Snapshot: Enacting Environmental Right-to-Know in Calhoun County

Meet Diane Wilson. She is a mother of five and fourth-generation shrimp boat captain. She sank her own boat where the Formosa plant discharged wastewater. She chained herself to the tower of the Union Carbide factory to drop a banner saying “Remember Bhopal”, arrested on terrorist charges. She has gone on many hunger strikes, some lasting up to forty days. She has visited Bhopal and Taiwan, in solidarity with victims of environmental harm. She has authored and been the subject of many books, podcasts, and articles. 

Now, Wilson finds herself the steward of the Waterkepeers’ settlement fund. She is also a key link between many sites where transnational corporations have produced environmental harm, such as Formosa’s plants in Taiwan and Vietnam. How did a deeply rooted actor like Wilson come to be a transnational bridge-builder? 

In 1989, the first US Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data was published. It ranked Calhoun County as the worst in the nation for volume of toxic discharges to land. The County also ranked high for air emissions. TRI data would not have been possible without the Union Carbide’s 1984 pesticide plant disaster in Bhopal. It was created as part of the legal commitment to “environmental right-to-know”. TRI multiplied the types and quantity of data available to characterize environmental risks and harms. For many, like Wilson, this was transformative. Wilson’s sense of the Calhoun County landscape and waterways she thought she knew so well changed forever.

Then, in 1991, Union Carbide’s Seadrift Plant exploded, killing one worker, injuring twenty-six others and rattling windows up to fifty miles away. People living nearby thought the Persian Gulf War had come home. At the time, Wilson was working with the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union. She started documenting the disaster to expose the corporate negligence behind it. Over years, she has collected a “barn-full” of data that shows the gross negligence of industrial actors in Calhoun County.

 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• How did events in Bhopal activate Diane Wilson to become an environmental activist?

• What is “environmental right-to-know”? Why is it important for environmental justice? 

• Bridge-builders are people who create links between previously disconnected people, organizations, and spaces, to advance governance and advocacy work. What examples of bridge builders have you come across?