One Last Fight Left for Silicon Valley’s Environmental Activists
If the Silicon Valley region has been a laboratory for high tech innovation, East Palo Alto has been its trash bin. But now, in a hallmark victory for the environmental movement, those days are over. After a more than twenty-year struggle, East Palo Alto residents have managed to force the Department of Toxic Substances to shut down Romic Environmental Technologies Corp., the toxic waste company that processed much of the hidden hazardous material of our valley.
While in operation, the company specialized in industrial recycling of liquid waste—solvents, inks, acids and other dangerous chemicals that are involved in the production of computer parts, according to Romic’s former long-time director of Government Relations, Chris Stampolis (who is also a Democratic Party superdelegate). Over the years, Romic has served the giants of the industry such as Hewlett Packard, Intel, and National Semiconductor. For decades, residents had complained that the company was contaminating the land and was a contributing cause to the area’s unusually high cancer and asmtha rates.
But now, after the victory rallies and celebration parties have been had, and the land is in the process of being cleaned and re-developed, there is one last victim of Romic whose fight has just begun: Froilan Chan-Liongco. In 2006, Chan-Liongco, a Filipino immigrant, was a welder at Romic, and suffered second- and third-degree burns in a chemical explosion. Romic, already under the scrutiny of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for previous incidents, failed to call 911 when Chan-Liongco was burned. The company decided to drive him to Stanford Hospital, even though their records indicated they knew that hospital did not have a burn unit. Chan-Liongco was hospitalized for 11 days, and to this day still suffers from debilitating pain.
Chan-Liongco filed a worker’s compensation claim with OSHA, to which Romic (now called Bay Enterprises) is offering to pay $5,000, as of this month. The number—when looking at the totality of the incident, the company, and the industry—would be laughable if it wasn’t so demeaning. What is ironic is both Chan-Liongco and Romic itself are no longer able to work due to the company’s utter lack of compliance with the rules. Romic has been shut down due to its disregard of environmental and labor standards, and Chan-Liongco has been so injured that he is unlikely to be able work again.
Chan-Liongco is pressing forward in the legal process, and has found the East Palo community to be his strongest ally. And although residents—composed of elders and young environmental justice activists—have stood by Chan-Liongco, as victims of the same bully often do, they owe Chan-Liongco to some degree.
When the Department of Toxic Substance Control shut down Romic for a number of ongoing violations, it was the incident with Chan-Liongco that was cited as one of the critical justifications for their action.
As it turns out, the way to bring down a toxic waste company is not to only rally on the outside, but to whistle blow from the inside. Relationships between residents and workers at a rogue company are unusual in these types of circumstances. Residents organizing for environmental compliance often think the workers at the plant as the facilitators of their injury, and workers often fear residents are going to take away their jobs.
The Romic example is an evolutionary model for the environmental justice movement born in East Palo Alto that will inform low-income communities across the country. The lesson learned is that some of Silicon Valley’s most impactful innovations may come from the least expected corners of our region—even from the places where we used to send our toxic waste.
The “impactful innovation” that Raj was talking about was the movement that was led and run by East Palo Alto residents that forced the shutdown of the Romic facility. This is impactful because face it—everyone thinks of East Palo Alto residents as disposable. That’s exactly why a facility like Romic is placed in a community like ours. In addition, every worker injury we know to be on record at Cal-OSHA that occurred at Romic happened to people of color—Froilan, Rodrigo Cruz (who was permanently brain damaged), Patrick Samson (who was burned), among others.
So for East Palo Alto residents and workers to take down this facility and force the hand of so-called regulators to follow their own policies and enforce the rules is a big slap in the face to these companies who think they can keep breaking the rules and get away with it.
Even Romic recognizes their own sordid past—given that they are trying reinvent themselves by calling themselves “Bay Enterprises”. But knowing the tenacity of EPA residents and the courage of people like Froilan, that’s not gonna happen.
