SPEAKER_00: Hey, listeners, it's Jenny. With so much going on right now, watching the news all day can worsen your anxiety and make you feel super overwhelmed. Yet at the same time, it's important to stay informed. So what do you do? Add the newsworthy podcast to your playlist every day. In addition to the inspiring stories and history you get here, you can get caught up on everything that's happening now, from the biggest political stories to the tech and business impacting our lives, to even some fun entertainment news. And you get it all in just about 10 minutes a day with the Newsworthy Podcast. The host, Erica Mandi, always explains everything that's happening clearly, concisely, and from all perspectives. She goes out of her way to pull from a variety of sources so you get informed, not influenced. You won't find any arguing pundits on this podcast. Search the newsworthy on your podcast app to follow for free, or go to the newsworthy.com to start listening. Again, add the podcast, the newsworthy, to your everyday playlist wherever you get your podcasts.
SPEAKER_02: Today, we're talking about a powerhouse in environmental justice. Her campaign to stop major corporations from polluting her family home led to one of the biggest environmental lawsuits in recent history. Please welcome Margie Eugene Richard. Margie was born on December 21, 1941, in New Orleans. Her father, Theodore, was a farmer and a skilled laborer. Her mother, Mabel, worked at home and as a cook in a local restaurant. Margie grew up in a rural community called Belltown. It was also known as Old Diamond, so-called for the Diamond Plantation, which had been the site of one of the largest revolts by enslaved people. In the following decades, the area formed tightly knit African-American communities, including Margie's family. She and her sister were the fourth generation on their family to grow up on Eugene family farmland. They spent their childhood in fields and orchards filled with fruits and vegetables they'd sell in the French market in New Orleans. But when Margie was 10, that all changed. The strip of land along the Mississippi River became known as Cancer Alley. Shell Oil Company had been constructing oil refineries in the area since the 1920s. In the 1950s, the company boomed and began buying up property in Belltown. The New Orleans Refining Company owned so much of the area, it eventually became the town's name, Norco. Families were faced with a choice to either sell their homes at the extremely low prices Shell offered or continue living in the increasingly industrial area. Margie's family stayed. After graduating high school, she majored in health and physical education at Grambling State University. She then returned to teach at her old high school, married her childhood sweetheart, Peter Richard, and became a mainstay of the local community. Margie taught community enrichment courses in everything from substance abuse prevention to parenting. And after divorcing Peter, she mentored others on how to get through the challenges of divorce. Meanwhile, the refineries had decimated the environmental landscape. They released toxic emissions and started frequent fires. Residents came down with a variety of severe health problems. More than a third of children in Norco had asthma or bronchitis. Margie's own sister died at the age of 43 from sarcoidosis, a rare bacterial infection that usually affects one in a thousand people. Margie knew three other neighbors who suffered from the same sickness. In 1973, a Shell pipeline exploded, killing a woman and teenage boy. In 1988, another major accident killed seven workers and released 159 million pounds of toxins into the air. By this point, Margie had gotten into the habit of sleeping with her clothes on so she could jump out of bed if an accident happened near her house. The next year, Margie founded the Concerned Citizens of Norco, or CCN, to act against Shell's unjust use of the area. They sought financial justice from Shell to relocate the remaining residents of Norco to nearby Waddestown and pay fair market value for their homes. The resulting campaign spanned more than 13 years. Margie led the charge with an emphasis on hard science and media attention as the pillars of her organizing. The CCN collaborated with environmentalist groups and released a report. It documented the fact that Shell refineries in Norco emitted more than two million pounds of toxic chemicals into the air each year. Margie also joined forces with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade to help Waddestown residents measure air pollution in their own neighborhood using specialty outfitted plastic buckets. And she even installed a web camera on her own home to broadcast the visible emissions from a nearby plant. At one press conference, she invited Shell officials to take a sniff from a bag of Norco air to get a sense of the air quality Norco residents lived with every day. In 1999, Margie helped found the National Black Environmental Justice Network. She spoke in front of Congress, the United Nations Human Rights Commission, the World Conference Against Racism, and the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. In 2000, the CCN's work finally came to a head. Shell agreed to reduce its emissions by 30%, improve its emergency evacuation routes, and pay voluntary relocation costs for residents who lived in the two streets closest to the plant. But Margie wasn't finished. Soon, Shell conceded to a $5 million community development fund and a full relocation for all four streets in Old Diamond at $80,000 a lot. The success was one of the first of its kind around Cancer Alley. Even after the Shell settlement, Margie didn't back down. She worked with victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to publicize the environmental effects of the disaster. She advised other communities struggling with similar issues like Port Arthur, Texas, and continued to hold Shell accountable for providing financial compensation to those affected by its pollution worldwide. Margie is the first African-American recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize. She currently resides in Destrehan, Louisiana, where she continues to serve her community and the environmental justice movement. Margie is building a profound legacy in environmental justice. She said of her work, quote, Every time we as black Americans stand up for what is right, they say it's for greed of money. It's a fight for longevity. If we don't put a face to it, we can't make change. Truth and justice for the betterment of life, the environment, and government is the stairway to upward mobility. All month, we are featuring eco warriors. For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram at Wamanaka podcast. Special thanks to Jenny and Liz Kaplan for inviting me to guest host. Talk to you tomorrow.
SPEAKER_02: Do you hear it?
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