I'm very new to PBS and this program really touched me personally.
I'm from a fence line community of industrial town called
Manali (Madras, South India) and has grown up surrounded by petro/chemical
industries all my life. I fully know what its likes to grow up in environments
like this, there were/are mornings when ammonia from local fertilizer plant would
make the tropical place be like winter fog of Wisconsin (Where i live now)reducing
visibility to 1 or 2 miles.Being a developing country, my fellow citizens don't
have the education and expertise to even realize whats happening around them, let alone fight against it.
Many have accepted living with pollution as their way of life making me realize how underdeveloped my place is.
What surprises me is how a super developed country like US still seems not having any standards
or organization to investigate and regulate industrial surrounding! Not every community is lucky
to have an investigative journalist to spearhead issues like this.Makes me wonder whether environment departments
across world are dull corrupt and bureaucratic.
The episode should also tell more about
1.How depended the communities are on these companies.
2.How did/didn't the industry co operate with the author, did she approach them ?
3.What is the stand of employees and unions on this issue.
4.What kind of investments were made by industries to reduce pollution after this
article and why weren't they made earlier .
5.What are the plans to monitor in future. Was any new state/federal statute made to
continue monitoring fence line environments across the country ?
6.To what extend are local communities are involved in implementing environment laws ?
As a developed country if US succeeded in laying out standards and processes for co-existing industries and
communities the same will be precedence for developing countries to follow. Strangely the current
thinking is to move all undesired industries to third world and forget all about it.
Thanks for the informative article.