Thank you Raj for bringing this issue to light and exposing the dirty side of Silicon Valley that most folks don’t want to see.
I believe there was a similar operation out by the Flea Market called “Solvent Service” that had been cited for toxic violations a few times before finally being shut down quite a few years ago. I’m surprised this East PA operation has been allowed to continue to operate given the track record of such businesses.
“Leave No Man Behind – Employed” would be more apt title as all this work goes offshore.
“The lesson learned is that some of Silicon Valley’s most impactful innovations may come from the least expected corners of our region—even from the places where we used to send our toxic waste.”
Right. We’re not going to have that problem much longer.
But hey, these guys can all get jobs at Wal-Mart and… er what’s that… Wal-Mart evil? ..not allowed in the Bay Area?
Aw that just tears it.
So now where are all our “young environmental justice activists” and “leather-clad bikers sitting on Harleys that roared like they had jet engines inside them” supposed to find jobs?
First of all, I want to show upmost respect for Frolain. He is standing up against this company who is just trying to pay him off and keep him quiet. He is making it known that he will not be taken advantage of and that he should be fully compemsated for the trauma the company has caused him.
The process to shut down Romic has been a trying journey and as an East Palo Alto resident I would like to express my gratitute to all of the people who contributed to the shut down of this horrendous facility!
And this victory is one that represents the true definition of community power, because without consistency and accountbaility in this fight, Romic would still approach our community with deceitful actions.
For 44 years, the Romic company’s approach to the community involved the notion that East Palo Alto residents could be easily acquisitioned and “tamed,” however through many hours of hard work, we were able to directly contradict that approach and completely smash it! We demanded that Romic does exactly what we want them to do, which is vacate!
And this issue is not a sudden epiphany, we did not just open our eyes one day and decide that we wanted to shut down romic. This victory represents a well throught out strategy in order to approach this overall goal. It represents the fact that people who are noted to be insignifigant can in fact create systemic change! This victory is not just for East Palo Alto, it is for anyone who is working towards justice for their environment, however they wish to define it.
I agree with Anna. Froilan Chan-Liongco deserves a better settlement!
Working with him for the past year has encouraged and motivated me even more to keep fighting against Romic. We are trying our hardest to get Froilan a better settlement. I feel so proud that we finally shut down this toxic waste facility! When we start a project we don’t stop until we accomplish our goal. We will not stop fighting and helping Froilan until he gets a better settlement and until we see Romic completely shut, close, and completely clean. JUSTICE FOR FROILAN NOW!!!
This piece just doesn’t speak to a common trend of big nasty chemical plants in communities of color – it also speaks to ignorance our society has of the relationship between business and people, profit and damage to our environment. “Environment” not only speaks to our earth, land and air- but the place where we dwell. Environment refers to the place we sleep at night, the place where we interact with our families, the place where we create our most precious memories. Our environment also refers to the place where we spend 8 or more hours a day, at the job site.
Businesses, especially those with big budgets and no heart and laws that turn the blind eye, are the real culprit in this story. Let’s be real, cutting corners are the epitome of businesses with big returns – but fault also lies with empty policies and laws, it lies with government agencies who fail to enforce these protections for fear of being sued because the idea of Laissez-faire. Our society has created the breeding ground for people, with families and dream, to get screwed.
Frolian is not the first who has suffered because of a negligent business and sadly, he won’t be the last. And in these times, do we scold the community who has rallied behind him because they have a belief that people should be valued – or do we turn to the laws that has no teeth and the business that has no regard for its workers? Is this really what we are teaching our youth that the American Dream is all about? And if we continue to do so – is it really a surprise that our youth are so angry and turn to violence and hate to help them cope?
Having a job is one thing, but holding business accountable to people and safety is the charge of EVERYONE! It shouldn’t be a luxury, its a necessity!
What of the local residents who lost jobs as a result of this great ‘activist’ victory for environmental justice?
How is EPA going to make up for the lost revenue?
Pyrrhic victory indeed.