survivors on the basis of race and presenting fascist organizing and propaganda as legitimate solutions. The strategy has potential to broaden the groups’ appeal in a political environment in which former President Trump, Senator Vance and Fox News continue to employ a racialized euphemism that frames the residents of East Palestine as a “forgotten” people, citing residents’ whiteness as the reason for the state’s failure and corporate capture.”

Yes, our US of A has problems. An added irony here is that we all take in water that leaves plastic pollution, while being taken in by corporations who charge more for water than gas, (even plain old tap water) for their profit.

We can solve these problems. But solving them is impossible without fact-checking, thinking critically, and shedding divisive rhetoric.  In short, we need less suspicion and more information. Love, guided by reason.

The Grannies’ hearts are in the right place.  It’s just that we all, not just them, need to align our minds.

David Norlin is a retired college communications professor, legislative candidate and former chair of Salina Public Access TV, Human Relations Commission and Planning Commission. He has written opinion pieces for the Salina Journal and other regional newspapers.

This article originally appeared on Salina Journal: Granny Brigade's good deed conflicts with past stances